Rock & Metal Books

scudzilla

Any readers out there?

Can any of ya even read (Well ya must be able to since you're reading this now!!)

What Rock/Metal related books have you read? Can you recommend any? Any that we should avoid?

I've read a load of them and have some favourites.

Currently reading this



About halfway through and it's very very funny, not your normal music stories but mainly about Beano's love of cars (With some very funny music anecdotes thrown in). Recommend this to anyone


Another good read i had was Metallica - This Monster Lives, written by the makers of the film, a lot of what ya don't see on film is in the book and well worth a read.

Honorable mentions go to :-

Nikki Sixx - The Heroin Diaries , How this guy is alive amazes me

Lemmy - White Line Fever , An awesome read from a legend



The worst book i've read, and only finished it recently was 'The Beast' by Paul Di'Anno (Picked it up for 2quid in a bargain book shop). It's all about drinking, drugs and 3/4 cases of him beating the **** out of his partners!! The guy is a complete fcukin nob

Next in line is Anvil - The story of Anvil, picked it up in HMV Henry Street for 3Euro

RayCon

Not particularly Rock or Metal but easily the best music orientated book Ive ever read ... as a matter of fact, make that "read more than once".

Hilarious ... and highly recommended.

lord lucan

Mainly autobiographies for me. Favourites from the last few years are;

Slash

Steven Adler

Dave Mustaine

Nikki Sixx

John Lydon(aka Johnny Rotten)

All excellent reads imo.

Honourable mention to Joel Mc Ivers "To Live is to Die:The Life & Death of Metallica's Cliff Burton" and "Justice For All:The Truth about Metallica".

slavetothegrind

red by sammy hagar was good, the dirt by motley also.

wasn't impressed so much with lemmy's book.

thanks for the pointer re:the monster lives, will get that!

if i think of more will add,

oh yeah bobby blotzer's book ( he of ratt drummer fame) was good too for the older reader who remembers their fame in the 80's

hellyeah

motley crues "the dirt" was great. As was nikki sixxs book "heroin diaries"
" Grunge is dead" was another cracker.
Kurt Cobains book "heavier than heavan " was a good read to.
Reading book on Dave Grohl at the mo.

Malice

lord lucan wrote: »

Slash

Coincidentally I'm reading this at the moment. It's quite an interesting read so far.

peter1892

'Fargo Rock City' by Chuck Klosterman. Deals with the 1980's US hair-metal scene and growing up with all of that in the American mid-west, good laugh actually.

rednik

Heaven and Hell a good insight into the Eagles by Don Felder.

Stariway to Heaven by Zeps tour manager Richard Cole.

Nea

Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind about the Norwegian Black Metal scene covering the church burnings and general madness in the early 90's

Alice Cooper's Golf Monster was good but one chapter was about the music and the next was about Golf, too much about golf in it for my liking.

Enter Night - Mick Wall. I really enjoyed this Metallica biography, it covered a lot in it, was appalled by the treatment of Jason Newsted though.

I am Ozzy - Some great laughs.

The Dirt has to be the best biography, complete lunatics, Nikki's Heroin Diaries as mentioned above is quite good too

I was annoyed by Scar Tissue - Anthony Kiedis. It just showed him as a complete bellend who didnt give a crap about anyone but himself but then again he was a junkie so other people wouldnt have come high in his priorities. It was well written, I just found it frustrating

Welsh Megaman

'Tales Of A Ratt' by Ratt drummer Bobby Blotzer.

Despite some shocking spelling errors, a highly entertaining read. Less-than-thinly-veiled digs at his bandmates (current and former), and his blatant dislike of grunge is hilarious!

deathrider

I'm really not a big reader, or a lover of books at all. However, I've read through about half of Ozzy Osbourne's book, and quite enjoyed it.

MaidenSlayer

I have read "The Bloody Reign of Slayer" and "Justice For All: The Truth About Metallica" by Joel McIver. Very good reads and have been meaning to pick up the book Joel wrote about Cliff Burton. Also read "Black Tooth Grin" by Zac Crain which is about Dimebag and his life. Oh yeah and Mustine's book "A Life In Metal", was great at the start but when he quit drink and drugs the book kind of got a bit boring..

TheStickyBandit

Malice wrote: »

Coincidentally I'm reading this at the moment. It's quite an interesting read so far.

I read that yonks ago, it just cemented my opinion of him being a complete bellend!

Most of the rockstar books are kinda the same really and are full of the same old cliches. I gave up reading them as they were so predictable. On a positive note though, Ozzys wasnt bad!

scudzilla

TheStickyBandit wrote: »

I read that yonks ago, it just cemented my opinion of him being a complete bellend!

Most of the rockstar books are kinda the same really and are full of the same old cliches. I gave up reading them as they were so predictable. On a positive note though, Ozzys wasnt bad!

Wouldn't call Slash a bellend

As for Ozzy's book, how much of it did he actually write? How much did he remember?

TheStickyBandit

scudzilla wrote: »

Wouldn't call Slash a bellend

Why not? I think he is an utter mong!

As for Ozzy's book, how much of it did he actually write? How much did he remember?

now that you say it, he wrote none of it as he's dyslexic, he was interviewed and it was written for him then!

scudzilla

TheStickyBandit wrote: »

Why not? I think he is an utter mong!


now that you say it, he wrote none of it as he's dyslexic, he was interviewed and it was written for him then!

Nah, there's a lot more grade 1 plumbs out there who are worse than Slash

I should have rephrased that as most of these books are written by Ghost Writers, how much of the book did Ozzy actually PERSONALLY remember considering most of the time he doesn't even know what country he's in

Seth Brundle

Over the last year or two I've read through:

• White Line Fever (Lemmy) (highly recommended)
• Motorhead: In the Studio (Jake Brown & Lemmy)
• Phil Lynott: The Rocker (Mark Putterford)
• My Boy: The Philip Lynott Story (His Mammy)
• The Bloody Reign of Slayer (Joel McIver)
• Justice for All: The Truth about Metallica (Joel McIver)
• To Live Is To Die The Life And Death Of Metallica's Cliff Burton (Joel McIver)
• Led Zeppelin (Mick Wall)
• Kurt Cobain (?)
• AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll: The Ultimate Story of the World's Greatest Rock-and-Roll Band (Engleheart & Durieux)
• AC-DC Highway to Hell (?)
• I am Ozzy (Ozzy)
• Rory Gallagher (?)
• Fornication (The RHCP Story) (Jeff Apter)
• Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N' Roses (Stephen Davis)
• Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir (Dave Mustaine)
• Bruce Dickinson (Joe Shooman)

(there are probably more but I can't think just now)


I also picked up South of the Pumphouse by Les Claypool recently but haven't started it.

TheStickyBandit

scudzilla wrote: »

Nah, there's a lot more grade 1 plumbs out there who are worse than Slash

I should have rephrased that as most of these books are written by Ghost Writers, how much of the book did Ozzy actually PERSONALLY remember considering most of the time he doesn't even know what country he's in

I still disagree, Slash talks about his shoplifting as if it was cool! He was a 'rockstar' long before he even played in a band. He also led a stereotypical lifestle when Guns & Roses achieved some stardom, i.e hanging around with strippers, drinking whiskey and taking cocaine all whilst adorning a Jack Daniels t shirt and leather pants. Not to mention the havoc he created for himself and others around him whilst he was abusing heroin.
As for his guitar playing, I find it to be so repetitive and mundane it hurts, Its almost like Angus Young from ACDC, it's hard to distinguish each song. In general I think Rock at that time was more about your image rather than your actual playing ability.

As for the Ozzy story, I think the events are pretty acurate as they were confirmed by others also, I think the timing of such events is what he found hard to remember!

SEPT 23 1989

Appetite for Destruction: The Mick Wall Interviews

Great Book

Welsh Megaman

More pictures than words, but still very entertaining.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/American-Hair-Metal-Steven-Blush/dp/193259518X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318594688&sr=8-1

Malice

TheStickyBandit wrote: »

I still disagree, Slash talks about his shoplifting as if it was cool!

I agree with that. There was also a passage in the book where he described how he got into the habit of smashing up vans. No justification and no apologies. It's almost like he was proud of being a tool.

TheStickyBandit wrote:

He was a 'rockstar' long before he even played in a band. He also led a stereotypical lifestle when Guns & Roses achieved some stardom, i.e hanging around with strippers, drinking whiskey and taking cocaine all whilst adorning a Jack Daniels t shirt and leather pants.

Are you saying all that is a bad thing? Apart from the cocaine I'd swap that for my mundane office job in a heartbeat!

TheStickyBandit wrote:

As for his guitar playing, I find it to be so repetitive and mundane it hurts, Its almost like Angus Young from ACDC, it's hard to distinguish each song.

I was nodding in agreement with most of your post until I got to here. Seriously if you can't distinguish Estranged from Nightrain from Paradise City and you think they're repetitive then get your ears checked!

TheStickyBandit wrote:

In general I think Rock at that time was more about your image rather than your actual playing ability.

Hair metal might have been, I don't know about other genres. Weren't the late 80's all about lead guitarists trying to outdo each other's widdly widdly solos?

iroced

Lords Of Chaos is a great read. Very interesting to see how a minority of "outlaws" triggered such a big Metal subgenre. Some of these guys really had/have their head living on another planet...


It's not really a book but there's a French guy that did his PhD on Meshuggah a few years ago : "Meshuggah, an atypical Metal band / aesthetic and way of composition". It's a shame there's no English version of it. Here's the link anyway if some of you are interested => http://matthieu.metzger.free.fr/memoire/titre.html

TheStickyBandit

Malice wrote: »

Are you saying all that is a bad thing? Apart from the cocaine I'd swap that for my mundane office job in a heartbeat!

Maybe I would too, but the glorification of it all just seems cringeworthy!

I was nodding in agreement with most of your post until I got to here. Seriously if you can't distinguish Estranged from Nightrain from Paradise City and you think they're repetitive then get your ears checked!

I can distinguish the songs. I guess I just dont like their sound in general.

Hair metal might have been, I don't know about other genres. Weren't the late 80's all about lead guitarists trying to outdo each other's widdly widdly solos?

Perhaps that was the case, but I think technical 'widdly widdly solos' as you put it, just dont do it for me. Yes they can sound awesome and mindbending. I just think they were a mandatory thing which in some cases can just sound run of the mill when there's a solo on each song. Sometimes its good to ju st have some killer riffage instead. This is just my opinion on the matter and obviously I'm not a fan of the band. Others are which is cool, but when asked about Slash, anyone who thinks he's a cool or sound guy really needs to have a look at their own morals!

Malice

TheStickyBandit wrote: »

the glorification of it all just seems cringeworthy!

Fair enough, I don't think it's necessarily glorifying the rock n' roll lifestyle but I can see where it might get repetitive. I just think it's bit rich to complain about him relating his experiences when it's precisely those experiences that caused most of the sales.

TheStickyBandit wrote:

I can distinguish the songs. I guess I just dont like their sound in general.

Can't argue with that .

TheStickyBandit wrote:

Perhaps that was the case, but I think technical 'widdly widdly solos' as you put it, just dont do it for me.

Most of the time they bore me to tears too which is why I like Slash's playing style. It's languid and lazy but when he wants to he can rip it up. He might not be the most technical or the fastest guitar player around but as far as I'm concerned he puts more emotion and feel into his lead playing than a lot of his contemporaries.

TheStickyBandit wrote:

when asked about Slash, anyone who thinks he's a cool or sound guy really needs to have a look at their own morals!

I've no idea if he's a sound guy or not. He comes across pretty laid back in interviews but that could all be a front. As for whether he's cool or not I'd say we could fill up a whole new thread with a debate on what's cool or not. He's instantly recognisable which is an achievement in itself.

Anyway apologies, I've gone way off-topic. In summary his book is worth reading in my opinion .

Max Power1

lord lucan wrote: »

"Justice For All:The Truth about Metallica".

+1

hellyeah wrote: »

motley crues "the dirt" was great

currently on order from ebay

deathrider wrote: »

I'm really not a big reader, or a lover of books at all. However, I've read through about half of Ozzy Osbourne's book, and quite enjoyed it.

yup +1 here

lord lucan

Just gonna add Duff McKagan's 'It's so Easy[and other lies]' to the list. Just finishing it now,excellent read. Not a GN'R history lesson chronicling every show or anything like that,it's more about him and his rise and decent into drugs and alcohol and return to music with VR and Loaded. Thoroughly recommended.

triggermortis

Motley Crue's "The Dirt' was an excellent read and I likes The Heroin Diaries and Tommyland, by Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee respectively. Crazy From The Heat by David Lee Roth is worth a read and I didn't mind Bobby Blotzers book.
I've read all of Neil Peart's books apart from his latest one, most of which have a travel influence and are very good, the best being Ghost Rider and Roadshow

metalover

You should try Dave Mustaine's books, there really good. Has taught me a lot about metal. You should try also ready his new book, A Life In Metal. I've read it and I would recommened it to any metalhead.

wandatowell

Started reading Toni Iommi's "Iron Man". Very interesting. He seems to be a fairly nice fella to boot.


My favourite book would probably be "No One Here Gets Out Alive" by Danny Sugarman written about Jim Morrison. Great book, well worth a read

scudzilla

I'm in the middle of Duff McKagan's book at the moment and it's a very good read, well worth picking up.

120_Minutes

Guy Pratt - my bass and other animals.

Very funny, and all (allegedly) true.