Eatin' Crow, Staying Positive

Going to veer from the stated Purpose-of-Blog for a sec:

The new Hold Steady album is so good it makes me feel bad about snotty things I may have said about the previous ones.

It is like a Midwestern Decoration Day.

Like Cameron's dad's car, it is so choice.

In short, it is eight thirty in the morning and I've already listened to it all the way through.

A Reason to Go to Claremont, CA

This summer at the Claremont Museum of Art, Vexing: Female Voices from East L.A. Punk:

Taking its name from the all-ages music club The Vex, once housed within East Los Angeles’ Self Help Graphics and Art, Vexing is an historical investigation of the women who were at the forefront of this movement of experimentation in music, art, culture and politics, while exploring their lasting legacies and contemporary practices.

I watched The Decline of Western Civilization tonight, which served only to remind me that the L.A. punk scene was 90% stupid and/or hate-mongering hacks. Fortunately, X and The Bags were in there (members from each are taking part in Vexing), ably representing the 10% that was awesome.

I Never Travel Far Without a Little Big Star

Alex Chilton turns 57 today. How does he stay so damn good-looking?



I plan to put on Like Flies on Sherbert later tonight, and listen to his wonderfully depressing, slurry cover of "Boogie Shoes."

The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting by Jim Walsh

The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting by Jim Walsh

It's incredibly tempting to allow this review to devolve into a shortlist of my favorite personal recollections about the Replacements. In fact, the only thing holding me back is the knowledge that everybody latches onto the same things about the Replacements, and has the same sorts of insights.

I know this for a fact because I wrote an essay about them in college, before all those Replacements essays and personal narratives were easily available on the internet. I wrote the thing in a freakin' vacuum, and although it was judged good, and published in this compilation of the year's best essays written at my school and I still think it has some nice stuff in it, it sounds exactly like every other essay that has ever been written about the Replacements.

Walsh's book, however, does not. Sure, there's a healthy sprinkling of stories from people whose big brothers and sisters passed down their 'Mats mix tapes, and people who saw a show or two; however, most of the book's interviews come from folks who were there, who knew the band, and who helped them along on the way up. It's a Twin Cities townie kind of book, and Walsh's interviews soak up that mid-80s so uncool it's cool Midwestern indie rock vibe that never really ended.

Words from Paul, Tommy, and clearly, Bob, are clipped from previously published interviews; however, there are plenty of good bits from Chris Mars and Slim Dunlap, both of whom come across as thoughtful, diplomatic, stand-up guys. Others interviewed extensively for the book include Twin/Tone founders Peter Jesperson and Paul Stark, Soul Asylum guitarist and founder Danny Murphy, band friends and family members, and Alex Chilton, who is, oddly enough, pleasant as punch and talkative, to boot.

Does the whole story get told? Of course not. It probably never will be, but All Over But the Shouting is just about everything a fan could ask of an unauthorized Replacements book. Besides, a girl's gotta have some mystery.

Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Groupies: Let's Spend the Night Together by Pamela Des Barres

Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies by Pamela Des Barres

Throughout Let's Spend the Night Together, there's a tone of sadness and nostalgia for a lost time. The groupies, past and present, that Des Barres interviews for the book lament that there are no longer "famous" groupies, that rock stars date models and movie stars, not fans, and that perhaps, the golden age of the groupie is over.

Between Des Barres previous memoirs and Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, there's a case to be made that the groupies of the 60s and 70s were not garden variety skanks, so much as rock courtesans, vulnerable to a great deal of heartbreak and abuse, but also not utterly disposable.

The book is organized semi-chronologically, beginning with interviews with groupie greats like Cherry Vanilla, Catherine James, and Cynthia Plaster Caster. Then Des Barres moves into the considerably darker 70s, populated by the underage set like Lori Maddix and Sable Starr, and the aging groupies who fell into drug addiction and domestic abuse. After reading Maddix's chapter, you will never look at David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Jimmy Page the same way again -- they should all be in jail.

As the book goes on, things get even less romantic and more depressing, and it becomes very apparent how far the groupie has fallen. Whatever one may think of the choices these women made, it's understandable how one could take some sort of pride in being able to say, "I slept with Jimi Hendrix," or "I slept with Keith Moon." It is, in any case, more impressive than saying, "I slept with the drummer from Slipknot."

Some of the women interviewed are very sympathetic, and some have great stories to tell. Tura Satana, Cynthia Plaster Caster, and Cassandra Peterson (better known as Elvira) are particularly interesting. Also fun are the interviews with the women who got out relatively unscathed and relate their groupie pasts with a shrug and a smile. These tend to be the ones who always had something creative or meaningful going on the side, and are now quite successful in their careers and personal lives.

But even the most well-adjusted among them has a horror story or two to tell. Pat Travers is a jerk, Tom Jones is a monster, and Led Zeppelin were full-out evil. Surprisingly, Gene Simmons comes out rather the gentleman.

However, one of the most train wreck draws of the book is the narration of Des Barres herself. Obviously an intelligent, funny, and sweet woman, she is also clueless, and happily unaware of exactly how clueless she is. Gail Zappa, a woman who essentially stayed married to Frank by playing perpetual hostess, taking care of the house, and waiting on him hand and foot, is set forth as the lucky woman who "became what we all wanted to be."

And Des Barres interviews the decidedly unglamorous Connie Hamzy (immortalized in Grand Funk Railroad's "We're an American Band" and in the Spin article "Oldest Living Confederate Groupie Tells All") with a scarcely veiled contempt. Despite the fact that Hamzy shared a great many of Des Barres's conquests, Miss Pamela is anxious to distance herself from Sweet Connie's Arkansas drawl and willingness to service everyone from rock stars to roadies. When it serves her purposes, Des Barres sells herself as a wild child, but when it doesn't, she emphasizes her long-term relationships with rockers, and characterizes herself as a young girl who had her heart broken. Maybe both sides of the story are true, but geez, to be able to turn it on and off like a tap....

In any case, the anecdotal evidence this book offers about the groupie's decline heartens me, and I say, let the groupies of the 60s and 70s have their wacky stories and write memoirs about them, and let the misogynist nu metal bands have their girls gone wild.

And let the rest of us go about our business, periodically stopping to gawk at them.

Ernest Withers, 1922-2007

Memphis photographer Ernest Withers passed away this week at the age of 85. Instead of flowers, his family has requested donations that will be used to preserve and restore his astounding body of work: Ernest C. Withers Sr. Historical Photographic Foundation, P.O. Box 152, Memphis, TN, 38101

Withers's photographs documented the heyday and the last days of Negro League baseball, the Beale Street music scene, and the Civil Rights movement, including the Emmett Till murder trial, the integration of Central High School, and the 1968 sanitation workers' strike in Memphis.

Collections of his work include:

Negro League Baseball (2004)
The Memphis Blues Again: Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs (2001)
Let Us March On!: Selected Civil Rights Photographs of Ernest C. Withers, 1955-1968 (1992)

More of his work can be seen at Panopticon.

The Holy Grail of Indie Rock Oral Histories

Last night, after wresting her birthday presents out of me on the pretense that it was her birthday in the state where she was born, Mary turned to me with a gleam in her eye and let drop the single greatest bit of literary/rock and roll news since Levon Helm sat down to call out Robbie Robertson for being such a goon: the forthcoming publication of Jim Walsh's The Replacements: All Over but the Shouting, An Oral History.

Judging from the pictures and the sample pages at the Voyageur Press website, I think that we are all in for some cracking good yarns.

My favorite quotes so far, from the sample pages:

Peter Buck (REM): "More people bring that up to me than anything else. And I mean way more than anything else: You played on 'I Will Dare.' What was that like?"

Bob Stinson, on repaying REM for taking Our Heros on tour: "They did give us like beer and we'd wait until they'd go on stage and. . .their dressing rooms - there was no lock, boys. We ate all their food and drank their booze. They're like doing one of their real pretty hit songs and we're just sitting there drinking their booze. And they're playing in front of a thousand people. You can't stop and come and grab it from us. We really had mean fun with them."

Clapton Is Godawful

Here's a rock and roll memoir you probably never expected: Pattie "Layla" Boyd-Harrison-Clapton hits the shelves in a few weeks with Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me.

I don't expect anyone to come out of this book smelling like a rose, but my money's on Clapton for being the true stinker, having basically stolen George Harrison's wife. Granted, George didn't seem to get the whole "matrimony means no extra girlfriends" thing, but writing and recording a song about your best friend's wife is just tacky.*

The Daily Mail has an excerpt here. I especially like the part where Clapton tells her, "Run away with me or I'll start doing smack" and then spends the next three years on the nod.

Classy.

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* Also, "Layla" is kind of an overrated song, if ya ask me. Blah blah "got me on my knees" noodley-noodle, wanky-wank, LAYYYYYYYlla, piano outro and fin. It's no "London Calling" or "Born to Run" is all I'm sayin.

Contest: Patterson Hood Commemorative Lyric Bonanza

Once upon a time, in Muscle Shoals Alabama, there was a cookin' house band, and they had this sound. Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Clarence Carter, Willie Nelson, Skynyrd...the list goes on and on...made some of the finest records ever put to wax at 3614 Jackson Hwy.

Fast forward a generation or so: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Session bassist David Hood's son, Patterson Hood, and the Drive-By Truckers release a string of albums - Gangstabilly, Pizza Deliverance, Southern Rock Opera, Decoration Day, The Dirty South, and A Blessing and a Curse - that put their contemporaries to shame and stand with the best of both the 70s golden age of southern rock and the 90s alt-country boom.

What can I say? Grotesque/hilarious short stories? Dense and nigh-impenetrable novels? Great songs? We sure can write good.

So, in honor of the boys (and lady) from Alabama, we're having the Hood/Cooley/Isbell DBT Songwriter's Contest.

Your job is to post in the comments the best line (or few lines) you can find from an artist from Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana. It can be blues, jazz, country, whatever - the lesser known, the better; that way, we'll all be winners, as you'll introduce us to some band we've never heard of. (Bonus points will also be awarded for rare/late-career but still great/album-only tracks from more established artists.) Maybe say a bit about the band or artist as well. Heck, if you want to post a link to some songs of theirs, that's cool too.

There's a prize, too.

Difficulty: DBT and John Murry & Bob Frank are off limits, for the obvious reason where the former are concerned, and because I'm friends with the latter, and would never hear the end of it if John's writing didn't win.

This Wheel's Highly Readable

"Hey, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I'm certainly not the dumbest. I mean, I've read books like The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Love in the Time of Cholera, and I think I've understood them. They're about girls, right? Just kidding. But I have to say my all-time favorite book is Johnny Cash's autobiography Cash by Johnny Cash." -- Rob Gordon, High Fidelity

Books about music are funny beasts. Writing a book and writing a song are two radically different undertakings, and just because you can compose a perfect three and a half minute ode to, I dunno, cars or girls or something, doesn't make you Joseph Conrad. (Don't believe me? Read DeeDee Ramones's memoir. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but whooooboy. I think his ghostwriter was Peeves.)

This is why Levon Helm's autobiography, This Wheel's On Fire, was such a pleasant surprise. (At this point I'd like to give a shout-out to my good friend Bob Koch, who gave me a copy when I was in Madison a couple weeks ago. Bob has also introduced me to Ross MacDonald, Joe R. Landsdale, and numerous excellent but forgotten garage bands. Hey Bob!)

Helms's memoir, which begins with his childhood in Arkansas and finishes up around the time he started acting in films like Coalminer's Daughter, is primarily concerned with his time in the Hawks and the Band. Surprisingly, it's the Hawks chapters that may be the most interesting: full of tall tales, brushes with the law, irresponsible driving, Canadian roadhouses, the mob, and the irrepressible Ronnie Hawkins, these chapters capture the tiny victories and lunatic behavior that rock and roll bands get up to on the road.

I laughed aloud in several places, and bugged Mary incessantly with "And one time? Levon and Robbie parked the car on the train tracks and left the bass player inside, and then they waited for a train, and when the train whistle blew, they started screaming that they couldn't get the car to start, which gave the bass player a nasty start, and why are you walking away from me when I'm in the middle of a story?"

When the book moves on into the Band years, it gets pretty sad in places. Richard Manuel, in particular, is tragic. And Robbie Robertson certainly doesn't come off well, though he disputes some of what Helm wrote, allegedly downplaying the role of the rest of the group in crafting "Big Pink" and "The Band" and making a ton of money off what Helms feels should have simply been split five ways. (I'm inclined to side with Levon on this one.) Watching a group as great as the Band fall prey to the usual rock and roll demons - booze, drugs, money - is about as much fun, at times, as watching Superman tie one on and moon the Pope.

That said, Helms' book is now my all time, top five, favorite music memoir ever. I highly, highly recommend it if you are at all a fan of the Rock and/or Roll.

Biting Off More Than I Can Chew

Good music is, of course, essential to a blogathon. In this, we are particularly lucky, as the Gulf Coast is full of good musicians. We've got a steady diet of Professor Longhair, the Meters, the Twilight Singers*, and a variety of other great jazz, blues, dixieland, and southern rock stacked up by the turntable, and as soon as the downstairs neighbors are up and about, I'm cranking up the new Jason Isbell record.

Notice I do not live on the Gulf Coast at the moment, and am thus making no claims as to "goodness".

Undaunted, as Mary mentioned below, I've dared myself to write (mostly) and record a quick little ditty today between posts. For this I have assembled:

2 guitars (electric)
1 dobro
1 lap steel
1 bass (electric)
1 snare drum
3 harmonicas (none in the correct key for this tune...dangit)
1 tape four track
1 microphone
a jumble of cords
a washboard
a mouth harp
a kazoo
a bunch of percussive stuff (hammers, boxes, etc)
a chintzy 80s keyboard

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got lyrics to write.

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* The Twilight Singers were in the middle of recording their most recent full length when the hurricane hit New Orleans. Undaunted, they fired up the generators and kept going. That, friends, is rock and roll.

Joe Strummer Knows Somethin'. Joe Strummer Knows EVERYTHING!!!*

When Joe Strummer passed away in 2002, I felt the weird mass-mediated punch in the gut that members of my generation were supposed to have felt when a certain resident of Seattle punched his own ticket eight years prior.** Joe Strummer made great music, fought the good fight, and seemed to be a genuinely decent human being. He's one of my (very few) heroes and - to borrow a line from Opus the penguin - "Joe Strummer isn't supposed to end."

Anyways, Popmatters has a series of excerpts from the new Strummer bio by Chris Salewicz.

You can check out part one here.

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* In case you were wondering, the title of this post refers to the final rhetorical flourish of a rather one-sided shouting match (re: the function of criticism) I once witnessed between Robbie Fulks and John Murry. It's become a phrase that we use here at the home office when someone is losing an argument, but is nevertheless right about whatever it was that they are arguing about.
** I had just discovered the first two Big Star records when Nevermind came out, which probably explains why I never much cared for grunge. Also, Mobile is too damn hot for flannel.

The Music of Your Life

Petal Pusher: A Rock and Roll Cinderella Story by Laurie Lindeen

While I'd never listened to Zuzu's Petals before reading this book, I knew who they were for two reasons. First, because I knew that their lead singer (our author) was married to Paul Westerberg. Second, because I lived in Madison for a time, and everyone over the age of 30 who lives in Madison has a lot of good Minneapolis music scene stories*, some of them involving Zuzu's Petals.

Madison is a small city, but to hear it told, it experienced a sort of musical golden age in the 1990s. One of the first things anyone told me when I moved there was, "It's too bad you didn't get here when O'Cayz was still around." As the logical first or last stop on any Minneapolis band's tour itinerary, the good people of Madison, Wisconsin were bound to get the show where the band was fresh-faced and excited, or the one where they were unwashed, strung-out, and liable to go at any time. These are easily the two best shows on any tour.

Lindeen was a Madison townie who wound up at the University of Wisconsin because her school's guidance counselor had no idea how to send a student anywhere else. She flunked out several times, and left for Minneapolis without a degree, but with the burning desire in her heart to start an all-girl rock and roll band. Never mind that she didn't play the guitar, and her only musical experience involved singing second alto in the school choir.

She enlisted her college buddy, Colleen, to play bass, and the two set about finding a drummer. However, before Lindeen's band materialized, she was diagnosed with MS, which left her legally blind in one eye and largely immobile on her left side. While waiting for the disease's manifestations to go into remission, a friend brought her an electric guitar to help with the boredom of rehab and convalescence. This was, Lindeen writes, a sign.

Gradually, the stars aligned for the band. They found a drummer and a practice space and, courtesy of It's a Wonderful Life, a name. From here, Lindeen's narrative follows the gruesome and undertold story of a nobody band paying their dues**. Disasterous tours, lechy sound guys, indifferent audiences, and booking types who view all-girl acts as a novelty, or during this height of the Riot Grrrl movement, some shock rock divas liable to whip out tampons onstage or punch out the club owner. But Zuzu's Petals was not that kind of band. They were Midwestern girls with manners, a beer and pot band in a heroin age.

While I didn't always like the time-hopping narrative structure of the book, I started it last night and finished it this morning even though I had other things I desperately needed to be doing. Lindeen had me from the first chapter, where Carly Simon picks her up hitchhiking on Martha's Vineyard right through to the last shows when it officially Isn't Fun Anymore, Can We Go Home, Please.

Despite being the narrator of the story, Lindeen is very often unlikable in the book, surly when her bandmates are friendly and sweet; drunk when her boyfriends are sober. It's an unusual and sometimes off-putting choice, and yet I understood it. I have been the bad band member who complains on the road and makes everyone's life miserable. It can happen to anyone, and tomorrow, it will probably be the drummer. Rocking is great, but it does not necessarily bring out the best in people.

For Petal Pusher, I will haul out the book-describing phrase I like to use judiciously because it has become a victim of overuse -- compulsively readable. Seriously, I defy you to put it down unless you have to pee or something.

If you like...: horror stories about bands on the road like Blake Nelson's Rock Star SuperStar, Goodnight, Steve McQueen, Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, or that awesome VH1 show from the golden summer of 2001, Bands on the Run, this book is for you.
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* Like, I knew a guy who was once hired to "keep an eye on" Tommy Stinson before a show.
** You might say, "That story's not undertold, it's in every band biography I read." But bear in mind that those band biographies usually end with sold-out shows and Jonathan Demme making a movie about you. This is more like the Bull Durham of rock and roll biographies.

Trying Hard Against Unbelievable Odds

Big Star: The Short Life, Painful Death, and Unexpected Resurrection of the Kings of Power Pop by Rob Jovanovic

In 1972, Big Star released #1 Record, a flawlessly written and recorded power pop gem. They seemed poised to become one of the decade's biggest and most critically acclaimed bands, but then suddenly, they weren't.

Blame it on the band's drug and alcohol abuse, problems with the record's distribution and promotion, or just trying to play 3 minute songs in an era of self-indulgent noodling and bloated arena rock - Big Star was simply the right band in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Jovanovic's book is the first to take a comprehensive stab at unraveling Big Star's history, as well as the myths that have surrounded it: the notorious recording sessions for Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers; guitarist/vocalist Chris Bell's tragic and mysterious death in 1978; and Alex Chilton's self-imposed exile from music in the 1980s to wash dishes in New Orleans.

The first chapter made me nervous, as Jovanovic's writing is not strong. However, he got great interviews, and lets the likes of Jim Dickinson, Andy Hummel, and John Fry do most of the telling. The result is thoroughly illuminating without dipping into sensationalism. It's likely that some of Big Star's mysteries will always remain that - Chilton is obsessively private, and those who knew Chris Bell are tight-lipped about his alleged homosexuality, as well as the possibility that his death was a suicide. It's probably better that way, less tawdry and tell-all.*

The core of Big Star was four Memphis guys. However, when you add in the Memphis frat and garage rock bands the members rattled around in before joining up, their subsequent efforts, and the slew of bands they influenced**, the cast of characters here can be a little daunting unless you know a little about the band already. Then again, if you don't, it's doubtful you'd be picking up this book anyway.

If you liked...: This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of the Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century by David Bowman, or Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad, this book is for you.
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* However, there is one question I'm glad this book answered. Chris Bell went to my alma mater, and there was always this legend that he'd submitted #1 Record for his final project in a class. This turns out to be completely true.
** The Replacements, R.E.M., Matthew Sweet, Cheap Trick - the Velvet Underground has nothing on Big Star.

Where the Boys Are

Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota by Chuck Klosterman

Let's go back in time to 1991. In Mobile, Alabama, an adolescent Brady was hunched over a guitar in his bedroom trying to figure out how to play Big Star, Teenage Fanclub, and Booker T & the MGs songs. Meanwhile, somewhere in western Pennsylvania, the big-haired, acid-washed jeans-wearing girl who would later become his wife was playing her Zeppelin records backwards and slow dancing to Skid Row's "I Remember You" at the YMCA.

Sure, in 1992, I would start listening to The Replacements, and gradually wean myself off of Warrant, but my love for the heavy stuff never quite went away. So, at first glance, Chuck Klosterman's book was most definitely for me.

Fargo Rock City has some truly inspired moments, such as the "jack factor" chapter, wherein Klosterman creates a list explaining how much money he would have to be paid never to listen to specific metal records again, and why. This stems from a mistrust of "essential records of (insert musical genre here)" lists, because no record is truly "essential" and if you were really stranded on a desert island, you'd want a screwdriver and potable water, not a stack of Radiohead albums.

Also nice is the chapter where Klosterman explains the use of satanic imagery in heavy metal, and why Marilyn Manson is kind of brilliant ("It was easy for a vocal minority to turn drugs into the postmodern Lucifer... However, Marilyn Manson was the first metal guy smart enough to capitalize on a new era in spook rock: In the 21st century, Satan can be smoked, snorted, and shot").*

So, reading this book was like being told that everything I thought about music in the 8th grade was not only right, it was genius. And I like being told that I was cool in 8th grade, because in reality, I was probably not, and wouldn't have been regardless of whether I was listening to Paula Abdul or AC/DC.

But, if you're going to write a book about heavy metal, at some point, you're going to have to address gender, and here is where Klosterman fumbles big time.

(BIG DISCLAIMER: This beef encompasses a mere two chapters in a book I otherwise thoroughly enjoyed. So let's not throw the Warrant out with the Whitesnake.)**

First, he sets up straw phalluses like the Whitesnake video for "Here I Go Again," then seems to expect brownie points for pointing out that it's sexist. The conclusion he comes to on the whole issue of sexism in heavy metal is: "Life makes art. Life makes heavy metal. To attack sexism in the latter is no different from pretending it doesn't exist in the former."

As an argument, this is about as convincing as saying, "Since God created man, and man made the Transformers, the Transformers are like a gift from God."*** Klosterman is just side-stepping the question.

However, this is not my main problem with the book. My main problem with the book is Klosterman's barely concealed contempt for female metal fans (or music fans for that matter). He seems to believe that men are somehow hard-wired for band loyalty, while women are fickle, mindlessly squealing for the next flavor of the month. At one point, he says, "Bands who depend on support from females inevitably crash and burn." Sure, this may be true of bands who depend on support from teenage females, but then, those groups aren't even "bands."

About six years ago, I wrote an essay about how female rock and roll fans are regarded. It was late one night, and I was feeling crabby about some lyrics in a Who song. I buried it in the blog here, because it's kind of long, but you can read it if you wanna. It sums up all my feelings about Fargo Rock City and gender.

That aside, if you ever slow danced to Skid Row at the YMCA and liked it, or played your Zeppelin records backwards, or knew all the words to "You Shook Me All Night Long" without actually knowing what they all meant, this book is for you.
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* I firmly believe that the cautionary video Hell's Bells: The Dangers of Rock N' Roll created far more metal fans than it deterred.
** "Down Boys" is a really good song.
*** Thank you again, Clerks 2

Way Down in This Subbacultcha

Fool the World: The Oral History of a Band Called Pixies by Josh Frank and Caryn Ganz

I started listening to the Pixies around the same time I started listening to the Replacements, which is to say, about ten minutes after they broke up. From that point on, I've always felt that I missed out on quite a bit of rock and roll fun by not having been born about eight years earlier than I was. That, and say, maybe having grown up in Boston or Minneapolis instead of western Pennsylvania.

The time and place in which the Pixies found themselves was kind of an odd one, in good ways and bad. On the one hand, the music industry hadn't gotten completely disgusting yet. On the other, by making records in the years before grunge, the Pixies wound up in that thankless Velvet Underground role of influencing practically every decent band in the 90s, and making very little money while they were actually together.

Fool the World is most interesting when its subjects are talking about the Pixies' early years - how they met, the Boston scene, their first studio recordings, first European tour, etc. What's especially funny is how almost everyone interviewed, from tour managers to record label folks to studio engineers remarks upon what a "polite" and "normal" group of people they were. Kim Deal used to come to gigs straight from her office job and play songs like "Caribou" dressed like a secretary, and Charles Thompson (aka Black Francis) called everyone "sir."

The years leading up to the Pixies' break-up are pretty well documented and much speculated upon. In this book, it's all much less dramatic, which makes sense, because the story isn't that interesting. Bands break up all time, usually for about the same reason - it's not fun anymore. This part of the book is handled very matter-of-factly, and without any gossip or sensationalism. And finally, there's a nice section on the Pixies reunion tours and a "where are they now" chapter on all the folks who helped the band out over the years.

If you're a Pixies fan, this is a no-brainer, but if you like...: oral music histories like Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk or band biographies that are all about the music like Guided By Voices: A Brief History, this book is for you, too.
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As a postscript, I tried to restrain myself, but my love of making Top Five lists is entirely too strong. Five best Pixies songs:

HM: Letter to Memphis, Monkey Gone to Heaven
5. Gouge Away
4. Holiday Song
3. Debaser
2. Dig for Fire
1. Bone Machine

Rich People Died

The Hollywood Book of Death by James Robert Parrish
Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story by Chuck Klosterman

A few years back, I worked as a volunteer manager for a traveling Titanic exhibit, and each and every weekend, thousands of well-fed tourists poured into the Memphis Pyramid to gawk at stuff, and generally make my life miserable. One day, after a particularly grueling shift during which a visitor handed me a headset, and said, "I threw up on this," I was complaining bitterly to a friend, and asked, "Why? Why do people insist on being interested in this gruesome spectacle?" She shrugged and said, "Rich people died."

And there you have it. So long as rich people die, people will insist on being interested in it, gawking at it, and books will be published about it. Bad experience aside, I am forced to admit that I, being no more noble than anyone else, am also interested in celebrity deaths. And living in Los Angeles, I certainly have access to a number of them. I can go to the Viper Room where River Phoenix overdosed or to the Biltmore Hotel, the last place Elizabeth "The Black Dahlia" Short was seen alive. Heck, if I walk four houses down from mine, I can see up into the apartment where a washed-up silent film star named Karl Dane blew his head off.

The Hollywood Book of Death is pretty straightforward - brief biographies of the famous, the obscure, and the tragic. The book is divided into chapters including "Drugs and Alcohol," "Murders," "Puzzling Deaths," and "Accidental Deaths," but despite its sensational subtitle, "The Bizarre and Often Sordid Passings of More Than 125 American Movie and TV Idols," the biggest hunk of the book is given over to "Natural Causes."

In addition to being sometimes sordid, it's a pretty well-researched little book that includes lots of tidbits I never knew (e.g. John Barrymore's drinking buddies Errol Flynn and Raoul Walsh swiped the body and played a little Weekend At Bernie's with it) and debunks lots of gossip I'd always believed (e.g. Jayne Mansfield was not, in fact, decapitated - her wig came off).

Killing Yourself To Live differs from The Hollywood Book of Death most significantly by not being remotely about what it purports to be about. Theoretically, Klosterman is on assignment with Spin, embarking on a whirlwind road trip across the United States to visit the sites of notable rock n' roll deaths. But pretty quickly, he realizes that nobody at the Chelsea Hotel wants to answer any more questions about what happened between Sid and Nancy in Room 100, that the swamp where Skynyrd's plane went down is infested with cottonmouths, and that when you go to the beanfield where the music died, there's really not a whole lot you can do except stand around in a beanfield.

As a result, Klosterman's whole experiment devolves into a memoir of music he's loved, women he's loved and lost, and sometimes both at the same time. At one point, he realizes that he is best able to understand the role that these women played in his life by casting them as various members of KISS. Hey, we've all done it (although maybe not with KISS).

Is this more than a little self-indulgent? You betcha. Does that make it a bad book? Not by a long shot. Klosterman perfectly captures what it's like to be in your early 20s, and even more perfectly, how hard it is to remember what that time was like once you're no longer in your early 20s, except that it was depressing, spent shiftlessly, and probably wasted on you. The book is quirky and funny, and filled with the kind of thoughts you have on a long car trip by yourself, if you are a music geek. How do I feel about Rod Stewart? Why does everyone go through a Led Zeppelin phase? What motivated Eric Clapton to steal his best friend's wife? Things like that.

If you want a celebrity fix, and are feeling shameless about it, go for The Hollywood Book of Death, but if you want to get some poignant reflection and pop culture nostalgia out of the deal, Killing Yourself To Live should be just the ticket.

Nothing Else Behaves Like Me

Guided By Voices: A Brief History: Twenty-One Years of Hunting Accidents in the Forests of Rock and Roll by James Greer

The Goods: Guided By Voices was, for all practical purposes, a rock and roll band from Dayton, Ohio led by a former elementary school teacher named Bob Pollard. They are best known for their prolific output, their absurdly short songs with nonsensical yet strangely evocative lyrics, their constantly rotating line-up, their electrifying live shows, and their love of beer.

Bands as the subject of biography tend to fall somewhere within what I like to think of as the 'VH1 Behind the Music Go-Go's to Goo Goo's Rock Scandal Continuum.' At one end of the spectrum you have bands whose appeal as the subject of documentary lies largely in their drug habits and abuse of groupies. At the other end, you have the drama that focuses on in-fighting and getting screwed over by one's record label.

Both are appealing, in their way, although the drugs are usually more interesting.

Guided By Voices falls somewhere in the middle of said Continuum, having nothing that qualifies as a true SCANDAL on either side, but flirtations with both. That said, if you pick up the book thinking, "Oooh, Guided By Voices. I hear they drank a lot and fought with Kim Deal, and Bob Pollard kicked people out of the band just for looking at him funny," you will be sorely disappointed.

Sure, there are tons of great 'drink was involved' stories. It's just that they're probably not much crazier than your own 'drink was involved' stories. And I suppose that is part of the great appeal of Guided By Voices - the sense that despite their brilliance as musicians, you might have done a kegstand with them in high school.

If you're looking for high throttle Cobain-style drama, this is not the place. However, if you are the kind of person who enjoys having a few pitchers with friends and debating the exact moment that Matador began to go downhill or whether "Sweet Child of Mine" or "Welcome to the Jungle" is, in fact, the finer Guns N' Roses song, this book is for you.

And, by the way, the correct answer is "Sweet Child of Mine."

Lust For Life

Punk Rock Aerobics: 75 Killer Moves, 50 Punk Classics, and 25 Reasons To Get Off Your Ass and Exercise by Maura Jasper and Hilken Mancini

The Goods: The title pretty much sums it up. Apparently, these broads were a couple of hard-drinking, chain-smoking, flabby 30-somethings who one day got the brilliant idea to become licensed aerobics instructors. Once certified, they started offering punk rock aerobics classes in the beer-soaked basement of the Middle East restaurant in Boston. The book contains a ton of moves that are easy to follow and fun to do in your living room, interviews with indie rock types like Mike Watt, John Doe, and Thurston Moore, and goofy pictures, including one of J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. doing a move called the "Face Down Butt Lift." The best part is making yourself a workout mix on iTunes, all the while thinking, "Oh dear... if Richard Hell knew what I was doing with 'Love Comes In Spurts,' he'd never stop throwing up."

Thoughts: The Los Angeles Marathon is this weekend, and I was checking their website for street closures when I discovered that walkers are allowed to enter the race. This gave me an idea. Because while I am fairly certain that I could not run 26.2 miles, really, I am only interested in being able to say to people, "Did you know I finished a marathon?"

So 2007 Los Angeles Marathon... here I come, with a little help from Maura, Hilken, and Iggy. Maybe I'll even be able to run, like, a quarter of it.

If you like...: the general idea of exercise, but feel that fitness has been co-opted by loathsome, bouncy-haired women who do not sweat, look pert and kicky in athletic shorts, and seem perfectly at ease doing the grapevine step, this book is for you.

He Did It All*

In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. by Wil Haygood

Tonight at the 78th Academy Awards, Hollywood got defensive. Although they cut off the producer of the Best Picture winner in the middle of her speech, time was set aside for a montage of epic films, the purpose of which was, I guess, to convince viewers at home that Netflix is a poor substitute for paying $10 to sit in uncomfortable chairs and eat cold popcorn with strangers.

After saluting his fellow nominees, George Clooney went on to get defensive about Hollywood's politics in his acceptance speech. And I was right on board until he lauded the Academy for giving Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 "when blacks were still sitting in the back of theatres." Apparently, Hattie McDaniel was initially seated in the back of the room the year she won the award (the producer of Gone With the Wind eventually arranged for her to be moved to a better table). I appreciate the sentiment behind Clooney's speech, but let's not kid ourselves and say that Hollywood is a great place to be a black actor.

Take a look at Sammy Davis, Jr., arguably the greatest performer and entertainer of the 20th century. His talents were limitless - actor, singer, comedian, impersonator, drummer, and dancer. He was the most literate member of the Rat Pack by a long shot, yet he never attended a day of school in his life. And Hollywood was not exactly sweet to him.

Haywood's biography doesn't spend much time on Davis's years with the Rat Pack, but treats extensively his lost childhood (he began performing in vaudeville shows when he was about 6), his Broadway career, and his struggles for acceptance in both the white and black community.

And Haywood's portrait (constructed out of exhaustive research and over 250 interviews) is not entirely flattering - Davis was immature, emotionally needy, insecure, a womanizer, an absent father, a spendthrift, a reluctant latecomer to the civil rights movement. But he was also generous, disciplined, and by all accounts, not a person who met him didn't instantly adore him. The best parts of the book detail Davis's stage performances. While it's no substitute for being in the audience at the Copacabana, the writing still leaves you breathless at the capacity of Davis's talent.

If you liked...: Rat Pack Confidential by Shawn Levy, Dorothy Dandridge by Donald Bogle, or books about the rise and fall of vaudeville, soft-shoe, and great nightclub performers, this book is for you.
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* Inscription on Davis's gravestone