old punks web zine
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Book Reviews, part I

And I Don't Want To Live This Life to Our Band Could Be Your Life

And I Don't Want To Live This Life - Deborah Spungen (Book review) (Ballantine): People read this book more than once. Someone at Amazon claims ten reads. I can see it since the ideas and opinions you come away with shift like moods in the PMS ward. Written by her mother, the story of Sex Pistols groupie and Sid Vicious punching bag Nancy Spungen is complex and emotional. This is punk's answer to The Bell Jar. Nobody disputes Nancy was a violent, nagging, manipulative, whiny, mean and often evil monster. The major issue raised by the book, unintentionally really, is who, if anyone, is to blame. Everyone has an explanation and excuse for the bad things they do, and while pointing to a bad childhood, drug addiction or mental problems may provide clues as to why a person acts the way they do, in the end we still have to deal with the end results.

Am I the victim if life leads me to punch you in the nose, or are you the victim because you've been punched in the nose? What can you blame on society or mental illness, as opposed to the individual? What defines mental illness, and can all bad behavior be blamed on negative past events or chemical imbalance? Is nobody then responsible for their actions, or in a messed up world are we all responsible for rising above our shortcomings (excluding of course the truly insane)? Deborah Spungen doesn't address these issues directly but to her credit she doesn't blur the reality that Nancy destroyed everyone and everything she touched, and wherever she went clouds of fear and hatred stormed down.

Nancy was born screwed. She entered the world with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, cutting oxygen to her brain. She was jaundiced and required a blood transfusion for a rare blood disorder where her blood type matched neither of her parents. She never received full testing but Nancy suffered neurological disorders and exhibited signs of classic schizophrenia. As a newborn she never stopped crying and screaming, as a toddler she attacked others and beat herself in the face, and as she grew older she experienced psychotic episodes that read like unfilmed scenes from The Bad Seed and The Exorcist. In one episode, Deborah finds pre-teen Nancy holding a paper bag over a high railing, the family cat inside. Nancy's in a trance and later has no memory of the event. Another time she frantically chases a babysitter with scissors. At age eleven Nancy attacked her mother with a hammer. Parts of And I Don’t Want To Live this Life are truly frightening.

Because young Nancy was prescribed Phenobarbital and Atarax to stop her from ripping herself to shreds in psychotic fits of violence, some blame Deborah for Nancy's descent into despair and heroin addiction. That's nonsense. Deborah did the best she could with a demon child beyond all reason and control. The mental health professionals she dealt with were either incompetent or unwilling to deal with Nancy. Because she was beyond help and went out of her way to be hated, every school and institution that would take her washed their hands and released her back to her family, who feared for their own safety and sanity.

Nancy hated life and life hated her back. She never kept friends. Her defining personality traits were a rampaging id, violent vindictiveness, paranoia and a strong desire to die that took hold at an early age. Nancy was intelligent (at eleven she was at college level at all subjects but math) and advanced very quickly in school - for as long as that lasted. At times she was lucid and caring, but too often she was plain evil. I don't know how else to sum it up. The first words her sister spoke were supposedly, "Nancy, leave me alone."

Can Nancy be held responsible for who she was? Did she have any control over her psychotic episodes? I really don't know. She was too normal for a life of institutionalization and too crazy to be on her own. Even in the punk world of psychos and kooks Nancy found her way to the top of the list of people to dislike and avoid. Like I say, everyone has an explanation for the horrible things they do to themselves and others. The guy breaking into my car to steal my leather jacket may have an equally sad tale to tell, but yes I'm going to break his head open if I can. That's reality, which is often unfair and unfortunate. You do the best you can and hopefully the house of cards you call your life doesn't fall down.

Nancy died in 1978 but her mother didn't write this book until 1982-83. In that time Deborah joined and formed the Philadelphia chapter of Parents Of Murdered Children, whose main functions are to lobby for victims rights and serve as a support group for families going through the same crisis. The Spungen's experiences with the press and the justice system are horrific tales of indifference and insensitivity. And I Don't Want To Live This Life was written as an extension of her work with this group, not to exploit the death of her daughter. Sid's ignorant hippie mum would have done that in a heartbeat. She brought Sid the dose of heroin he used to overdose. Nice.

The first mention of punk rock isn't until page 222. It's always interesting to read a civilian’s take on punk, even more so from a parent as far removed from that culture as Sid was to competence on the guitar. Deborah's commentaries on the scene are right on the mark, like when she writes, "Actually, I felt kind of sorry for him (Sid). He seemed like a victim of Malcolm McLaren's promotion machinery. For a brief time he'd been a star. Now he didn't know who or what he was. He seemed like a genuinely confused kid." Sid Vicious is defined correctly a psychotic man-child with passive-aggressive tendencies. To those who look at Sid & Nancy's relationship as a sadly beautiful love story from the gutter, remember that at one point Sid pulled one of Nancy's ears completely off. Can you imagine how much berserk mental and physical energy that requires? Two violent, self-hating losers find each other and fall in "love". That would be touching if it wasn’t pathetic.

There's so much going on in this book. I know enough time has passed reading this for you to once again surf the web with your other hand for porn, but here's something to consider. Deborah details what she calls her "fantasy" about Nancy's death. From a very early age she realized Nancy wouldn't live to see much past twenty. In her fantasy, Nancy dies peacefully from a drug overdose and the family goes about the mundane business of putting her to rest. The real life murder, media attention and upcoming trial destroyed the fantasy and Deborah is left with the horror that it will never end. If you don't read the entire book, this seems callous, yet there is a sad truth to the idea that in no way detracts from the fact she always loved her daughter, no matter how hard Nancy worked to not be loved.

Deborah believes Sid stabbed Nancy, but she's sure Nancy ordered him do it. Alex Cox's film Sid and Nancy is based partly on this book, and that idea is incorporated into the plot, along with the classic scene at the Spungen house. The Ramones wrote “And I Don't Want To Live This Life”, which never made it to the soundtrack but is still a great song.

And I Don’t Want To Live This Life is a great read that's very hard to put down. My only gripe is that Deborah Spungen repeatedly builds to the conclusion that Nancy is beyond all help and doomed to die. Once is great, twice confusing, and the fourth time over the top. 

Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts, by Elizabeth Wilson (book review): If you could see the putz on the cover you would know why I want to kick him where the sun don’t shine. He’s a cartoonish bohemian. And by the by, you, Mr./Ms./Mrs. Punk, are bohemian too. You think you're living a life of art, danger and rebellion. You think your very existence somehow alters the world in your wake. You think people notice you because of who you are and what you represent, mostly the worst nightmare of boring, conforistsociety. You see the world as a mirror that reflects your image. You, my friend, deserve a kick.

There's a lot of good art and good artists, along with a lot of bad art and bad artists. What's really bad are bad artists who think they're good. The worst are bad artists who try to convince you they’re talented through hype and trend manipulation. Sadly, they often succeed since the bourgeoisie (boring non-artists) fall for the worst dog and pony shows of the art world. Artists know their racket is a scam, but they also realize they'd be nowhere if they couldn't convince you that a piece of rope nailed into a small piece of wood is very important art and worth every penny of $10,000.

Here's a parallel question regarding fashion. Expensive clothes are usually well made and last a long time, but in order to generate profits people must periodically be sold new and equally expensive fashions. My question is, what length of time, as defined by advertising and media, is the built-in obsolescence of fashion? In other words, people must be convinced they have to change their wardrobes what, every year? Every six months?

I wrote notes but left them in the book when I returned it. Oops. Excuse me for being more general than specific.

Bohemians: The Glorious Outcasts manages to be both gossipy and scholarly. The author is a professor of cultural studies at the University of North London who looks like Laurie Anderson. Her knowledge of the subject is wide and deep, and to her credit she admits bohemia is an ill-defined and self-serving myth. My interest extends only to the basic history of the movement since it is the basis for most alternative culture. The major players are worth noting but the book details the lives of too many people I don’t need to know about. Early 1800's Paris, Andy Warhol's Factory and the coffee house down the street reflect the same cycle of social climbing, back stabbing, gossip, manipulation, dementia, substance abuse and tribalism based on strict codes of exclusion. The only difference between freak and jock social circles are that they hate each other.

The original bohemians were seen as and fancied themselves romantic criminals like the gypsies, the name "bohemia" being the long extinct European homeland of the gypsy people. Lord Byron was probably the first bohemian as such, and he was also the inspiration for the physical description of Dracula in Bram Stoker's novel. Bohemes met in coffee houses and created social groups consisting of the rich, the artistic, the unbalanced, the sexually diverse, the very beautiful and the occasional obscenely ugly person who made people laugh and feel better about themselves. The dynamics of Warhols' scene were the same as the Paris scene 100 years earlier. Check out your local artsy coffee house. It won't be any different except for the lack of rich hangers on.

‘70s NY punk scene inspiration Paul Verlaine traded slaves in his later years, which makes me somehow happy because creeps like Patti Smith and Tom Verlaine (real name Tom Miller) admired him for his every obnoxious and boorish stunt. I wonder what they think of their boy now that he traded humans? Defend that, losers!

I like art and artists but dislike people who are full of themselves and who want you to worship in their cults of personality. To idolize the bohemian scene of any period is wrong, and Bohemians: The Glorious Outcasts is on one level self-congratulatory bullcrunky. Bohemians are basically defined by how screwed up they were and the art they created was often the result of the alleged genius that resides to the side of insanity and failure. All the talk about bohemianism being a rebellion against the bourgeoisie is nonsense as much as the anarchy punks at the mall represent a radical statement. Bohemians come from the middle class, sell their wares to the upper class and move back into the middle class if they don't expire first from death by misadventure. Bohemian culture existed before Paris. It existed anywhere and any time freaks, geeks and the sexually non-conforming got together to commiserate and collaborate. Paris was simply the first time people were able to mythologize themselves to a worldwide audience. 

David Bowie Interview Picture Disc and Fully Illustrated Book - David Buckley (book/CD review) (MasterTone): 152 pages long and the same size as a CD, it’s not a bad deal for $7.99. There's a series of these books for artists from The Smiths to Bon Jovi. The author earned the doctorate for his Ph.D. on the subject of David Bowie. I envision his mother running down the street in her nightgown and floppy slippers screaming, "My son's a doctor! A doctor on David Bowie! Oh God, please kill me!!"

This is a very concise book on Bowie's recordings and performances, full of facts, gossip and personal opinions - like a Reader's Digest version of a similar 500 page book. A true Bowie fan at heart he criticizes the bad without being rude. On Bowie's cover of John Lennon's "Across The Universe" he writes, "..the song isn't particularly suited to Bowie's voice (or personality) and the overall result is unsatisfactory". I have no problem saying the cover version stinks, but nobody's paying to write a book for Bowie fans. As the author of a "cultural biography" on Bowie (my son the Doctor!), Buckley weaves in insightful comments on Bowie's influence on music, fashion, sexuality and culture in general without coming off as a smug, condescending, psycho-babble spouting egotist. That’s not a small accomplishment.

I agree with many of Buckley’s opinions, but when he describes "Let's Dance" as "possibly Bowie's greatest ever-single (if not song)" I'm torn between laughing and retching. Maybe "Fame" is as embarrassing, but he recorded that song in the middle of an ever-evolving career when alternative music followed wherever he led. "Let's Dance” signaled a massive sell-out at a time he seemed poised to simultaneously conquer the worlds of both avant-garde and mainstream music. This was a complete and unexpected reversal from all he accomplished on Scary Monsters, which was the culmination of all the right things he absorbed from working with Brian Eno.

The picture-disc CD contains an exclusive interview with Mr. Jones and only goes to prove David can be dull. Bowie is a genius, the most cultured man in music, but he doesn't express himself well in interviews. He gives short answers and doesn't pepper his comments with the insight and humor we expect from celebrities. Maybe this comes from too much exposure to tv talk shows and sound-bite driven music news clips, but I wish Bowie was more forthcoming and entertaining. In general this book is great and I love that so much information was nicely condensed into one small volume. Most 400 page books on music go on 200 pages too long. 

The Business – Loud, Proud ‘N’ Punk, by Garry Fielding (book review) (S.T. Publishing): I’ve read magazine articles longer than this book but not all subjects require the long form treatment. Written by a former roadie, this huge pamphlet tells you everything you need to know about one of my favorite oi bands, at least up to 1996. The Business played their first gig in 1980, broke up here and there, and are now back for as long as singer Mickey Fitz can make a living. Fielding possesses the analytical skills of aerosol cheese but the lessons of the book are clear.

Lesson One: The UK Is A Dangerous Place. The level of casual violence at shows, sporting events, pubs and walking to the corner store for a dozen eggs is staggering. Group violence is common. Beating the crap out of everyone else and having the crap beaten out of you is a fact of life. Listen to the wrong music, go to the wrong school, follow the wrong team, live in the wrong neighborhood, go to the wrong church – no wonder the British have bad teeth, they’re constantly being punched in the mouth. In addition, stealing band equipment must be that country’s third most common job description, behind being on the dole and having a union job where nobody works. Civility is a facade to seduce the tourists and make the upper class feel superior.

Lesson Two: Embracing Skinhead Culture Was Oi’s Biggest Mistake. First wave UK punk bands were rock stars in their own right. The second wave bands were more real and the logical next phase. The Skinhead movement was an extension of the Mod movement of the ‘60s, and while it is true the earliest Skins were integrated and non-racist, by the late ‘70s skinhead culture was nearly swallowed whole by the pro-nazi National Front.

There are racist and non-racist skins, but to the world they’re all violent thugs. Sadly, SHARPS like to hurt people almost as much as nazi skins. Skinhead life revolves around violence. The working class pride angle works only to small degree. Sham 69’s courting of skinheads brought them a dedicated fan base that also destroyed them. The Business are not a skin band but they count many as followers. If you think the skinny snots who followed the Sex Pistols and Clash terrified the local gentry, imagine what the establishment thought of skinheads. Shows were canceled, police stopped gigs and in one horrific episode a club was firebombed by Asians. This real life event probably inspired the riot scene in Romper Stomper.

The Business, and all non-racist oi bands, would be better served by calling their music street punk and dropping all direct association with skins. Whatever noble history you may correctly attach to it has been tainted beyond repair by violence and hate.

Lesson Three: Bands And Record Labels Have Little Control Over The Records They Release. Poll 100 people (ouch!) and they’ll tell you that records sound pretty much how the bands want them. They can spend weeks or even months in the studio getting it right. The sad truth is that many bands have no idea how to record in a studio, and both labels and record producers pursue their own agendas that greatly influence the final product. Suburban Rebels was secretly remixed by Secret Records to muffle the guitars. The "Anywhere But Here" single was pressed incorrectly due to bad English to German instruction translations. If The Business didn't have bad luck they'd have no luck at all (gloom, despair and agony on me!).

Loud, Proud 'N' Punk is a decent way to waste a few minutes. On a lesser level the oi bands went through the same social and political ringers as the Sex Pistols before them. Here you'll also find a decent description of the problems surrounding the Strength Thru Oi! comp, whose original cover featured a picture of Nick Crane, a well known neo-nazi. Garry Bushell's excuse was that the original photographs of football Herbert (meaning nerd) Carlton Leech came out poorly so he quickly picked a blurred photo to fill the space. Bushell had to have known who Crane was and who was in the photo, especially since Garry was oi's biggest promoter at the time. The album title is also a mirror of the Aryan slogan "Strength Through Joy". Unintentional my arse! "Out In The Cold" is my favorite Business song, and it should be yours too 

Buzzcocks: The Complete History, by Tony McGartland (book review) (IMP): More FBI surveillance file than band history, this book compiles every known factoid about the band into a daily diary devoid of drama, context and insight. Imagine Joe Friday filing this entry from June 28, 1976, "Buzzcocks play The Commercial Hotel, Stalybridge, a gig organized by themselves through Devoto's acquaintance with the owner, Mrs. Mately, whom they met whilst compiling the 'pub rock' listings for the New Manchester Review. This connection does not earn them an easy gig however - Devoto is booed off the stage for wearing green fluorescent socks and red slippers by the local crowd." All that's missing is Joe's dry definition of a gig, which only infuriates J. Edgar Hoover, looking eerily like Queen Victoria in his crushed velvet dress w/ matching bag and hat as he screams in rage over Pete Shelley's blatant homosapienality.

Buzzcocks: The Complete History is not a bad book, but except for the excellent chapter intros the thing's so dry it coughs dust. The format is lazy. McGartland amassed piles of dates, bibliographies, interviews and other kitchen sinks. Every sneeze, fart, demo reel and gig is accounted for. A lot of work went into researching this but instead of using his mind to collate it into an engaging narrative he used his computer to organize everything by date, basically printing out years worth of Day Planner files. It’s a book geared more toward actuaries than music fans.

The chapter intros are well written and very much on the mark, but McGartland is a blind Buzzcocks fanatic, which changes the tone from journalism to teenage crush. While discussing 1993's Trade Test Transmissions he writes, "Unfortunately, due to unforeseen distribution difficulties, this excellent album struggled to sell as well as it should have, and consequently did not chart." Did it ever occur to him that maybe nobody cared anymore about The Buzzcocks? Didn't they play to half empty halls when they broke up in 1981? Didn't they reform in the ‘90s to the notice of only a few? A whiff of Spinal Tap comes through, and I don't know if it's the band's or the writer's fault.

Any decent record review guide will give you many of the career highlights presented here. How the band formed literally in the wake of a Sex Pistols gig, how they put out punk's first indie EP, how they wrote great pop punk singles, Shelley's solo career, etc. Buzzcocks: The Complete History goes on to provide: a reprint of the TV review that gave the band its name ("It's The Buzz, Cock!"). Pete Shelley gave Joy Division their first stage name, "Stiff Kittens". Adam Ant may have been the first to form a band after seeing a Sex Pistols show. 999 tried being a synth pop band!

The makings of a good narrative are here but never explored. How they formed, the conditions that led to their indie EP, the violence at shows, how much and often band equipment is either stolen or destroyed ,road excesses, delusions of solo career grandeur, waning fan interest, canceled shows, Shelley's descent into disco hell and the band's reformation to a world that didn’t notice. Neither success story nor comedy nor tragedy, The Buzzcocks should have quit in their prime. They recorded many quality singles and are a very influential and important band.

Buzzcocks: The Complete History does the band a disservice by lacking perspective and irony. Is there no story to tell or is the writer incapable of telling the story?

The Comedy Bible: From Standup to Sitcom--the Comedy Writer's Ultimate "how to" Guide, by Judy Carter (book review) (Simon & Schuster): So you think you're funny, eh? The proof pudding is having a written piece accepted by a professional publication or getting up on stage in front of strangers and making them laugh with and not at you. Well, laughing at you is ok as long as at the same time you're not being pelted with rotten fruit. It's a factoid that people's greatest common fear is public speaking, and stand up comedy is the most stressful type of public speaking. Why are stand-up comics more insecure and stressed than the average person? It's their death wish. It's how they punish themselves. The funny makes them do it.

Judy Carter is a stand-up comic with decades of experience in clubs, colleges and corporate gigs. While not a household name she's carved a niche for herself and has taken to teaching people how to develop comedy personas, create and structure jokes and how to market themselves (with emphasis on networking). She has a company called Comedy Workshop Productions and a nice website at http://www.comedyworkshops.com. I read her last book, Stand-Up Comedy: The Book, and thought it was probably the best of what was available at the time. This new book is more comprehensive and strikes a nice balance between technical descriptions and lighthearted inspirations and admonishments. It's a starting point, not a know-all guide. You need to do comedy to get good at it. Any book on comedy is for inspiration and reference only.

Either you are capable of being funny or you are not. Judy brings this up late in the book but it should have been stated up front. I performed amateur stand-up for a few years and saw all kinds of talent, either fully developed, in the works or non-existent. You don't want to discourage people but every so often there would be someone with a genetic immunity to comedy, and as an act of kindness you wanted to do an intervention to get them to stop embarrassing themselves and you by association. Before spending time and money working on comedy it would be nice to know if you can actually be funny within your own lifetime.

The Comedy Bible encourages clean material and identifies a number of hack topics that should be avoided. Clean material gets you higher paying college, corporate and TV gigs, and the world doesn't need more airplane food jokes, but the truth is that funny is funny no matter what the subject matter. Inexperienced comics curse and scream to overcompensate, and hack subjects show a lack of initiative, so I can see the need to potty train before creating your poop masterpiece on relationships.

What makes a comic successful? You can only judge such things in retrospect since forecasting success in the performing arts is as inexact a science as the stock market. It could be looks, persona, timing, jokes, dumb luck or great connections. Professional comics are not necessarily funny but they do know their material back and forth, and they exert control over themselves and the audience. I've seen pros bomb but they don't crap their pants when heckled and they can fire off callbacks at will. Callbacks are jokes later in the act that recall an earlier joke or audience interaction. People love them and it shows you're capable of more than a laundry list of one liners.

For a while Judy stresses writing with Attitude, which I guess through her experience is how you teach developing a persona. I'm a persona guy from the get-go, maybe because I've seen too many amateurs express attitude poorly. Many jokes fail simply because the sentence structures are weak, and you can judge comedy for clarity in the same way an English teacher grades essays. Simple violations of grammar can ruin a joke's timing and logic. Setups (A) lead to punchlines (B), and most jokes follow a strict internal logic. Sometimes a setup is intentionally misleading, but it takes real skill to make misdirection jokes clever and not just silly. In general, the length of a setup depends on the strength of the punchline. That cookie better be damn tasty if you're waving it for so long in front of me. The natural urge is to write long setups is fine when coming up with jokes, but not good for performance. Write long and whittle down to only what you need.

I found the chapters on one person shows and tv sitcom writing interesting. They're not skills you can learn from a book but I loved the list of distinctive details you're supposed to glean from watching and researching shows you want to write spec scripts for, especially the format of the written script itself. The end chapters on networking, managers, agents and promoting yourself are reminders that selling yourself is a full time job. I did stand-up as a hobby, and while I understood it on an empathetic level, I thought people who wanted to travel the country alone, sleep in their cars and get paid in hamburgers were a little off.

Final Tidbits:

It's important to write down funny things you say right after you say them, so have a pen and paper with you at all times. Tape recorders are ok but they're a hassle and you look stupid talking into a machine. Remember, what's funny to you today will most likely not be funny tomorrow, especially what you scribble down in the dark at 2AM. That's normal.

Organize funny ideas and phrases into categories. You never know when something you wrote six months ago will help stretch out a routine from last week.

If you go to an amateur comedy night and tell the comics you want to do stand-up, they'll keep you at a distance until you've gone up and performed yourself, no matter how much you might suck. Getting up there is your rite of passage.

The comedy I hate most is what I call Clapping Seal bits. That's when the audience feels compelled to applaud because you've learned to hiccup the alphabet backwards or are double jointed and can do something freaky with your arms.

I'm also not a fan of telling jokes based on funny things other people say. People ask me if I wrote comedy based on them or where we worked. My god no. My comedy comes to me while playing with words and thoughts, a process I consider organic. Otherwise my conversations would all be strained, as in I'm always looking for the funny in other people. That’s annoying for the other person and simply not polite.

Comedy books tell you to write material based on your own experiences, which often means you just so happen to be there when someone else says or does something funny. I like comedy to be original and not plagiarism orjournalism. Sam Kinison admittedly got a lot of material from what other people said, so maybe his name should have been "Scoop".

The Comedy Bible is a great book and I highly recommend it. I think as a writer it's helpful to read books like this on an ongoing basis. It forces you to constantly evaluate what you are doing, and while you may not agree with the books the added perspectives are vital because writing is a solitary act and self-delusion is your worst enema. Why yes, I am here all week. Goodnight, and try the veal!

Dance Of Days - Two Decades Of Punk In The Nation's Capital (book review): Dance Of Days is a decent enough book. It tells stories well and covers as much as it can through the political activist-colored glasses of the author, Mark Andersen. The book was co-written (read cleaned up) by DC alt-journalism staple Mark Jenkins, who probably and thankfully removed the tear-stained confessional aspects of Andersen's writing that moistens the book's beginning and end.

The subtitle is misleading to some because it's not hugely comprehensive of every band and scene in DC, but Andersen was not a writer by trade but an active participant in the Dischord scene as an organizer for Positive Force, a DIY activist group. The book is slanted heavily towards politically correct assumptions of what is right and real, but in that regard its saving grace is Andersen's compulsion to point out the good along with the bad. To his credit, and in defiance of the rules of political activism, he insists on reporting the DC scene warts and all.

In the world of Dance Of Days, "meaning" is really important. Lyrics contain the answers to all life's problems and banging pickle buckets in the park across from the White House accomplishes a whole lot. Shows are remembered in perfect detail, and the right word or note creates synergies between band and audience as close to a religious experience as most are ever going to experience.

The major players of the scene are creative types full of the euphemism "contradictions". Ian MacKaye is ok even though he's pushy with ideas. The DC scene would rank up there with Passaic, NJ if not for him. Henry Rollins is pathologically hypocritical in everything he does and says. HR of Bad Brains is clinically insane.

It's safe to say Dance Of Days is not a history of the DC punk scene but a well researched set of remembrances of what one person found exciting and interesting. It's where you can read the line "They were trying to survive, searching for a tribe, for family, for fun" and maybe not puke. Maybe.

Cult Rockers, by Wayne Jancik and Tad Lathrop (book review) (Fireside): The cover reads "150 of the most controversial, distinctive, offbeat, intriguing, outrageous, and championed rock musicians of all time." The pieces are generally well written and informative but I'm a bit disappointed the authors didn't put more effort into it. Both have experience and should be able to write this in their sleep. Quotes and archived articles seem to have shaped the entries more than original outlines fleshed out by further research. The Zappa summary is passionate and in-depth while the review of The Fall is patched together with goo. What could have been an expansive, in-depth resource is just a cool book to read if you see your personal favorites listed.

I can't complain that much because some of my own nominees for cult status are included (The Feelies, XTC, The Residents, Ramones and Devo among others). What gets me is the feeling that 150 entries and the total number of pages may have been pre-ordained as enough for a book like this. Maybe the word "cult" isn't intended to include truly obscure bands like Tuxeedomoon and Dark Day because Cult Rockers is a mass-market book intended for a readership still for the most part huge fans on commercial, non-cult status music. For what it is, it's not bad, so feel free to borrow it from the library and keep it next to the toilet to help you pass the bowel movement... I mean time. 

Disney: The Mouse Betrayed: Greed, Corruption and Children, by Peter and Rochelle Schweizer (book review) (Regnery): Don't you hate it when you’re prepared to love a book and it stinks? First, because it just plain stinks, and second beacuse you know a good book on the subject may be a long time coming because this one exists and stinks. Peter is a media fellow at the Hoover Institution (where that sucking sound is coming from) and his wife Rochelle a media consultant, often a self-defined job title. Together they've written a naive and hyperventilated account of the modern day Walt Disney Company. Disney must be hating the bad publicity but loving the fact this book was written by rank amateurs with the worldly experience of hill folk. The book may further inflame the religious right against godless Disney but it's so poorly written nobody with an independent mind will want to venture beyond the first few pages.

The book’s major flaw is an assumption that the history of Disney is a divide between the holy and pure era of Walt Disney and the corrupt, vile reign of Michael Eisner. They assume we see Walt's Disney as the embodiment of all that is good, decent and right in the world. That Disney under Walt was heaven on earth and that the new regime bears no resemblance to the old. It’s total nonsense. It's a fantasy shared by the simplest minds of social agenda conservatives.

To get the skinny on Walt, pick up Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince. It asserts Walter dunked his donuts in bourbon, treated women and minorities like garbage, spied for the FBI, paid minimum wages and was an all-around decent fellow. His vision of children's entertainment may have been appropriately moralistic for the time but he was no saint and not all of his employees shared his lack of humor or overbearing moralism. Dirty animation came out of the back doors of the studio during Walt's tenure, and maybe there's a few hidden prank stills in Sleeping Beauty the Schweizers might find troubling. The authors are blind to gossip like this because their book is little more than a collection of wake up calls to the evils of the new, very un-Walt-like Disney. They don't come out and say they're offended Christians but everything screams 700 Club. Walt's spinning in his grave (his head's in your grocer's freezer), but that's a by-product of fermentation.

The Disney Company is guilty of sleazy acts, don't get me wrong. Theft of intellectual property, goods made in sweatshops, control of local police, bad safety records -- I wish a better book was written on the subject. Equally bad to the authors is the acceptance of the gay community, adult themes of Miramax films and Hollywood Records, part ownership of a cable network that shows naughty films and how recent Disney cartoons are made to appeal to both kids and their parents. All the while they gaze back to the old days of Disney that exists partly as truth and partly as false nostalgia. As if there was never crime, pedophilia, intellectual theft or park guests injured when Walt was in charge. Who honestly believes that? The authors may not either but the hook of their book is bent firmly in that direction. Naive is not good when applied to works of non-fiction, and the authors of Disney: The Mouse Betrayed: Greed, Corruption and Children are very naive.

They're also not too bright when it comes to business in general and the music industry in particular. Eisner took over a company that desperately needed to diversify and profit from existing properties. Before 1984 Disney hadn't re-issued any of their classics on video. It was a goldmine left to rot in the old Disney mindset of theatrical re-releases every seven years or so. Warner Brothers was stuck in the same doldrums until recently when the brand was given a BIG marketing push. So what if Disney invested in ventures with adult material? It's not like they had Dumbo in ads for death metal bands. Disney has divisions that create children's programming and divisions that produce for adults. Is that too hard for the authors to understand? Is it somehow a sin because Walt wouldn't approve? Is Walt God or Man? Hollywood Records, a failure from the start, is given major page-time because it promotes satanic punk rock. They neither know nor care about the differences between punk and heavy metal. The only satanism in punk exists as a joke. When Danzig is called punk you know the world of definitions took a stiff one up the wazoo.

Back to the book review -- Book bad. Disney good and bad. Cookies good.

EL SID: Saint Vicious- David Dalton (book review) (St. Martin’s Press): Did the booksellers of America bother to read this thing before flooding their stores with this crap? It’s not even a book about Sid Vicious, the dumbest rock star ever to wear the punk union label. It's about how gosh darn clever and literate the author is. David Dalton is the epitome of the Hipster Doofus. Beat jazz cadences and flagrantly pretentious art/history/politics/psychology/culture references get old quick, especially once you realize Sid is so rarely mentioned directly. It could be that Sid’s life was a big, fat zero, and not worthy of a full-length book, but I think this is just one big ego-fugg for the author.

The book starts well with a concise summation of Sid’s life and times: “Sid couldn’t play his instrument. He couldn’t sing, he was a mess. He was weedy, goofy, gullible, and psychopathic. Mindlessly violent. He was perfect. Even Elvis failed us in the end by becoming fat and pathetic, but not Sid. A nobody at seventeen, world famous at twenty, dead at twenty-one!” From here on in the book spends most of its pages with nonsense lines like, “Scaly aliens with skin problems and bad teeth scan the planet. Their hipnosity Geiger counters, pointed at the mid 1970s, crackle with static. Ha! Foolish earthlings stunned into immobility by Europap have become slaves of the palindromic ABBA. Swedroid replicants have hypnotized Earth cretins. Prepare to invade.” Yoinks!

This pretentiousness makes it hard to differentiate between fact, fiction and personal commentary. There’s also too much literary license taken. Since there’s little in the way of interviews with Sid the author seeds the book with fictional “diary entries" rife with British illiterate-class phonetic spellings: “Nancy gettin into Lydon’s face an’ee is poised to smack ‘er one. ‘Oh, don’t hit her,’ quoth I, ‘You mustn’t’. Nance an me is inseperable. Togevver we stand, togevver we nod awf.” My god is that horrible.

El Sid is the most annoying book I’ve read in ages. The art school posing literally forces you to skim through its short 223 pages screaming “Where’s the beef! Where’s the freakin’ beef!!” Dalton is good when analyzing the role of fashion and media in British society, but facts take a back seat to his endless flights of self-indulgence. For every insight like “In the beginning, punks would define themselves by what they hated, and what they hated constituted a considerable list”, the author spits out twenty gobs of nonsense like, “… (Sid was) so obsessed with the mythology of self-destruction that flagrant disregard for life and limb became routine.” Sid had a defective brain. There was no poetry or higher purpose to anything he did. Sid whipped chains at stranger’s heads and threw bottles across rooms. There is no mythology when it comes to Sid Vicious, only misplaced idol worship and nihilistic cheerleading. The mythology is an empty lie, and a harmful one at that.

To prepare for this book Dalton read eight books on British punk. He uses these sources only as reference points for his word-heavy ramblings. At the end of the book he seemingly runs out of tangential ideas and focuses nicely on the particulars of Nancy Spungen’s death and Sid’s quick decline into oblivion.

Sid’s probably not worthy of his own book. El Sid is no more than an exercise in the author’s stream of consciousness. If you like that kind of mental masturbation then by all means buy this. If you wait a few months you’ll be able to pick this up cheap as a remainder. David Dalton has also written books on James Dean, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Marianne Faithful, and The Grateful Dead. I anxiously await his treatise on Carrot Top.

Jane & Michael Stern's Encyclopedia Of Pop Culture and Encyclopedia Of Bad Taste (book review) (Harper Perennial): Nobody ever asks me questions like "Hey, what reading material do you keep by the crapper to fill your mind with knowledge whilst filling your crapper with poopies?" It’s why I have to bring things up myself. Lately it's been two books, the Encyclopedia of Pop Culture: An A to Z of Who's Who and What's What, from Aerobics and Bubble Gum to Valley Of The Dolls and The Encyclopedia Of Bad Taste. They’re the Who-What-When-Where-And-Why of America's favorite, flashiest, and funniest cultural extremes, from accordion music to zoot suites, extensively researched and filled with fun facts. They're similar in style but one's less tacky in content.

These would be novelty books if not for the reams of useful and timeless information they provide. Jane and Michael Stern are serious cultural anthropologists from the John Waters school of mondo. They comb through many source materials and don't write on any subject without first mastering it. Everything you read in a Stern article is backed by documentation.

They're baby boomers writing for fellow boomers, so you'll find pieces on both the Gabor sisters and heavy metal. Written in 1990 and 1992, I’m guessing they won't update either book because they show no interest in Gen X and Y cultures. Their latest books are on dogs and the great book concept titled Eat Your Way Across the USA; 500 Diners, Farmland Buffets, Lobster Shacks, Pie Places, and Other All-American Eateries. Below are samples of their work. Nobody gets the essence of the modern age like the Sterns. A crap just doesn't feel right without good book in hand:

Disney World: Disney is to fun what Velveeta is to cheese: pasteurized, processed, smooth, neat, bland, square, loved by children, and a world-renowned symbol of America's corporate genius. Walt Disney World, the company's theme park environment in Florida, is the biggest block of cheese ever packaged. Bob Guccione: Founder and publisher of Penthouse, Bob has been known for many gifts to world culture during his career, including exposed female labia in men's magazines; sexually explicit letters to the editor; a thriving sexual prosthetics and body-oil business; deposing the first black Miss America; and showing pictures of Jimmy Swaggart's favorite prostitute posing in the positions the Reverend enjoyed most. Mud Wresting: The Milwaukee Hustlers, the first team of professional lady mud wrestlers to tour the United States, were sent forth by Bruce Rosenbaum of the Rosenbaum Talent Agency in the early seventies. "It was all in good fun," Mr. Rosenbaum wistfully recalled about the origin of novelty wrestling in America. "But before we knew it, mud wrestling turned into a cheap sex show." Dinosaur Parks: Dinosaur parks are half-baked odes to prehistory, most of them created by roadside entrepreneurs who combine their enthusiasm for triceratops with audacious showmanship and a promise that visiting the park is educational. Tourists gleefully pay admission to gape at concrete, Styrofoam, or paper-mache statues of giant creatures in surroundings designed to recreate the ambiance of a million years B.B. Potato Chips: Potato Chips are to raw potatoes what "Jeopardy" is to serious scholarship; an addictive, ready-to-digest pop-culture variant of something that traditionally requires time and effort. There are many junk foods a person can snack on, but chips are the supreme emblem of this country's love affair with things that are convenient, greasy, bad for us and ever so much fun to eat. Jerry Lewis: What do people love about American pop culture? It is fun, bright, irreverent, irrepressible, unabashedly sentimental, sometimes brilliant, and almost always surprising. What do people dislike about American pop culture? It is loud, lowbrow, blasphemous, mawkish, sanctimonious, sometimes obscene, at times predictable, and almost always impolite. Jerry Lewis is all of the above. Fish Sticks: If you agree that the sight of a fish on a plate is repulsive, especially if it's still got its head or tail, then you understand the raison d'etre of fish sticks. A stick of fish, as opposed to a whole fish or part of one, eliminates so many of the gruesome problems of eating seafood: having to look at a dead animal or, even worse, eviscerate and scale it, then fillet it; worrying about chocking on fish bones; having hands that smell like fish; and disposing of the skeleton in a a place where the cat can't find it. Fish sticks also pretty much eliminate the other awful thing about fish: the taste. Those pleasant golden-crusted logs with snow-white insides have only the gentlest hint of fish flavor, which is easily disguised by a good dollop of sweet tarter sauce... 

England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond, by Jon Savage (book review) (1992) (St. Martin's Press): Did I mention this book is long? About 600 pages long. Jon Savage presents a history of punk centered on the rise and fall of Malcolm McLaren , Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols. While exhaustingly complete and well argued, punk would have prospered nicely even without the Sex Pistols. Sure, the Pistols were an international scandal and inspired others to form bands, but so did the Ramones, Iggy Pop, The Heartbreakers and The NY Dolls. They grabbed acres of media attention but also dragged down the scene as they flushed themselves down the toilet. Rock has always been about rebellion and record companies are more than happy to exploit that as long as it makes money. Malcolm and the Pistols were such asses to deal with, especially after Sid joined the band, that otherwise amoral record labels turned against punk in general as not being worth the headaches. For a fact this hurt the Ramones, who all along wanted to be top-40 radio heroes.

The history of the Sex Pistols is not the history of punk itself but of how Malcolm and Johnny Rotten turned a garage band into a global sensation. Petty thief and sex fiend Steve Jones started the group in 1973 with drummer Paul Cook. Bassist Glen Matlock wrote the melodies that mattered. Rotten then added the hateful lyrics and detached spitefulness that defined the 77 UK punk movement. When Matlock was booted in favor of Sid Vicious the band gained a zero whose appetite for self-destruction wasn’t balanced by talent, as was the case with Dee Dee Ramone.

Malcolm McLaren's involvement as manager was a mixed blessing - on one hand he knew about style and rebellious cultural trends, but on a business level he didn't have a clue. For every story of masterful media and record company manipulation there's examples of Malcolm being completely nuts, especially his decision to have the Pistols play backwater hellholes on the ill-fated US tour. Malcolm and Lydon both claim exclusive credit for the Sex Pistols, and they’re two sides of the same pathological coin. They were full of stupendous anarchistic ideals yet turned sensitive coward at the first peep of trouble. Lydon was definitely the most important part of the band but he loses points for being a sanctimonious prick.

England's Dreaming traces punks’ roots to fashion trends, cultural movements like the Situationists and the socially threatening political movements anarchy and socialism. These are valid influences but few punks consciously abide by academic reasonings. Do most punks give much thought to the art and politics of music beyond the fact that it's somehow important? Probably not. Sure, punk speaks to the lives of punks, but being pissed off at the world didn't begin with punk. Why does a person choose punk over heavy metal or rap? I doubt it’s arcane socio-economic theories from the past.

Jon Savage did a great job detailing the career of the Sex Pistols and their influence on other bands and popular culture itself. I disagree on two points. He says punk didn't break in America until the mid-80s. Punk was dead in the mid 80s. Who is he referring to? What level of success are we talking about? At what point does success involve making crappy punk music and selling it to the masses as the next big thing? Also, in his rush to achieve closure, he writes that the Sex Pistols were the "heart" of punk and once they dissolved the heart was gone. O-tay…

The Clash were the heart anyway, but music exists as a timeline and isn’t totally dependent on one single band or event. To quote the book, "We weren't starting anything new, we were taking our favorite influences and playing with them." Punk is not perfect and omniscient. It's a form of music that carries with it heavy social and political baggage. Many punks are idiots because they see the music as little more than an opportunity to be jerks.

England’s Dreaming is a great book but I'm getting tired of attempts to make punk fit into a purely intellectual model. Most of the time punk is loud, pissed off music for loud, pissed off people. That still doesn’t define it exactly. It's a healthy release for some and a death ride for others. A good punk book, like punk itself, should be factual and not overly intellectual.

Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover Ups, by Robert Anton Wilson (book review) (Harper Perrenial): This book is a concise, well researched, funny and fairly objective encyclopedia of lunatic fringe groups and ideas, many still holding sway today. Not only do you get the skinny on the Illuminati, Freemasonry and Roswell, author Robert Wilson gives insight into the general nature of how conspiracies spread and cross-pollinate. The best quality of this work is that Wilson neither panders to the paranoid mind nor dismisses out of hand the possibility of real cover up and conspiracy. His sense of humor also (thankfully) keeps the subject matter in the realm of entertainment, not life-threatening hysteria. There is an entry which notes that Charlie Chaplin came in 4th place in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.

As the title implies, conspiracies revolve around feelings that reality is not as it seems and forces beyond our control manipulate people and institutions for their own gain. There are many levels of conspiracy, from parents keeping adoption a secret to shadowy groups of international (or even intergalactic) figures deciding the fate of nations. To me there are real and imagined conspiracies: those involving corporations, government or the mafia are real if you see corporations conspiring to make money and gain market share, governments conspiring against forces they feel will undermine their authority, and the mafia murdering, buying off and blackmailing those who stand in their way.

I would like the government to conspire to do everything it can to keep militant far right and far left groups weak, if not crush them entirely. What these lunatics call conspiracy I consider good preventive medicine. I’d also like to have NAMBLA, who exist to promote child rape, conspired against to the nth degree.

Then there are the purely imagined conspiracies that infect the minds of the mentally deficient, weak willed and socially retarded. Paranoia, when not the product of chemical imbalance, is the realm of the lonely, the discarded and those of low self-esteem and self-hatred. Who believes the nazi Holocaust never took place? Blindly hateful losers who have little control over their failed lives so they blame others. Who believes the Masons run the world? Fringe religious kooks who see a threat to their own plans of theological conquest. Groups like this ban The Wizard Of Oz because the characters learn the power to succeed can come from within. That God is not mentioned as the only source of all human potential is perceived as part of a secular conspiracy. God save us all from these people.

My favorite nutjob theory in the book is the "Nazi Hollow Earth Theory", which states that "The Earth is not only hollow but that we are living on the inside of it...The truth was that the universe consists of solid rock, we live inside its only cavity, and the lights we think of as stars and planets are the lights of other cities, also inside." I don't know if these guys like any other kind of cereal, but I know for sure they're Coocoo for Cocoa-Puffs.

Humans are alien bio-experiments, aliens live at the Earth's core, Ronald Reagan is a robot, LSD is illegal because it makes the mind too powerful and Castro is an American double-agent. It's all here, along with entries on hoaxes, scams and even the Church of the Sub-Genius, a cult led by "Bob" and the perfect inside joke only the dim-witted don't get. The impact of Orson Well's War of the Worlds is also placed in a timeline of conspiracy and hoax.

Do aliens exist? Are we under the control of secret societies? Did the Mafia kill JFK? Who the hell knows. I don't know and you don't know either, so shut up. If you tell me you do know I have to ask what you plan on doing with this dangerous knowledge. Are you going to run around in terror screaming "they" are against "us"? Are you going to stockpile ammo because Chinese communists on the Canadian border are about to swarm down on the USA? Are you doing this just to get attention? Do you think it's your mission to convince the world we're doomed, Doomed, DOOMED!? Calm…down.

I happen to believe the Mafia killed JFK. I don't scream at strangers about it. I don't huddle in a corner crying because of it. It's just a theory I believe. Do I think UFOs exist? Probably. That doesn't mean I'm selling everything I own and camping out outside Area 51. What Robert Wilson does is present conspiracies with just enough skepticism to let you know what he's presenting is only information. There's no need to alter your life in any way. Unlike some conspiracy buffs I've met who refuse to challenge other conspiracies in fear they themselves will come under attack, Wilson knows that lines of reality have to be drawn if possibly real conspiracies have a chance of being uncovered.

The last listing is for "ZOG", which stands for the "Zionist Occupied Government" that controls the US government on behalf of Jews. The book ends with Wilson commenting "I would like to live in a world where all the conspiracy theories are as absurd as this one." Amen brother.

PS: Every one and every thing is out to get you. See, you were right all along..... and now it's too late....or is it?.... 

The Factsheet Five ZINE READER: The Best Writing from the Underground World of Zines (book review) (Three Rivers Press):

Zines, zines, the printed drug, the more you read 'em, the more you feel smug. The more you feel smug, the superior you feel, so read your zines and think it's a big deal.

Here's my zine resume: I've been reading zines for twenty years. My collection is over five feet high and dates back to the ‘70s. I've been writing the Old Punks Web Zine for 5+ years as of 4/2004 and not only is it the world's largest punk web zine, it may be the largest non-commercial music site of any kind. Why isn't this impressive? Web zines are a breeze compared to print zines. I know nothing about graphics or layouts - I either scan or steal anything I need. It doesn't cost me anything to do my web zine because the space comes free with my monthly internet access. I don't even know HTML, so I give a world of credit to real zines like the ones highlighted in The Factsheet Five Zine Reader. Still, I don't think they're a revolution, and god love ‘em but zines don't possess the mystical qualities editor R. Seth Friedman assigns to them.

Zines are a self-congratulatory (when not in pure awe of itself) sub-culture that has produced many good works along with a Mount Everest of unreadable crap, which makes them no different from records, books, TV shows, movies, comic books, art, and even commercial magazines. The evolution of indie zines runs vaguely parallel to the underground comix movement of the late ‘60s. A product of hippie culture, the work of R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Bill Griffith and others really was a revolution in idea and execution. Anyone with access to a printing press (or who could afford to pay a printer) could make their own comic books, a very radical idea at the time and it made the Seduction Of The Innocent anti-comic book witch hunt of 1954 seem even more a hysterical overreaction. Today making a zine is as easy as missing the toilet at 3 AM.

Zines as a hipster trend hit its peak around 1997 when The Factsheet Five Zine Reader was printed. Mass media discovered the movement and explored it in varying degress until their audience could claim mastery of the general idea and then move on to the next zeitgeist du jour. Zines weren't new in 1997, just like the famous punk zines Search And Destroy and Punk weren't new to the world of music fandom in the ‘70s. What was new was how easy and cheaply computers and printers made publishing for any yutz with zine ambitions. People wrote and distributed their own writings starting back to the Fred and Wilma period. What differentiates modern zine culture is new technology and a concerted effort to create an actual zine culture. Now it’s about networking and advertising. Factsheet Five is the resource pool and advertising arm of the zine movement. It does both well and any criticisms I have of zine hysteria are not intended to put down R. Seth and his fine publication.

Friedman makes it sound as if zines exist in opposition to traditional print media when they either have little to do with each other or appear to not be different at all. They both involve words, pictures and graphics. Is Flipside or Punk Planet that much less a commercial magazine than Spin or Rolling Stone because they're DIY and have an earthier editorial stance? No. They both operate under the same basic business model with the major difference being scale.. Is Mother Jones a zine?

At this point I must mention conspiracy theory, the smug paranoia that along with confessional rambling, personal obsession and poetry comprise the gestalt of the zine movement. Zines present conspiracy as fact and then pretend corporate media is too afraid of their billionaire overlords to print these horrible truths, so it's up to brave zines to spread Truth to the lumpy proletariat and awake them from their tv-induced trance. I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next dimwit but I don't expect Time or Newsweek to give serious consideration to the idea that aliens killed Kennedy to prevent him from exposing their hidden fortress under the North Pole. Zines are playgrounds for hearsay and rumor. If Friedman believes zines print truths other media are afraid to print, is his only standard then that Zine=Truth? That's the same mindset that thinks the bible says it, I believe it, and that's that.

Taken from the informative Factsheet Five web site, this is how the zine process starts: "Making a zine is quite simple. Put your thoughts down on paper, paste in some cool graphix, photocopy and staple. Start small, just a few pieces of paper (4 to 8) and no more than 50 copies. Send one to us at Factsheet Five, send others to zines you like, give some to friends and would-be friends and keep 20 or 30 for potential orders."

I'm all for positive energy and zine scene unity, but why must so many trees die in the name of crap? Better to have the pulp made directly into toilet paper than serving the same purpose as a zine. Instead of encouraging the publication of just anything the party line should be that zines be about something, and before you print, here's what's minimally expected in terms of quality. It's not like in kindergarten where every finger painting is cheered as a work of genius to build self-esteem. Yeah, yeah, you have to start somewhere, but that start should be learning basic writing and layout skills. The goal for zine makers should be to aspire to create something worthy of print and not just throw buckets of paint against a canvas and call it art.

I don't mean to come down so hard on Friedman and zinesters. It's just that somebody has to point out that zines aren't the solution to all the world's problems. They're a creative hobby that sometimes winds up being a full time job. Some zines are great, some are good and most plain stink. The Factsheet Five Zine Reader is worth reading and it gives a nice cross-section of the kinds of writing and cartooning you'll find in the better zines.

Lesson #16a about zine writing: if you have nothing coherent to write about don't just begin scribbling to see what happens. I piss in your stream of consciousness. My favorite line from the book is "Bread is just raw toast". Finally, something we can all agree on. 

Fish In A Barrel: Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds On Tour (book review) (2.13.61): There's a bazillion books filled with photographs of rock stars. As a rule I refuse to look at them. Photography can be art and educational but it can also be petty and trivial. It all depends on your level of interest I guess. Dorothea Lange's photographs of families escaping the Dust Bowl helped define modern documentary photography. Weegee and his shots of NYC lowlife culture of the ‘30s and ‘40s created an iconic, police blotter look. Then there's everybody's favorite nature boy Ansel Adams. These people’s works served a purpose. It showed beauty that must be preserved. It showed the plight of people in need. It shoved reality in our faces. What the hell does a photograph of a rock star do?  Feed cults of personality? Distract you from more important things you should be doing? It's just music, regardless of how happy it makes you feel. It's way down the list of what's important.

Nick Cave is a nice person and his music is enjoyable. Still, is he worth a coffee table book of black and white photographs? His fans say yes while I say I guess so, if it makes you happy. Photographer Peter Milne, who comes across in the text as a pathological putz, captures Nick and The Bad Seeds late at night, early in the morning, drunk, bored, tired, smiling... is this supposed to be reality? art? truth? In normal conversation people make faces that, captured in single frame, make them look odd. Here's an attempt to capture that in every frame, and it’s not always pleasant or necessary.

Does Nick Cave make you feel all gooey inside? Can you linger on a picture of him like it's the Rosetta Stone of your own existence? If so, buy Fish In A Barrel. I bought a copy for 49 cents at Tower Records. That's why I picked it up, to write about how dumb books like this are, no matter what the price.

From The Velvets to The Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History For A Post-Punk World, by Clinton Heylin (Book review) (Penguin): I have few opinions I’d like to share with Generation X but they have an annoying tendency to pull back their heads, wave their palms and say “Whoa, too much information.” It’s their quaint and punch-worthy way of declaring they don’t care. While a great read, this 1993 book begs the question  of who really cares anymore? I’m into punk history because it’s been my favorite music since the ‘70s but I know from listening to many of the bands discussed in this book that there’s not much for younger punks to get into.

Are Patti Smith, Television, Wayne County, The MC5, Pere Ubu, The Velvet Underground, Richard Hell, The Ramones, Rocket From The Tombs, The Dead Boys, Blondie, The Heartbreakers, Iggy & The Stooges, The Dictators, Suicide and The NY Dolls relevant to your average sixteen year old? The answer is a definite probably not.

Patti Smith was a self-centered poet. They say she mythologized herself - yeah, the Goddess of Pretentious Metaphor. Television, the first punk band to play CBGBs, recorded boring songs. Listen to Marquee Moon and try not to let your chin hit a table as you fall into the fetal position for a quick nap. Richard Hell was a poet whose music gravitated toward cabaret. His ripped shirts were a nod to the poet Arthur Rimbaud and not the result of a so-called punk (as in street smart) life. Hell’s sullen look came from years of drug abuse. Wayne/Jayne County’s sound was even more cabaret than Hell’s. The Dictators played cock pop. Blondie was a trash & vaudeville girl group. Rocket From The Tombs never even recorded. The NY Dolls were the Rolling Stones in loud drag. The Heartbreakers were a tougher version of The Dolls. Suicide is credited with influencing The Human League! The Stooges could sound like The Doors but Iggy Pop as fearless stage animal was the first real modern Punk. The MC5 played loud, hard psychedelic rock when they didn’t emulate The Grateful Dead on a fast day. The Velvet Underground were great proto-punks yet their contribution came mostly from their droning, atonal wall of sound, their street themes of sexual misadventure and other urban leisure pursuits, and the inspiration that if Lou Reed could get up on stage, anyone could. Or as Lenny Kaye points out, “They were the one group that proved you could scissor together the perverse side of art and the pop side of rock & roll.” Detroit, Cleveland, and New York were the top breeding grounds for the great American pre-punk bands

What American band had the most direct impact on modern punk and hardcore? The Ramones, with The Dead Boys and The Heartbreakers next. The old bands in this book were heavily influenced by avant-garde and free-form jazz, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Beefheart, old R&B and blues acts and garage bands featured on the original Nuggets compilation. American bands were also into The Beatles, Them, The Who, The Kinks, The Yardbirds and The Rolling Stones - all borrowing from earlier American R&B. The history of rock music is a story of the incestuous relationship between the US and UK scenes.

From The Velvets To The Voidoids is well written and an excellent historical resource. Clinton Heylin writes in a journalistic style seemingly devoid of personal opinion. As the author of books on Bob Dylan he finds more interest in the work of fellow street poets Smith, Verlaine and Hell, but otherwise he’s fair, honest and authoritative. All the participants in the early days are quoted at length, coming from articles and interviews in publications from Hit Parader to Search and Destroy. The bibliography is huge, and the index, CBGBs chronology, discography and Who’s Who make this book a real keeper.

Quotes from the book: Debbie Harry on the collapse of the Mercer Arts Center, “The Center was integrally linked to the Broadway Central Hotel, which had a glorious history but had now become a crumbling structure occupied by welfare recipients. It was so old and decrepit from years of people pissing on the floor and throwing up in the corner that it just caved in.” Blondie producer Mike Chapman, “If you can’t make hit singles you should f—k off and go chop meat somewhere.” Dee Dee Ramone on the Ramones: “We were glamorous when we started, almost like a glitter group. A lot of times, Joey would wear rubber clothes and John would wear vinyl clothes or silver pants. We used to look great, but then we fell into the leather-jacket-and-ripped-up jeans thing. I felt like a slob.”

America takes credit for creating punk, which it did in the bigger picture, but the fact remains US bands found more success in the UK than they ever did in the States, where “Punk was treated as some kind of malignancy in modern music.” England kept the fledgling American scene alive in the ‘70s long enough for The Sex Pistols and The Clash to break down the doors to everyone’s benefit (and demise too).

I don’t agree with everything in the book, especially Heylin’s claim that Bowie’s influence was detrimental to Iggy Pop. Raw Power was poorly mixed but it wasn’t on purpose and it was still a landmark album. Bowie rescued Iggy from himself and went out of his way to promote Ig’s career, touring with him and writing songs for his albums. If you think Iggy and Lou’s careers weren’t saved by David Bowie, you are flat out wrong.

Frozen Fire: The Story Of THE CARS, by Toby Goldstein with photos by Ebet Roberts (book review) (Contemporary): You have to love insta-books like this. Well, you don't have to, but it would be nice to pretend for the sake of this review. Contemporary Books Inc. doesn't exist anymore and their name suggests milking trends for quick cash. I imagine it operated out of a dingy office run by a sweaty fat bald guy his staff laughed at yet feared. I figure he stormed out of his office one day around 1985, his half-chewed unlit cheap cigar flapping away as he bellowed he needed a book yesterday on this goddam group The Cars his kid keeps yapping about. Everyone scattered like roaches and the next thing you know a thin sliver of a book packed with photos hits stores in time for Christmas.

It's a bittersweet memory to read a book like this because it reminds me of when new wave was ascending and I thought there would finally be songs I liked at clubs and on the radio. Oh yeah, that lasted a good few months. It's easy to laugh at stupid books on The Backstreet Boys and The Spice Girls, but back when there were books on Gary Numan and The Cars.

Frozen Fire is a surprisingly decent book from an author who had previously written major articles on the group. Only a handful of bands deserve more than this, one hundred pages of history filled out with photographs. The Cars were a successful band who helped usher the new wave genre into the mainstream, but their story isn't intriguing or eventful. New Wave, and I'm talking good new wave as opposed to the new romance crap that followed, was never intended to be unpopular like punk - it was a workable alternative to the mainstream crap that flooded the airwaves. There are a number of reasons why new wave failed to take, and in the long run it proved to be a fad, but for a while it felt pretty good to hear the GoGos, Gary Numan and Devo played on top-40 stations. I had my time in the sun, and now I’m forced to suffer in a storm of rap that drives me crazy.

The Cars wrote many catchy tunes but in the long run there's not a whole lot going on. I admire their minimalism and for a while The Cars recorded good radio fodder. I give them credit for being successful but whenever I listen to their greatest hits CDs I come away with the feeling I ate candy - tasty candy for sure but still full of empty calories. A winning quality is there and not there at the same time. The book reprint's Robert Cristgau's review of Candy-O: "Cold and thin, shiny and hypnotic, it's what they do best - rock and roll - this is definitely pop without a hint of cuteness." Their first album is reviewed: "The music combines the neurotic tensions of David Bowie, mock aloofness of Roxy Music, and crisp harmonies of Queen." That’s accurate and you can also throw in a Talking Heads comparison.

Even though the book flatters the band the author (thankfully) doesn't allow it to degenerate into a Teen Beat love-fest. He admits The Cars were the rare example of an American band that wasn't received well in the UK. This may have been due in part to their legendarily dull live shows. To put it mildly, their live shows were exercises in restraint. This is addressed throughout the book and even the title, Frozen Fire, is a direct comment on how stiff they were. Some hardliners hated The Cars because of their success, but they did a number of street-cred worthy things too. They built a recording studio in Boston used by many local bands, and Ric Ocasek worked with Romeo Void and hardcore legends the Bad Brains. On one tour they insisted Suicide open, and before their shows the PA system played The Velvet Underground and Kraftwerk. They hosted the tv show The Midnight Special on the condition that Iggy Pop, Suicide, M and Lene Lovich appear. Now that’s punk!

Not a bad little book and it’s everything you need to know about The Cars. I noted a grievous error that must addressed right now! Keyboardist Greg Hawkes is quoted as saying the classic "Niagra Falls" comedy bit was from the Three Stooges, when everyone knows it was Abbott and Costello. Get it right, people.

Glam!: Bowie, Bolan And The Glitter Rock Revolution, by Barney Hoskyns (book review) (Faber and Faber):

"You'll Have A Gay Old Time"
                - Prehistoric Glam Anthem
"Gay? The guy craps diamonds!"
                 - A joke I wrote

This thin yet well-researched book came out (as it were) as a companion piece to the film Velvet Goldmine, whose director writes the book's forward. Todd Haynes sums it up pretty well when he notes glam was "a unique blending of underground American rock with a distinctly English brand of camp theatricality and gender bending." But just as Velvet Goldmine was homage to the director's memories of the prime of his young life, so too this book gets caught up in the author's personal experience and belief that music begins and ends with glam. 70's glam was a movement as much as punk was, and like punk it didn’t create itself. Hoskyn's assertion that glam was the nexus for everything exciting and new is the book's only real fault, and some of the follow up points are pure nonsense.

Glam! is a gay pride book, written bi, I mean by, and for, gays and bisexuals. When someone is gay, Hoskyns will note it, as in "Elektra's then closeted gay CEO David Geffen". It's a side note, a commentary and a proud revelation all in one. Hoskyns owns a huge collection of Glam albums and seems to know each song by heart, and he utilizes historical records with accuracy and efficiency, but man is it fun to read between the lines of his catty dislike for certain people while he fawns over others. Not being gay, or gay enough, is a crime in the author's eyes, and so is being unattractive. An association with Andy Warhol is a plus, and being super-duper pretty pops this guys' cork and earns Marc Bolan and Jobriath a ten on the boy-oy-oy-oing scale.

Popular music, regardless of the era, has always featured pretty boys. You can go back to the early 1800's with classical composer Franz Liszt and work your way up to Elvis Presley and Little Richard. Pick any point on the timeline and there will be pretty boys. Glam! asserts glam was a reaction against dinosaur and hippie rock. True, but cycles of rebellion happened a number of times before. People get tired of one extreme and move toward the other, only to eventually get bored with that. And anyway, hippies, punks, glammers and all arty countercultures are cut from the same Bohemian cloth. They're leisure activities for those with enough money and security to reinvent themselves. There's a great saying that goes "We're all born naked. The rest is drag." That's funny because it's true, but it doesn't apply to the poor in Calcutta, now does it?

Punk was partly a reaction against glam. The book implies punk comes directly from glam, which is partly true but also wishful thinking. Joey Ramone may have been in a glam band before forming The Ramones, but the leather jackets and ripped jeans represented youth gang culture to their fans, not butch male prostitutes (no wait, that was Dee Dee). Blondie was a retro girl group and The New York Dolls the Rolling Stones in drag, so one point for Hoskyns. Television were hippie junkie poets. Talking Heads were minimalist white funk. The Dead Boys carried on The Stooge's death trip while The Stooges were The Doors as Midwest psychopaths. Glam existed and people liked glam, but it wasn’t the alpha and beta of punk music.

In his quest to make glam the center of the universe the author writes The Ramones were a "Slade-Stooges hybrid", which must be during a few seconds of silence between songs. "Through Glam Punk came into being" is another line that falls flat. The best of the worst assertion made, and there’s no reason to attempt such a bizarre stretch, is that skinheads were the "forerunners of disco culture." How is that? "They were music consumers whose real stars were turntables." What tha', who tha', when tha', where tha' HELL did he get that from? If not for blacks, gays and jews popular culture wouldn't extend far beyond The Emergency Broadcast Signal. Hoskyns goes well out of his way to avoid crediting blacks for their contributions to pop culture, especially glam, and it’s slightly racist how he goes about it. The definition here of what makes a performer glam is not related to the music itself. It's about sexual orientation and cross-dressing.

David Bowie was by far the most talented and intelligent of the bunch. Sweet, Suzi Quatro and Slade played what I'll call "Cowbell Marching Teen Anthems". If you know the music you know what I mean.

I did enjoy reading Glam! and it's filled with everything you’d want and need to know about the music. There's both sweeping generalizations and sweet pieces of esoteric trivia. The histories are well researched and written. It's just the opinions that sometimes fail. I was heavily into Bowie, Lou Reed, The Kinks and others in the ‘ 70s. I never paid notice to any “gayness” in the lyrics or how much makeup a man was wearing. Glam spoke directly to the budding sexuality of Barney Hoskyns and he’s proud to be proud. I’m glad he’s glad. To me it was just music.

High On Rebellion: Inside The Underground At Max's Kansas City, by Yvonne Sewall-Ruskin (book review) (Thunder's Mouth Press): This book annoys me. All books like this annoy me. The glorification of snobbery, idiocy, people treating their friends like garbage, self-destruction and beautiful people getting together to be seen and obscene. This could have been a book about Studio 54. Max's Kansas City was the Studio 54 of its time. I don't care. I hate places where trendy fuggs wait in line for hours to maybe be allowed in, overcharged for weak drinks, and then be ignored by the in-crowd who stab each other in the back for laughs and social advancement.

Max's Kansas City is where The Velvet Underground performed, Wayne County spun records, Lou Reed asked strangers if they wanted to be pooped on, Patti Smith hung out to be near her art heroes, and where owner Mickey Ruskin created a possibly fake rivalry with CBGB's owner Hilly Kristal. It was that and so much more! In the ‘60s and ‘70s it was where the starving artist crowd gathered to meet and greet, specifically the Andy Warhol circus of beautiful losers. High On Rebellion, a series of short pieces and recollections from those who survived (!), is written with beautiful people in mind. The punk section at the end is tacked on like an old sock with rubber gloves which were then disinfected and burned.

Yvonne Sewall-Ruskin was the wife of the late Mickey Ruskin, and she put this book together both for the money and as a tribute to what must have been the golden era of her life, rubbing shoulders with Janis Joplin, Abby Hoffman, Jane Fonda, Philip Glass, Robert Mapplethorpe, Allen Ginsberg, Jim Morrison and Peter Max. This was the pre-AIDS era when free love and copious drug use were still quaintly bohemian. Many of the recollections involve addicts and the stupid things they do. Hooray for heroin. Page 162 features a picture of a mentally imbalanced drug user by the name of Andrea Feldman. Her rich parents stashed her away in a luxury Manhattan apartment and gave her enough money to go away, as it were. She did an act called "Showtime" where out of the blue she'd stand up on a dining room table at Max's, take off her clothes, and dance. This was a highlight, a fond memory at Max's? Sewall-Ruskin gushes "(Feldman) was also so electric, so immediate, so confronting... just like the era itself." No, ass, the woman was insane and even more so on narcotics. Her life ended when she walked off a tall building. Is that entertaining? Beautifully tragic? Should we take mental patients from hospitals and have them perform nightly for the freaks who enjoy a few laughs at the expense of the helpless and hopeless? Yvonne, you’re a deluded parasite.

The more I read about the people who inhabited the world of Max's the more I despised them and the less I cared about their mostly sad fates. Watch as I mock a gushing reader comment I found on amazon.com:

"I felt like I knew these people and since I have never been to Max's and now that it is gone it was alot of fun to see what it was like and sad at the same time because I wish I could of been there" -- Tonlo.

Tonlo, you worthless little fame-fister. First of all, if you were there they wouldn't have let you in the door to begin with. Even if you did get in they wouldn't let you near the VIP areas. And if you did manage to sneak in the back room, the regulars would avoid you like a leper until a bouncer arrived to toss your sorry ass in the street.

High On Rebellion isn’t badly written or put together, but I went from having a few neutral ideas on what Max’s Kansas City must have been like to having a really bad taste in my mouth.

I Need More, by Iggy Pop (book review) (2.13.61): I suspect Henry Rollins named his publishing company after his date of birth to make it easier for fans to know when to mail cards and gifts. I Need More is a random collection of transcribed anecdotes that while fun to read add up to little. It comes across as spoken word poetry delivered with the master planning of performance art (I typed that sarcastically). You only glean fleeting insight into Iggy’s personal history and association with The Stooges, so what the book does provide are windows into the mind of a punk legend.

Iggy Pop is an amoral psychopath in the true clinical sense. His is the soul of a wood nymph trapped in a Detroit scumbag's body. Acts of kindness carry the same weight as acts of violence and cruelty. Iggy reads the auras of strangers, sees the beauty of a fresh rose draped across a steaming pile of poo and looks for the best in every one and every thing. Yet, he has no loyalty of emotion and feels compelled to destroy himself in order to live. Ig’s a fascinating man who deserves and will one day get a great book written about him. I Need More is more a series of bound postcards.

Since I Need More is a bunch of random thoughts, let's go right to some quotes:

"I had this really weird room with a little balcony. I used to s--t on it, s--t on my little balcony and let it dry."

"’Don Cool’ was so dirty at all times, you not only saw the dirt but you smelled him a few feet away. I mean a really strong stench. It was an honest sweat mixed with the smell of distress and deprivation."

"I was very Zen at the time -- a complete health nut -- a peace loving Zen health nut who was into stabbing himself with drumsticks. Anyway, I was on the cover of Sixteen Magazine that month."

"And so I went there and saw Betsy. I never saw anything like that. She was very cute. She was the exact opposite physically of my wife-- blonde, white as snow. She was thirteen and she looked at me penetratingly. So I suppose you can figure out what happened next."

""They don't just say come to the fort. You can't do that, you have to go by way of the local designated private bus line. This is whatever firm that has secured the army contract for transport of inductees to God's cafeteria for food processing."

What can you learn from reading I Need More? Iggy was so smart as a child he turned off his mind and became what many thought retarded. He started the spitting-on-your-idol craze, the result of clogged nasal passages. He grew up in a trailer park. Iggy loves golf. Mostly, Iggy Pop is Id personified. He’s free spirited to the point of cruel indifference. The kind of guy you're better off meeting as opposed to knowing. He's an icon, a force of nature and a music commodity. Iggy Pop is best defined by simply saying he's Iggy Pop. How Zen is that?

I Need More is fleshed out with nice B&W photographs and assorted song lyrics. It’s a cut and paste job from the start but who cares, or as Iggy loves to end his thoughts, "La de da". It's Iggy, man! The world's forgotten boy. Iggy writes well but is no judge of his own place in the cosmos. He's too busy crashing headfirst all across the universe. 

If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor, by Bruce Campbell (book review) (St. Martins):

"Okay, so at least you're interested enough to pick up this book and look inside. I think you and I are going to get along just fine."

Bruce Campbell is a god. You either know and love him, don't know him, or maybe you vaguely remember he appeared in a goofy western TV series and on both Xena and Hercules. I can't conceive of anyone not liking Bruce Campbell. It would be like saying orgasms are just ok. To understand his appeal you must compare Bruce to the great Hans Moeman short film "Man Getting Hit In Groin With Football". Bruce, like getting hit in the groin with a football, works on so many levels. He's handsome yet oddly so. He's sometimes suave but only as a caricature of himself. He's a solid state nerd who's also cool. He gives up the body for his art and would rather hang out with the crew. He can flip himself forward onto his back from a standing position. He answers his own e-mails. He produced and starred in the Evil Dead movies - the Royal Flush of this argument. You suspect Bruce would even hang out with you as long as you're not, as Bruce likes to say, a screwhead.. He's not what all actors are, he's what all actors should be. He's Bruce Campbell, and his book is the 399th best seller on Amazon.com!

"I once heard that Robert DeNiro lived with a steel-working family for six weeks in order to prepare for his role in The Deer Hunter. I've watched interviews with actors who tell wrenching stories of how hard it was to "shake" a character after filming was complete. That's all well and good, but ninety-nine percent of the time an actor is lucky to know what scene is being shot."

By his own admission Bruce isn't much of an actor and he's always ridiculed himself whenever the role called for him to emote. He's a game performer who'll do anything to get the shot. He's happy to be there, and whatever he does is great enough for me. His fate in this life seems that he'll never be famous, and Bruce has come to accept if not embrace that. At one point he'd just finished Evil Dead II, appeared on Knots Landing, and had Maniac Cop in the can, but he still had to take a graveyard shift security guard job to support his wife and new baby. Bruce with a Joe Job is just wrong.

Bruce mooches work through his associations with Sam Raimi and The Coen Brothers, and he gets referrals from those he's worked with in the past. Bruce is the kind of guy you want to have on your set. He's done it all in front and behind the camera, he'll give up the body, and everybody loves Bruce. He's either the best thing in a film or at least the candy center in that reel of crap you're watching. He's the Harry Dean Stanton of his generation. Listen to the side-splitting commentary tracks on the Evil Dead DVDs and you'll wish you were there next to Bruce laughing your ass off like you've known each other for years.

It helps to be a Bruce Campbell fan, but there's countless funny stories and valuable lessons for budding actors, directors and producers. Movie making is hell, and Bruce presents it in all its ulcerous glory without trying to crush anyone's dreams. You also get the feeling he'd gladly offer advice to anyone who asks, as long as they're not screwheads.

Bruce Campbell is a god. To think otherwise is heresy. He's written a book and you should read it. 

In Cold Sweat: Interviews With Really Scary Musicians, by Thomas Wictor (book review) (Limelight): A fascinating book, In Cold Sweat is more than a collection of four long interviews. It's insight into the interview process itself from the perspective of the interviewer, in this case Thomas Wictor, a talented and funny freelance writer, bass player and contributor to Bass Player magazine. He's at the mercy of the unpredictable egos and psyches of those he interviews, and he's not afraid to show a lack of control, if not fear itself. Most interviews probably read the way they do here if correctly transcribed, but by the time they get edited for publication what you have left is simplistic Q&A content devoid of context. Not with In Cold Sweat, and it's what makes it a much better reading and learning experience.

The title is a play on words from Truman Capote's groundbreaking In Cold Blood, a book whose fame is derived from the author's innovative mingling of fact and novelization. Each of the interviews in In Cold Sweat is prefaced by a beautifully detailed introduction that sums up the artist's background, importance and the particulars of how the interview was set up and conducted. The intros are told as first person short stories, each packed with detail and wit. On meeting Devo's Jerry Casale, Wictor writes "The restaurant was very upscale, with a large rear patio and clouds of hovering waiters. In my T-shirt and jeans, I was not just out of place but caused the staff actual pain." Attempting to begin the formal interview itself, he notes "I decided that I was losing valuable material, so I fumbled my recorder out during one of his remarks. I knew I'd done it too abruptly, but I was tormented by a gnawing urge to flee. The waiters would simply not back off; my head was being scorched by a nearby gas heater; and the buttery, fishy pizza was so rich I was nauseated after the first bite. Also, I could tell that I was blabbering incontinently. Starting the interview was the only way to shut me up."

I love how Thomas Wictor writes. His clarity, brevity, insight and simple honesty are inspiring, as in more writers should be inspired to write at his level. Nothing is forced, especially the humor, which can kill a book good and dead. I imagine he would also do well writing plays.

The four musicians interviewed are Gene Simmons of KISS, Peter Hook of New Order and Joy Division, Jerry Casale of Devo and Scott Thunes of Frank Zappa fame. Thunes also recorded and toured with Fear. To sum up each person:

Gene Simmons is a misogynist and nihilist partly by nature and partly by professional design. He's well read and speaks clearly. It's surprising how attuned he is to marketing himself and working every angle to make more money. Here, in 1996, he's pushing the Gene Simmon's bass guitar. Later KISS marketed specialty funeral caskets. He's retained the aggression of his Middle Eastern upbringing and is deeply affected by what the Holocaust did to his family. He’s a very complicated man who makes a fortune selling cartoonish simplicity to idiots. Good for him.

Peter Hook is disinterested in his own fame and admits he can't tune his bass, can't play the songs he writes and can't sing and play at the same time. He sees the instrument as a means to an end and doesn't even consider himself a bass player. He makes a good point of saying "Never meet your heroes", which can sometimes lead to a disappointment that can ruin the music that made this person your hero in the first place. The interview ends with Wictor noting "As the perfect capper to the situation, Mr. Hook possessed an inexhaustible supply of intestinal gas, which he vented at ninety-second intervals. Between these eruptions, he unselfconsciously cleaned his nostrils with his fingers and deposited the findings on his socks. An article I read as part of my worthless preparation claimed that he'd urinated into a mug during one interview and tried to make someone drink it, so while we were together, I kept an eye on his socks and devised procedures for getting past him to the door." Meet your heroes, indeed, and I love how he refers to snot as "the findings".

Jerry Casale looks like Dave Thomas of Second City Television. It's obvious he was the driving force behind "De-Evolution" and religiously beat a fun gimmick into a tired dogma. He's a smart fellow but his nerdish rage might have tempered his impact.  I think this quote is just damn funny: "I'm sure Mariah Carey in the end has a great instrument, her voice, with the dumbest fugging material I've ever heard. Wouldn't it be great to hear her sing a real fugging song?" You get the impression he has less to show for his work than he might or should. Casale is a lefty who learned bass on a right-handed instrument. As a result, his left-handed bass is strung upside down. He claims the robotic riff of "Satisfaction" was his attempt at a reggae beat.

Scott Thunes' interview is the longest, and even though he's the least well known his interview is the most fascinating in terms of personality assessment. Here's a guy who can't get along with other musicians, to say it mildly, yet he's always had girlfriends, friends, and now a loving wife. He's some kind of madman genius who can't conform his talent and can't stand conformity imposed on his art. He's his own worst enemy and it's hard to feel sorry for the guy. Yet you do, because deep down inside he wants to get along with everyone. He admits to being an ass one minute and then he's genuinely hurt that he's not liked. It's like his talent is the Jeckyll to his Hyde. His technical knowledge is astounding. He refers to himself in the third person and talks about his "personal voice" as if it's his invisible friend. He’s he's done some recording since this 1996 interview, and I'd love to know what he's up to today. Here's the guy Prozac was invented for. Thunes' wife designed the author's web site, which is at http://www.thomaswictor.com

I e-mailed the author asking why the title makes no reference to the fact the book is about bass players. His response was "I personally wanted to avoid referencing bass playing on the cover because I was afraid that the general public might have the same reaction as an unnamed record company executive when he was pitched a solo album by the late bass virtuoso Jaco Pastorius: 'A bass player album? What's next, an accordion player album?' I thought '"Really Scary Musicians' sounded better than 'Really Scary Bass Players.”

The pages of In Cold Sweat almost turn themselves, and it's nothing like any other set of interviews you've ever read. It's as much about the process of interviewing as it is about the results. I highly recommend this book.

Last Gang In Town: The Story And Myth Of The Clash - Marcus Gray (book review) (Henry Holt): Marcus Gray’s book on The Clash, punk’s first famously political band, tries too hard to transcend the material to make grand statements about punk as sociological and cultural phenomena. Much more serious than your typical band history (It looked like our boys were headed straight to the Top Of The Pops!!!), Gray sets out to paint an accurate picture of the bands and conditions that came together to create the ’74 -’77 UK punk scene. Choosing as his angle the ying /yang of Truth and Myth, he’s good at dissecting general punk myths but