Tag: Book Review

book, Book Publishing, Music, News & Publishing

The rock-n-roll beat

gretchenapeck

“Any journalist will tell you. Sometimes you hear something so quotable that you can see the words in print in real time, right before your eyes. The room changes when deep truths are being spoken, when raw honesty is in the air.”—Cameron Crowe, “The Uncool: A Memoir”

If you’re a journalist who likes to see other journalists’ approach to the craft, I recommend Cameron Crowe’s autobiographical “The Uncool: A Memoir.” Crowe is a fascinating person. There is his undeniable storytelling talent, proven by his many decades as an accomplished music journalist, screenwriter and director.

There’s his encyclopedic knowledge of music from the 1960s-1980s — and perhaps beyond. There’s his almost Forrest Gump-like fortunes and happenstances, where he casually meets and vibes with so many important figures of those decades, from the worlds of music, industry, Hollywood. It’s a collage of pop culture.

The reader gets a sense of Crowe’s perspective on journalism, and the lessons he learned from mentors along the way. He wrestles with editorial dilemmas and relationships with sources. You sense the pressures he felt answering to editors, rock stars, publicists and readers — especially remarkable when he was a teenage reporter. That kid (then) had precisely what it takes to make a name, to build a byline and a brand: courage, resilience, introspection, fortitude, a great vocabulary, an inquisitive nature, and a little dash of naïveté.

The author says this is a story about family. Crowe’s family takes center stage throughout the book. Their connections are complicated, and he doesn’t sanitize them. He peels back the curtain on their shared tragedies and idiosyncrasies. It’s all relatable.

Naturally, in the memoir there’s the running theme of Crowe’s early life, which he so astutely, delicately captured in the semi-autobiographical film, “Almost Famous.” That is, his absolutely passionate love for music and reverence for the people who make it. You feel it. It’s almost tactile, vibrating off the printed page.

Book Publishing, Music, TV, Radio, Audio

Rebel Girl

gretchenapeck

I preordered Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna. I felt it mandatory reading. I’d listened to the band(s) back in the day. I was fascinated by the lore and that Kathleen married my second favorite Beastie Boy. I wanted the backstory on it all, especially what it was like to be a woman in a band in the midst of a nearly all-male punk moment. I certainly knew what it was like to be a woman in the clubs, basements and warehouse shows where women were relegated to the perimeters by virtue of slamming male bodies and fear of being trampled or groped. 

What I didn’t know to expect was the constant struggle, the poverty, the family dysfunction, the sexual abuse, the rapes, the violence, the loneliness, despair, the anger and hatred (especially from other women), which Hanna reveals in bite-sized chapter chunks. Sometimes it’s all you can swallow before snapping the cover shut and trying to process it, wondering how the author ever did. 

Did she? 

Can you? 

It’s a question I ask myself all the time. Do we actually heal? Or do we just learn to be temporarily okay in the moment and then string those moments together to make a day, a week, a year, a decade, a lifetime? 

Hanna’s storytelling kept me captivated. I read the book in two days. After all, it’s what a memoir should be — raw, candid, honest and deeply introspective. 

Book Publishing, Music

Even rock stars mature

gretchenapeck

A couple of weeks ago, I threw out my back while leaning over in the shower, merely shaving my legs, though no one nor the light of day cares if I did. This is what it means to be 50-something.

In time, I’ve rehabbed my way back to a comfortable seated position after weeks standing or walking – the only way to manage the pain. I looked at my sleepless nights as time to read some books I’d had on my desk for a while, including Flea’s memoir, Acid for the Children (2019, Grand Central Publishing).

You may know Flea by his parasitic stage name and for his bass-thumping beats behind Red Hot Chili Peppers’ catalog of work. He’s a founding member of the band. Unexpectedly, Flea – born Michael Balzary – ends his memoir just as the band begins its trajectory toward decades-long fame and international popularity. He begins it where he started – suburban Australia, his birthplace – and leads the reader on a wild journey from Australia to Rye, New York, and settles in the hedonism of late-’70s/early-’80s Los Angeles. 

We ride along as his family splinters, through his parents’ divorce, and as his Dad retreats to Australia. He speaks of a childhood spent in search of a father figure, and how his mother hitched herself to a struggling substance-abusing musician – who, despite having some redeeming qualities (like introducing young Flea to jazz) was never a stable substitute.  

His childhood story is partly about discovery – discovering rhythm, musical genres and musical instruments, new bands, and the chicks who swooned for them. We see Flea’s musical tastes evolve, expand, become refined. He opines on the virtues of complex jazz. He confesses to being a late-comer to rock and an unapologetic Led Zeppelin fanboy. For the rest of us who weren’t part of the L.A. music scene, he makes us feel like we were there, alongside him, in the pit, experiencing bands like X, Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, and FEAR – a local band that made him anecdotally famous before RHCP hit the big time. He recalls his first listen to Sugarhill-produced hip-hop and what it felt like in his very core the first time he heard Public Enemy’s bass drop. 

In a way, the memoir is also a tale of untraditional family and forgiveness. Flea narrates his story by linking together formative years and influential characters he encountered along the way. He speaks of lifesaving friendships with passion, reverence, gratitude, and awe. He learned to seek out relationships that transcend superficiality, that have their own rhythm and palpable energy, like what he’s had with RHCP front man, Anthony Kiedis. 

Contrition is a running theme throughout the book, and Flea – the middle-aging man today – has clarity about his shortcomings, mistakes, and unbridled recklessness of his youth. His wild-child antics read more like street-kid felonies. 

And, of course, there were the drugs. Copious amounts, readily available, a smorgasbord of drugs, alluring, emotion-tamping, mind altering, psychotic-episode inducing drugs – many of them injected into his veins with shared needles. 

By the time Flea sat down to pen Acid for the Children, he was 27 years sober. 

Like with any rock star or musical icon, fans likely think they know Flea by the music he makes and his on-stage funkified persona, but he peels layer upon raw layer back for the reader to see here. In defiance of his good fortune, his has been a hard life, a hard-lived life. It could’ve, should have, hardened him. But that is not how the story ends.