I like to read all kinds of books. However, for most of my life I have been drawn to the world of nonfiction. I adore biographies, oral histories of famous events, investigative journalism, you name it. If it happened in real life then I stand a good chance of being interested in the story behind it all. While I have read many books about war, life in the Mafia, storms and other weather-related phenomena, outer space, politics, art and sports, it would probably not surprise any of my faithful readers to know that I have also read many books that revolve around the subject of music. I love delving into the minds of creators. The process of making magic by arranging sounds in various ways is amazing to me. But more than that, I firmly believe that music helps connect us to many of the memories and moments who define us as humans, collectively and as people, individually. That old cliche about music being the soundtrack of our lives rings true for me. With that in mind and the holidays not too far in the distance, here are ten of the music-themed books that I have particularly enjoyed and/or that have impacted me in a special way. If you feel that you or someone you know might enjoy reading them then, by all means, visit your local bookseller and acquire a copy of your own. Books always make excellent gifts. ***Note: I receive absolutely zero dollars in compensation for any of these recommendations. Also, this list is in no particular order. I enjoyed all of the books mentioned.
1- Heavier Than Heaven by Charles A. Cross
Heavier Than Heaven is a biography of the late singer Kurt Cobain of the band Nirvana. This book was written by a man named Charles A. Cross. Mr. Cross was the publisher of a regional music magazine based out of Seattle called The Rocket. It was in his position as magazine publisher that Cross got to know the people and music of the Pacific Northwest and was able to offer an insider’s perspective on the rise of the Grunge music movement, in general, and the members of Nirvana, in particular. For fans of Nirvana, this book gives an indepth look at Cobain’s life growing up and how his childhood and teen years influenced his songwriting and his outlook on life and on the music business he found himself in.
I found this book to be an important book because of the time that Cross spent discussing Cobain’s discomfort at being a creator, all the while having to deal with the practical financial realities of our world and how it works. For me as a blogger, reading Heavier Than Heaven was a watershed moment. I decided to become a music blogger because of my reaction to this specific book. As I was reading about musical moments such as the band appearing on Saturday Night Live or the highly acclaimed MTV Unplugged acoustic concert, I grew increasingly frustrated at not being able to click on a live link and actually watch the performance in question as it was unfolding before my eyes on the page. It was right then and there that I promised myself that should I ever write about music and what it means to me, I would do so in a way that would have an interactive component to it. If you are a reader of my blog then you can thank Heavier Than Heaven for the fact that I include so many live links. Don’t get me wrong, this book is excellent. If you want the definitive story behind music’s biggest star in the last quarter century then Heavier Than Heaven is it.
2- Just Kids by Patti Smith
Just Kids is written by singer and poet Patti Smith. The subject of the book is not so much about music as it is about love and about creativity. It is a small personal story told by Smith about her life when she first came to New York City in the 1970s, her lifelong relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe and how her career in the music and literary worlds, and his in the world of art, both came to be. Smith devotes a lot of the book to the time she and Mapplethorpe first met and lived together as the stereotypical starving artists. She talks a lot about the friends who encouraged her and Mapplethorpe, as well as the patrons who supported them both along the way. Just Kids is a very love-filled account of two lives lived to the fullest. It is set in the world of New York Art scene and is complete with descriptions of her first live poetry readings, Mapplethorpe’s first gallery showings in his creative loft space and their shared experiences as they attempted to break into the social scenes at trendy clubs such as CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City in order to meet the likes of Lou Reed, Andy Warhol and the like.
Overall, as much as this book is a story about two of New York’s most famous artists and the art they created, what I liked most about this book was the love story that ran all the way through it. Just Kids possesses an innocent air about it as it describes that first true loving relationship that any couple is lucky enough to have before life loses its simplicity and becomes more complicated. I do not feel as though you need to be a fan of Patti Smith or of Robert Mapplethorpe to enjoy their story. Their story of finding each other in one of the world’s biggest cities, the support they gave to one another and the love that lasted through all that followed is one that most everyone can relate to and enjoy. An excellent tale well told.
3- Testimony by Robbie Roberston
I read this book at the beginning of this year (2024) and found it to be very interesting. As you may be aware, Robbie Robertson was a Canadian singer, songwriter and guitarist who gained fame as a member of the legendary group known simply as The Band. Testimony is Roberston’s self-narrated biography. It tells the story of how he ended up playing in Ronnie Hawkins band as a teenager and the many musical lessons he learned as he played all over North America. It was as a member of The Hawks that Robertson met the people who would end up becoming his bandmates in The Band and with whom he developed lifelong friendships that bordered on brotherhood.
Robbie Robertson’s career included many of the most memorable moments in modern rock history including backing Bob Dylan as he was “going electric”, meeting the Beatles while they were still touring, experiencing the virulent racism of the U.S. South as he played with black Bluesmen such as Howlin’ Wolf, as well as the story behind how one of the best concert films in history, The Last Waltz came to be. All in all, Robbie Robertson got to live an incredibly interesting life. Testimony was written with a songwriter’s easy cadence and, as such, was a pleasure to read.
4 and 5- Sell Out by Dan Ozzi and Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azerrad
Sell Out by Dan Ozzi was the book that inspired my entire twenty-one post series about punk rock called Who’s Punk?! What’s the Score?! This book, in turn, was inspired by the seminal account of the Indie/Punk movement of the 1980s called Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azzerad. I read Sell Out first so I will begin there.
Sell Out by Dan Ozzi takes a look at approximately a dozen or so bands who made up the post punk music scene in the 1990s. Bands profiled by Ozzi included Green Day, Jawbreaker, NOFX, Blink-182, The Distillers, Against Me!, Rancid and many more. The chapters were long enough to be detailed but not too long as to be a chore to read through. Ozzi has a real knack for writing in such a way that the words just flow along and the story is told in such interesting detail. It was a pleasure to read his work. For the most part, Ozzi approached each band by discussing how it handled success. In the world of punk music that each band came from, commercial success was always a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is nice to create work that is recognized and appreciated by others. It is also nice to have money and to be able to live a comfortable lifestyle. However, much of the punk ethos is predicated upon the belief that signing major label record deals impinges on artistic purity and, as such, doing so is akin to selling out. Once a punk band sells out and goes commercial, there is a price to pay from the original community that supported the band in the early days. Some of the bands agreed to major label deals and some refused to go down that route. Both sides of the story are examined. There is no clear bias, one way or the other, by Ozzi. He simply relays each band’s history, the decision-making process that they went through and how it all turned out for them in the end. The reader is left with the ability to weigh in and decide if the band in question made the correct choice as it all turned out.
As Sell Out begins, Dan Ozzi pays homage to Michael Azerrad and his book Our Band Could Be Your Life. All writers who profile bands, artists and music owe Azerrad a debt of gratitude. His book also profiled a dozen or so bands but this time, they were punk/indie bands from the 1980s. His chapters touched on bands such as Black Flag, Minor Threat/Fugazi, The Replacements, Husker Du, Sonic Youth and many more. These bands were the ones that rose out of the ashes of the original punk movement in America that featured Patti Smith, The Ramones, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Blondie, Television, The New York Dolls and so on. Michael Azzerad presents the history of each band in a manner that suggests that he did a lot of research and conducted a lot of interviews. He was good at chronicling the underlying philosophies at play within each band and how the DIY ethos that emerged influenced the bands that were profiled in Sell Out by Dan Ozzi. All in all, both books are must reads for anyone with an interest in the indie/punk scene in America during the 1980s and 90s.
6- The Never-ending Present by Michael Barclay.
I am a big fan of The Tragically Hip and, for my money, this is the definitive account of their history as told in book form. If you want shorter, more visual storytelling then the recent four-part documentary aired at the Toronto International Film Festival called The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal is equally as good at taking us all behind the scenes of the career of one of the most successful and important bands in our history.
As for Michael Barclay, he is a noted Canadian music journalist. His ability to exhaustively research his subject matter is legendary. For example, if some member of The Hip played in a garage band in sixth grade then you can count on Barclay to know about it and to fit that tidbit of information seamlessly into the narrative he is telling about the band’s history. As I write more and more about the music of The Tragically Hip, especially as I start accessing material that goes deeper into their song catalogue, I find myself often consulting The Never-ending Present, along with two other books of his called Have Not Been The Same (written by Barclay, along with Jason Schneider and my pal Ian Jack) and Hearts on Fire, both about the Canadian music scene. These books are denser reads than the other music books on this list because of the encyclopedic nature of the information contained within. But as sources of accurate, detailed information, it is tough to beat a Michael Barclay penned book. As mentioned, his time and effort spent writing about The Tragically Hip on The Never-ending Present does much to inform my own work and for that I owe Michael Barclay a huge debt of gratitude. If he ever gets to read this then I hope he considers my hat to be fully tipped in his direction.
7- My Effin’ Life by Geddy Lee.
This was another music-themed biography that I read this year in 2024. As you probably know, Geddy Lee was the lead singer of the Canadian band Rush. This band was one of the most successful rock bands of all time and has been inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Rush stayed together for over forty years. When I received this book as a gift, I opened it expecting a general run through of the band’s history, which would have been enough considering what Rush has accomplished throughout its career. But what I got in addition to the expected was a gifted storyteller with an incredible writer’s voice. By the time I was only two or three chapters in, I found myself thinking that this was going to be one of the best biographies that I had ever read. Instead of beginning with music, Lee dedicated the early chapters of the book to his family. In particular, Lee talked about his Jewish heritage, which included the impact of the Holocaust on his upbringing. The stories being shared were deeply personal and very moving. I have to be honest and state that I think I actually enjoyed the chapters that were devoted to his family and to his relationships with bandmates Neil Peart and Alex Lifeson (who were like brothers) to the ones that centred upon this album or that….there were so many that they kind of blurred together after a while. Sorry Rush fans. All in all, I was very impressed with Geddy Lee as a storyteller. The man can spin a yarn that will have your mouth hanging open in wonder. It is a book that I feel even non-Rush fans can get some enjoyment out of and, as such, it comes recommended.
8- Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon
Kim Gordon was the lead singer and a guitarist for the important indie/alternative band called Sonic Youth. Sonic Youth was one of the bands profiled in Michael Azerrad’s book Our Band Could Be Your Life mentioned above at #6. While Sonic Youth was highly innovative and influential, this book is almost more about what it was like for Kim Gordon to survive in the music business as a woman. For many years, she was married to bandmate Thurston Moore. There are several chapters devoted to the happy times the pair shared as they tried to launch their career, as well as the less than happy times in which creative differences and/or infidelity came between them. Beyond the band, Gordon talks about misogyny in the world of music in terms of how much more difficult it is for women to have their voices heard in the industry, how hard it is to have songs that discuss “women’s issues” released and promoted, how much sexual harassment there is behind the scenes and how dangerous it can be at shows for female concert goers. Kim Gordon, along with Patti Smith, had a profound influence on a generation of all-female bands in the 1990s that made up the Riot Grrrl! movement just as Grunge was taking off in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. in Seattle and area.
I imagine that it can’t be easy to be a woman in such a male-dominated industry. Even Taylor Swift, for all of her success, has her stressed out moments (for proof, just watch the documentary about her called Miss Americana on Netflix). Girl in a Band is a tough read at times but that is ok. Not every book needs to be a pleasure read. Sometimes a book has merit simply because it has something important to say. Girl in a Band is one such book. Kim Gordon is an intelligent, creative, fiercely strong woman who has something important to say about the way the world really works for women…even highly successful women such as her.
9- The Soloist by Steve Lopez.
The Soloist is not a traditional music book in the sense that the others on this list may be. Steve Lopez was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. This book is about an encounter he had on the streets of L.A. with a homeless man named Nathaniel Ayers. As it turned out, Ayers was a classically trained violinist who lapsed into mental illness and wound up living out on the streets of the City of Angels. This book came to be as a result of Lopez coming to learn that Ayers could play the violin with the skill of a symphony musician. Although Lopez, like many of us, initially looked away and tried to not get involved in Ayers’ life, the fact is that his curiosity and compassion trumped his reticence and Lopez slowly began a relationship with Ayers. The beauty of The Soloist as a story is that it reveals all of the trauma and hardship and never attempts to sugarcoat the truth about dealing with someone who is mentally ill. Along the way, there is much talk about creativity and classical music. The Soloist has been made into a movie. I won’t spoil the ending of this book about redemption by telling you how it turns out but, more than anything, it does an excellent job of showcasing how thin the line between creative genius and madness really is. All in all, The Soloist is a very unusual, compelling and interesting read.
10- Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
Please Kill Me is the book I am presently reading. Despite the graphic-sounding nature of the title, it is not a book about killing anyone. It is an oral narrative history of the birth of the punk rock movement in America. The title comes from an exasperated comment by one of the main band characters profiled in the book regarding having to listen to music as it was being played on the radio in the mid-1970s. The story that unfolds within the pages of this book is told exclusively through interviews with the people involved in the New York underground music scene back then. Everyone from The Ramones, Lou Reed, Tom Verlaine, Johnny Thunders, Malcolm McLaren, Deborah Harry, Iggy Pop, David Bowie and Andy Warhol contribute their views and observations. Also interviewed are drummers, bass players, promoters, groupies, reporters, managers and just about anyone else you could think of as a mover and a shaker at CBGBs and the other venues of note in the 1970s.
Please Kill Me is a very gossipy little book. If you want to know who was sleeping with whom, which band members played live while intoxicated or stoned and how many times someone was arrested then this is the book for you. Please Kill Me is also the book for you if you appreciate the detailed examination of the convergence of factors that led to the rise of punk music as a genre. I am enjoying this book because I like the details that are slowly emerging, one by one, to paint a complete picture of how punk all started. But I do have to say though that Kim Gordon (in #8) is correct. Please Kill Me creates a portrait of a music scene that is dominated by men. Even powerful, talented women like Patti Smith and Deborah Harry have a hard time making an impact amid all of the debauchery that seemed to be going on all of the time with these rockers. Overall, this book is an interesting historical look at the birth of a new style of music that has had lasting impact in the decades that followed. But, my word, I don’t think I would want any of the males profiled in this book to spend even one night at my house. Who knows how extensive the damage would be to person and property come dawn’s first light?!
I think that I will stop here for now. I will profile a new list of books in my next post. Once again, let me remind you that books are always a good holiday gift. If any of the books listed above tickle your fancy then please head on down to your local independent bookstore and shop local. Take care everyone. Thanks for reading my words. See you all again when next we neet. Bye for now.
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While reading this post something caught my eye. The Velvet Underground were PUNK? Is this the same Velvel Underground of Heroin and Lou Reed?, We called them Avante-Garde, or “ahead-of-their-time.” Like The Mothers of Invention, or The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, they did things no one else was doing. I put Vanilla Fudge in that same category.
To me that is like saying Eric Burdon is the forerunner of Rap, which I have heard from several sources. I guess I’m not sophisticated enough to see the connections.
Weeeeeeellllll you got me there. When the punk period was just percolating and getting ready to be something, Nico and Lou Reed and John Cale and that crowd were already established entities. But ball were involved in fanning interest in the new punk artists at places like Max’s Kansas City and CBGBs. I am going to reword my sentence in the post. The band not so much but the main players definitely had their fingers in the pie as punk got rolling.
Lol. Rewording your post wasn’t necessary. I guess if the players were involved I guess they were punk. But John Cale punk? Boggles the mind.