Music (Books) For Airports

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I know there's a million threads on this already on the real ilx, but
I have a long flight coming up, and I want a music book to read - preferably of the good-time sleazeball rock genre. My favourites of the genre are The Dirt, Hammer Of The Gods, Hit Men, and Please Kill Me... I don't need to like the band to enjoy it, as long as its good and garbagey.

I'm thinking about:
The Wu Tang Manual
Can't Stop Won't Stop
Lords Of Chaos
Babes In Toyland: The Making And Selling Of A Rock N Roll Band
Kiss And Sell

― fritz wollner (fritz), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Sun Ra: Space is the Place

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:15 (seventeen years ago) link

(def second the Wu-Tang Manual - great book. kinda short for an airline ride tho)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:15 (seventeen years ago) link

okay Space is the Place is not "good and garbage-y" - sorry.

Instead I recommend the "Sly and the Family Stone: Off the Record" book. Best tell-all EVER. Sadly out of print also...

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:16 (seventeen years ago) link

I like the first three books quite a bit, but Lords of Chaos is really only tangentially about music.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:16 (seventeen years ago) link

X-Ray is pretty good as rock bios go.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:17 (seventeen years ago) link

tangentially about music is fine, perhaps preferred! i'm looking for dirt! and i haven't read any of the books i list at the end there, they're the ones I'm considering buying...

― fritz wollner (fritz), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:21 (seventeen years ago) link

the Dr. John bio "Under a Hooddoo Moon" is marvelously filthy (stories about dumping aborted fetuses, stealing heroin, etc.)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Well there is a lot of dirt in Lords of Chaos definitely.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link

yikes! those stories must be from the period when he did the theme to Blossom...

I wish I could find a copy of Black Monk Time - it's out of print

― fritz wollner (fritz), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:24 (seventeen years ago) link

by the way, I just read The Other Hollywood - Legs McNeil's oral history of porn... pretty entertaining

― fritz wollner (fritz), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:27 (seventeen years ago) link

ben watt's patient is very readable though not strictly about music (and possibly a painful read if you've known someone to be hospitalised recently)

― djh (djh), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:43 (seventeen years ago) link

I forget which one I read, but the Beach Boys books are THE sleaziest around. When you get to Charles Manson and Dennis dating Mike Love's daughter or whatever, while Brian lies in bed....

― dan selzer (dan selzer), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 19:59 (seventeen years ago) link

totally, and their crazy dad too... and Mike Love is suck a putz. Heroes & Villains is great.

― fritz wollner (fritz), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 20:02 (seventeen years ago) link

I bet that Anthony Kiedis biog is something.

― mcd (mcd), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 20:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Songs They Never Play On The Radio

― Hatch (Hatch), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 20:49 (seventeen years ago) link

"Can't Stop Won't Stop" is def. not of THE DIRT variety.

Nick Kent's "The Dark Stuff" is fun/dark/has THE DIRT.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver (hoosteen), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 22:39 (seventeen years ago) link

You are looking for Pamela Des Barres' I'm With The Band. Since you mentioned Hit Men, you also might like Fred Goodman's The Mansion on the Hill. More industry-dirt than band-dirt (though you get some of that too).

― dad a (dad a), Wednesday, 14 February 2007 22:54 (seventeen years ago) link

if you like disco and 70s history at all, i recommend Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco. admittedly, it is a bit of a fan's book (ie- if i hadn't already known a lot of the songs the book mentions, i would have been lost)). but still really good, and out in paperback! like $12 or $13.

― the table is the table (trees), Thursday, 15 February 2007 04:22 (seventeen years ago) link

only very tangentally related but a good book is "From A to B and back again", Andy Warhol's sort of autobiog. Seems kind of thematically suitable for airports also.
Am sick of getting out books that claim to be biogs of musicians, but are predominantly literary critique type analysis of the subjects lyrics. Just read a Lou Reed one along those lines.

― skooldog (skooldogg), Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:32 (seventeen years ago) link

This isn't about rock'n'roll, but it's a great, easy read. Basically it's just a collection of anecdotes of what people did during the glory days of acid house and rave, written in a wonderfully humorous way.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 15 February 2007 13:19 (seventeen years ago) link

i spent a fantastic couple of delayed-flight hours in barcelona airport accompnied by RIP IT UP AND START AGAIN by simon reynolds and a few beers. it's a *bit* sleazy in parts i guess.

― pisces (pisces), Thursday, 15 February 2007 13:23 (seventeen years ago) link

you want twisted personal history read TRansformer the Lou Reed bio by Victor Bockris a heart-tugging tale of superhuman drug abuse and exquisitely assholic manipulative behavior. I still like a lot of lou's music but if a quarter of this book is true -- and people like John Cale who know Lou say more than that is -- then he's gotta be one of the nastiest pricks of all time.

― mark coleman (lovebug ), Thursday, 15 February 2007 13:40 (seventeen years ago) link

"speeding or coking his brain pan shiny" haha lester you had no idea

― mark coleman (lovebug ), Thursday, 15 February 2007 13:41 (seventeen years ago) link

classic decadence:

David Lee Roth - Crazy From The Heat

and speaking of the Beach Boys:

Timothy White - The Nearest Faraway Place

and if you dig all things southern:

Stanley Booth - Rhythm Oil

tangentially-related-to-music bio:

Nick Tosches - Dino

― henry s (henry s), Thursday, 15 February 2007 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link

Up and Down With The Rolling Stones

― Outcast Lemon Mode (sandglocks), Thursday, 15 February 2007 19:32 (seventeen years ago) link

oooh I second Crazy From the Heat. Total airport read.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 15 February 2007 19:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Nick Tosches - Dio

― fritz wollner (fritz), Friday, 16 February 2007 03:33 (seventeen years ago) link

If it's sleaze you want Charles Mingus's Beneath the Underdog is pretty unbeatable. The guy's insane - can barely keep it in his pants.

― Stewart Smith (Stew), Friday, 16 February 2007 20:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Julian Cope's autobiographies - Head On and another one I can't remember the title of - have got plenty of acid-fuelled hilarity and band in-fighting.

― It's Expected I'm Maud Gonne (Modal Fugue), Friday, 16 February 2007 20:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Nick Tosches - Dino

Hellfire!!

The Bockris Reed-bio is certainly trash, but if I remember correctly, it's also sloppy and, despite sordidness, dull (and there's nothing as good as the PKM "okay, I'll put a plate on my mouth and you can shit on the plate" story).

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Friday, 16 February 2007 21:59 (seventeen years ago) link

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