I don't know Baltimore musician/music critic S.H. Fernando Jr. aka Skiz, but I did cite his 2005 Spin article about Baltimore club music in my own book, and lately I've been really enjoying his 2024 biography of MF DOOM. I remember in the early 2000s when MF DOOM was the talk of the underground rap world and my friend Josh mailed me like 4 burned CD's of different DOOM projects. But I didn't dig into the lore at the time and was surprised to learn that DOOM had been around a decade earlier, guesting on 3rd Bass's "Gas Face" under his previous rap name, Zev Love X of KMD. Chronicles of DOOM digs deep into that metamorphosis, how the tragedy of DOOM's brother and groupmate Subroc's death changed everything and led to his reinvention. This book has me really going back into DOOM's catalog more than even when DOOM died in 2020, really well researched and full of detail and emotion and context. 

There's a used bookstore near our house that my wife has become a regular at, and the first time she took me to it, I of course scoured the shelf of music books, and found a very cheap copy of Dave Grohl's 2021 book and snapped it up. Grohl's always been so personable and passionate in interviews and seems to have a good memory, so I knew this would be a good read, although I was a little disappointed that I don't really get as much of his 'voice' or personality on the page as I hoped. It just feels like he (or an editor or co-writer or whoever) cleaned up the prose a little too much, to the point where it doesn't feel like you're just sitting there listening to Grohl sitting on a tour bus telling stories about the Scream and Nirvana days, which is what this book should be. Some of those stories are great, though, surprisingly quite a few that I hadn't heard before, and a bit of insight into how he thinks of himself as a drummer and what made him a better drummer and so determined to devote his life to music. 

There were actually two books by drummers the day I went into that bookstore, and I decided to take the Grohl book and leave Alex Van Halen's 2024 memoir. I'd already read a couple very entertaining accounts of the rise of Van Halen, in David Lee Roth's book and producer Ted Templeman's book, and didn't think I really needed another. Alex often sat next to Eddie in interviews, Eddie often sounding pissed off and bitter, and Alex just silent or agreeing, so I wasn't sure I needed his perspective. But Brothers was still there the next time I went to that store, and I'm glad I picked it up. It's a pretty compelling account of their entire lives together, being born in Holland and coming to America, playing different instruments with their musician father and eventually finding guitar and drums, building Van Halen brick by brick, it's really a very touching story of a sibling bond. And because so many other people have told this story already, Alex Van Halen gets to quote his brother's interviews and Dave and Ted's books and rebut them or expand on their insights. 

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