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Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band is, despite my initial assumptions, a really great music book. Even if you haven’t read it, I’m sure you’ve heard the stories about the band hanging out with Ozzy Osbourne, snorting ants and whatnot. Yes, it’s all in there and it is indeed all pretty outrageous. Which makes for a good giggle, and the occasional turned stomach - all perfectly good reasons to read a book if you’re feeling up for something trashy.
But never underestimate The Crüe. The Dirt is more than just sensational ant-snorting. I finished the book with a much better appreciation of where 80s ‘hair-rock’ fits into music history and how it came to be what it was. I’ll admit that, although I love it, I still can’t take that kind of rock completely seriously - but I do understand it better now. And I definitely never expected to find The Crüe (or most of them) oddly endearing; once you get past the drinking and the groupies and the drugs, you get into the regular stuff that makes them human and that stuff is, much to my surprise, way better than all the insane backstage antics.
Mötley Crüe - Dr. Feelgood
Brett Milano’s Vinyl Junkies: Adventures in Record Collecting is one of my all-time favorite music books. To be honest, it’s not really all that much about music itself, but about the sub-culture of obsessive vinyl collectors. Milano journeys into the depth of the vinyl junkie world, meeting all sorts along the way and mostly asking them ‘Why?’ Why do they devote so much time and effort to tracking down little known releases and obscure bands on a format that’s barely used anymore? What are they looking for? I really don’t want to ruin any of the fun for you, but he meets some really fantastic characters along the way and has some wonderful stories to share.
Really, I think this adventure could be enjoyed by anyone who collects - whether it’s baseball cards, teapots, stamps, or comic books. Yes, there are stories and oddities that belong to vinyl sub-culture alone, but collectors in general are an odd sort (myself included) and I think any collector can relate to the excitement and obsession of hunting down new additions.
I’ll admit it - I’m a recovering vinyl junkie myself. I don’t have the space right now to set up my turntable and crazy Frankenstein sound system (basically a collection of bits and pieces), so I don’t bother with vinyl so much anymore. I still love it though, and still get a lusty feeling when I see those racks of beautiful 7″ singles in the record store. I’m sure I’ll start collecting again when I do get the use of my turntable back. Why? Well, mainly the b-sides, of course. Who doesn’t love the idea of a new song by a band they adore? B-sides are where some really great stuff happens. Not always, of course, sometimes a b-side is just a song that wasn’t good enough to go be the a-side. But every once in a while, your geekery will be rewarded by great covers, experiments that worked out much better than you’d think, or unusual and unexpected collaborations. It’s far easier to track down these songs digitally than it was even a few years ago, even legally through music providers like emusic and iTunes. This is a good thing, but it’s still not the same. For me, with no place to buy vinyl nearby, I’d get to anticipate the arrival of those square envelopes with potential treasures inside. Plus, vinyl is pretty, it gives you those delicious pops and crackles, and the ritual of putting on a record is just so much more enjoyable than double-clicking an mp3.
Here’s one of my favorite vinyl b-sides, found on The Strokes’ 2004 “Reptilia” 7″ single. Most people list it as ‘The Strokes ft. Regina Spektor’, but it’s actually credited as ‘Regina Spektor and The Strokes’ on the sleeve. Sleeves - you don’t get those with mp3s, either.
Regina Spektor and The Strokes - Modern Girls And Old Fashion Men
I’m a great big dork and love reading about music almost as much as I love listening to it. I’d like to tell you about some of the music books I’ve enjoyed, on a monthly basis, if you’d like to hear about them. To start things off this month, I’ve got two books I’ve recently devoured, both about love and loss and the impact of music.
Rob Sheffield’s Love Is A Mix Tape is, superficially, told through the presence of mix tapes in his life. All of us (well, those of us who listened to music pre-iTunes) can relate to the impact of a mix tape. It’s not just about the music on it, because that part can be replicated through playlists and mix CDs. What we’re missing in the digital age is the way it took all day to physically make a really good mix. And, more importantly, the effort that you made to make one for someone else (and vice versa). Making a mix was special. Now we can whip out a CD in a few minutes, which is nice in its own way, but it’s a different thing. Mix tapes had themes and meaning in a way that CDs don’t - I don’t know why that is exactly, perhaps simply because CDs are so much simpler to make, we’re much less perfectionist about them. Mix tapes took devotion and commitment and, in a way, that’s what Rob Sheffield’s heartbreakingly beautiful memoir is all about. The story of how Sheffield met and fell in love with his wife, Renée, starts with a shared love of a lesser-known song (Big Star’s “Thirteen”) and ends with him a much too young widower, surrounded by the mix tapes that soundtracked their time together. It’s also the story of how he managed to live on after her death, both because of and in spite of the music that they loved together. Love Is A Mix Tape is horrifically sad, often funny, and essential for anyone who feels like music means something in their lives.
(Note: On the subject of mix tapes, also recommended is Thurston Moore’s Mix Tape: The Art Of Cassette Culture, a great stroll down memory lane for those of us who used to get really excited about spending all day Saturday parked in front of the stereo, surrounded by cassettes.)
Another memoir, Things The Grandchildren Should Know, by Eels frontman Mark Oliver Everett is a perfect companion to Love Is A Mix Tape. If you saw Everett’s recent BBC documentary, you’ll know that his father basically invented the idea of parallel universes. While that was all surprisingly fascinating (I’m not a theoretical physics kind of gal, so I wasn’t expecting to find the science stuff as interesting as I did), that’s not what Everett’s memoir is about. This is his personal story and it reads like he’s just telling a friend about his life. Like Rob Sheffield, Mark Everett’s musical world has been shaped and altered, in part, by tragedy and sorrow, much more than any one person should ever have to deal with. But it’s just as much about the desire, and the fight, to just be one’s self without compromise. You definitely do not have be a life-long Eels fan to appreciate and be inspired by Everett’s career and his struggle to just be the musician he is.
All in all, these are two of my most highly recommended music books, the kind that make me want to buy a box full of copies and hand them out to my friends like Elvis. Like the best movies and songs, they’re both full of love, humor, sadness and beauty.
Big Star - Thirteen
Eels - Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living)
