Category: Books

Posted on // 0 Comments

Back In Print!

Ian Hunter’s Diary of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star is back in print, as of this past August. Out of print copies can go for three figures on Amazon, although one is currently listed at $3,214.79 on some site called Books on Demand. (More like Dealer on Drugs.) Anywho, the new paperback is $17.25. Cheap!

Ian Hunter’s Diary of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star has received a litany of plaudits and been described as “an enduring crystallization of the rock musician’s lot, and a quietly glorious period piece” by The Guardian. A brutally honest chronicle of touring life in the 1970s, and a classic of the rock writing genre, Diary of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star remains the gold standard for rock writing. This edition includes new content from Hunter and a foreword from Johnny Depp.

Great article and interview in The Guardian here.

BONUS! Because I really wanna hear this song now.

Posted on // 2 Comments

It All Began As A Summer Vacation …

Burnt Offerings, the 1973 inspiration for Stephen King’s The Shining, was made into a movie in 1976 starring Burgess Meredith, Bette Davis, Oliver Reed, and Karen Black. I’m almost certain it’s one of those horror flicks that scared the everliving shit out of me when it aired on network television back in the day.

The story concerns a family who moves into an old house that regenerates itself by twisting the life force of the occupants who become violent and either kill each other or are killed off while the member of the household who becomes possessed by the spirit of the house survives and becomes a sentinel (in this case “elderly Mrs. Allardyce”), awaiting the next family to be lured once the powers of the existing sentinel wear down and a successor must be found.

We watched it on Amazon Prime the other night – for nostalgia more than anything. It’s pretty slow by today’s standards, but suitably creepy. I kinda want to read the book now, which is recently back in print.

Posted on // 2 Comments

Attention: Other Other Elvis

Something of interest for you, perhaps?

Memoir by the cofounder and former lead guitarist of heavy metal giants Judas Priest

Judas Priest formed in the industrial city of Birmingham, England, in 1969. With its distinctive twin-guitar sound, studs-and-leather image, and international sales of over 50 million records, Judas Priest became the archetypal heavy metal band in the 1980s. Iconic tracks like “Breaking the Law,” “Living after Midnight,” and “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin'” helped the band achieve extraordinary success, but no one from the band has stepped out to tell their or the band’s story until now.

As the band approaches its golden anniversary, fans will at last be able to delve backstage into the decades of shocking, hilarious, and haunting stories that surround the heavy metal institution. In Heavy Duty, guitarist K.K. Downing discusses the complex personality conflicts, the business screw-ups, the acrimonious relationship with fellow heavy metal band Iron Maiden, as well as how Judas Priest found itself at the epicenter of a storm of parental outrage that targeted heavy metal in the ’80s. He also describes his role in cementing the band’s trademark black leather and studs image that would not only become synonymous with the entire genre, but would also give singer Rob Halford a viable outlet by which to express his sexuality. Lastly, he recounts the life-changing moment when he looked at his bandmates on stage during a 2009 concert and thought, “This is the last show.” Whatever the topic, whoever’s involved, K.K. doesn’t hold back.

BONUS!

Posted on // 1 Comment

Dreaming The Beatles: The Love Story Of One Band And The Whole World

Thanks to Fat Elvis for bringing this to my attention. So far, so good.

NPR Best Book of 2017

Winner of the 2017 Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism

“This is the best book about the Beatles ever written” —Mashable

Rob Sheffield, the Rolling Stone columnist and bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape offers an entertaining, unconventional look at the most popular band in history, the Beatles, exploring what they mean today and why they still matter so intensely to a generation that has never known a world without them.

Dreaming the Beatles is not another biography of the Beatles, or a song-by-song analysis of the best of John and Paul. It isn’t another exposé about how they broke up. It isn’t a history of their gigs or their gear. It is a collection of essays telling the story of what this ubiquitous band means to a generation who grew up with the Beatles music on their parents’ stereos and their faces on T-shirts. What do the Beatles mean today? Why are they more famous and beloved now than ever? And why do they still matter so much to us, nearly fifty years after they broke up?

Posted on // 7 Comments

Watchoo Bastards A-Readin’?

I’m in the process of finishing up Vonnegut’s Slapstick, a book I picked up for $1.99 (Cheap!) on Amazon. I bought it five years ago but only recently got around to reading the damn thing. I like it, but I don’t love it. It’s the novel that gave us a quote you’ve probably seen here and there online: “Why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don’t you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?” (I really should start working that line into conversation.)

Next up, I may circle back to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or that Bowie bio I started a year ago.

Posted on // 1 Comment

The Short-Timers

This novel was the source text of Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. It follows the career of the sardonic narrator from the organized sadism of Marine basic training to an assignment as a combat reporter in Vietnam to his experiences as a platoon commander after the Tet offensive, portraying the descent into barbarism that marked America’s intervention in Vietnam.

The Short-Timers has been out of print for a while, so used paperbacks are going for as much as $430.00 on Amazon (the cheapest is a mass market paperback for about $46.00). Luckily, the author’s family made it available for free as a PDF. There are some typos, but it’s a fair trade. Read the first sentence and you won’t be able to put it down.

The Short Timers (This is the PDF.)

I did a little research on Hasford, as is my want. Although he sounds foreign, he was an Alabama boy. Sadly, he got into some trouble for stealing books from several libraries. Like, $20,000 worth of books, and died broke off the coast of Greece from untreated diabetes. 45 is way too young.