While watching television today i saw one of the members of three dog night pimping his new book about his years of drug abuse, hurting loved ones,etc, and how he found his one remaining brain cell and saved his pathetic life (sorry, i’m a cynic).My question is this: How many of these type of books are there? Bear in mind, I only mean musicians and only auto-biographies or authorized bios count. Major brownie points if you can tell me how many coincided with new albums, reunion tours, etc. The Three dog night one does coincide by the by.
“If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, set them on fire.”----George Carlin
I do not personally care about the number of books written by rock bands or individuals about their past experiences. I am also not concerned about achieving major brownie points with you. What would these points gain me? Are you offering money?
Jeff, you might find that a more efficient and less offensive way of letting a person know you don’t want to respond to his question is to not respond to it.
Well if you’re gonna limit yourself to “authorized” or auto-bios, you’re gonna miss out on some pretty juicy stuff. Try “Up and Down with the Rolling Stones” by Tony Sanchez who served as Keith Richards’ personal assistant (translation: drug errand boy) up until Keith’s 1979 heroin bust in Toronto. Wild stuff, yet believable. Also recommended is “Full Moon”, an account of Keith Moon’s wild times by his assistant Dougal Butler. Best of all is Albert Goldman’s “Elvis,” the King of sordid celebrity biographies.
The question is how many rock band/star biographies do not have a drug theme.I’ve run across a few: Jethro Tull and one other one I forget.It was too boring. I prefer my rock stars to take the drugs instead of me.
Into borderline rock porno?
The first page of “Going Down with Janis” should determine if you continue with the book.
It was written by the girl who traveled with J.J.
Well I know it’s outside the genre of “classic rock” but the book “Morrissey and Marr” cover the breakup of the early and mid 80’s band The Smiths and doesn’t have anything to do with drugs.
To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.
A good book about a musician overcoming his drug addictions is “Caught in the Crossfire”. It’s about Stevie Ray Vaughan, who as you can see by my alias is my favorite artist. He was very addicted to cocaine and booze until he collapsed at a concert in 1986. He went into rehab with his bass player, and they went completely sober, and never relapsed. Every time he perfomed the song “Life without you” he would always stop during the solo and give a little speech about how great it was to be sober. I have a tape of him performing at Daytona beach during spring break, and you can hear people laughing and booing during this. Some of his most famous songs were about his overcoming his addiction such as Crossfire, and Tight Rope.
He really started playing better than ever before. Too bad that on August 27, 1990 he died in a helicopter crash. At least he didn’t overdose like so many other rock stars who cut their own lives, and careers, short.
Except for the obligatory coincidence with the reunion tour/album, you’ve described every single episode of VH1’s “Behind the Music”. I think it’s on about 17 times a day now. (Good thing I don’t have cable, or I’d be addicted.)
Dr. J (was riding high, until one day when it all came crashing down)
There’s a book called “Please Kill Me” that’s all about the rise of punk rock in NYC. It starts with The Velvet Underground and goes into the Stooges and the New York Dolls and the Ramones and then everybody basically dies or drops off the face of the earth because they’re such foul junkies. I loved it. There’s another one about Max’s Kansas City called “High on Rebellion” which is alright. It’s all about the scene there with Warhol and whatnot and TONS AND TONS of drugs.
Yeah, Life by the Drop is the accoustic song that is on the Sky is Crying. I don’t even think he ever performed it live, seeing as Sky is Crying was a posthumous release. The lecture/speech was always during Life Without You.