interested

Now in paperbackthis is the real story of Edie Sedgwick: model, film star, socialite, friend, lover, and addict; first "it" girl of Andy Warhol's Factory and later muse to Bob Dylan. David Weisman filmed Edie for the last years of her life in his cult film Ciao! Manhattan. After uncovering lost footage, he was inspired to create Edie: Girl on Fire, a book and a documentary film that explore Edie's true story, in the process unearthing hundreds of unpublished photos and interviewing many of Edie's surviving intimates. A rebuttal to Hollywood's highly fictionalized Factory Girl, this is an insightful and startling portrait of a woman that nobody quite knew.

Under the Big Black Sun explores the nascent Los Angeles punk rock movement and its evolution to hardcore punk as it’s never been told before. Authors John Doe and Tom DeSavia have woven together an enthralling story of the legendary west coast scene from 1977-1982 by enlisting the voices of people who were there. The book shares chapter-length tales from the authors along with personal essays from famous (and infamous) players in the scene. Additional authors include: Exene Cervenka (X), Henry Rollins (Black Flag), Mike Watt (The Minutemen), Jane Wiedlin and Charlotte Caffey (The Go-Go’s), Dave Alvin (The Blasters), Jack Grisham (TSOL), Teresa Covarrubias (The Brat), Robert Lopez (The Zeros, El Vez), as well as scencesters and journalists Pleasant Gehman, Kristine McKenna, and Chris Morris. Through interstitial commentary, John Doe “narrates” this journey through the land of film noir sunshine, Hollywood back alleys, and suburban sprawl—the place where he met his artistic counterparts Exene, DJ Bonebrake, and Billy Zoom—and formed X, the band that became synonymous with, and in many ways defined, L.A. punk.Under the Big Black Sun shares stories of friendship and love, ambition and feuds, grandiose dreams and cultural rage, all combined with the tattered, glossy sheen of pop culture weirdness that epitomized the operations of Hollywood’s underbelly. Readers will travel to the clubs that defined the scene, as well as to the street corners, empty lots, apartment complexes, and squats that served as de facto salons for the musicians, artists, and fringe players that hashed out what would become punk rock in Los Angeles.

Teenage hell has never been captured with such intense honesty as these actual letters sent in the late ‘80s from a suicidal girl to the singer of her favorite band.Go Ask Ogre peers into the world of a misfit "cutter" who lives with an abusive mother in the rust belt. A tailspin of suicidal depression and self-injury leads her to write Ogre, front man for the industrial rock band Skinny Puppy. Soon he receives a flood of elaborately illustrated letters and journals filled with Jolene’s most intimate thoughts—from her most painful secrets to hilarious observations and lucid realizations about her life and those around her.At a concert, Ogre confides to Jolene that he has saved all her letters. Nine years later, a box from Ogre arrives at Jolene’s door. Re-examining the documents, she realizes that writing these letters had saved her life.Go Ask Ogre compiles Jolene Siana's actual letters, artwork, illustrations, and ephemera into a unique and powerful story of an extremely troubled teen who made it through the worst years of her life, and, through the power of music and art, transformed herself in the process. It is heavily illustrated and full color throughout.Critical Praise:"Pure, lucid and engaging...more authentic for a new generation of young women than, say, the 1971 cautionary tale about drugs, Go Ask Alice."—Susan Carpenter, LA Times"Dark, funny and touching..."—boingboing.net"Cringingly confessional, persistently desperate, yet often uproariously funny. All rendered and packaged in labor-intensive psychedelic outsider graphic design. An overdue riposte to the bludgeoning morality of the fabricated Go Ask Alice."—Doug Harvey, LA Weekly"By turns fierce, funny, heartbreaking and wise, Jolene Siana's Go Ask Ogre burns onto the page in an intense collage of words and images that together create a portrait of a gifted young woman fighting to hang on to her own life and choosing an unlikely—but strangely suitable—ally for her battle."—Caroline Kettlewell, author of Skin Game"Amidst the cultural and political corruption of the late 1980s, seeking and artistic teens like Jolene Siana found cathartic solace in aggressive and so-called 'morbid' bands like Skinny Puppy. That she persevered with the help of music that parents, preachers, and politicians condemned, but rarely tried to understand, is a moving lesson."—Alan Rapp, editor of The Journey is the Destination: The Journals of Dan Eldon and Dan Eldon: The Art of Life

I was surprised to realize I'd never read this, or any other, biography of Joplin. I went through all the seediest rock'n'roll biographies in my teens and somehow skipped Janis. Shame on me. As far as biographies go, this one is pretty superficial and doesn't provide much insight into her person. It's a fun read though, considering that Joplin was crazy talented and knew how to party. She hung out with all the coolest cats and bedded the hottest dudes and dames while maintaining a heroin-fueled lifestyle and making kick-ass records. There are plenty of entertaining stories about other notable stars of the time. Considering the nature of Joplin's relationship with them, they concern mostly their lovemaking skills (Kristofferson was, as I've long suspected, divine both in and out of bed, Morrison was a bit of a douche, and Hendrix was just average). It's of course also a terribly sad story with a tragic ending, and certainly one worth reading. Will go listen to Summertime now and Google naughty Kristofferson pics.

This was a very fast, compulsive read. A real page turner. I'm one of the biggest Ronnie Spector fans, but I didn't know what to expect. She has some crazy stories about Phil and about her alcoholism, but she presents everything as matter-of-fact. Her writing does not dwell on self-pity or her constant passivity even when she, as a character, is mired in them. What I find refreshing is that she never bashes Phil Spector, even though it would be so easy. The way she described their early professional relationship it is easy to see how she developed feelings for him. She admits that nobody around her understood what she saw in him, but she conveys her admiration of him very well to the reader. Once he becomes abusive, she describes all the signs that in hindsight should have warned her, if only she hadn't been so young, insecure and in love. She never blames anyone but herself, and even when she succumbs to Phil's mindgames and sabotage, she takes responsibility for her reactions to him. She has some wild stories, such as her various encounters with John Lennon who first tries to romance her in London, later sidles up to Phil and sits in on the session for her Apple Records flop, then appears at her divorce trial as a guest of Phil, and later befriend her in New York to the degree that Ronnie maintained a friendship with May Pang after John went back to Yoko. Also notable is Ronnie's friendship with Cher, already noted in Darlene Love's bio, whose marriage to Sonny Bono parallels Ronnie's marriage, except that Cher did not lose herself and was therefore better equipped to reinvent herself time and again. And the one night stand with Bowie is brief but memorable. I really can't recommend this book enough to anyone who has ever loved girls group music or the Wall of Sound.

Nirvana came out of nowhere in 1991 to sell  nearly five million copies of their landmark album  Nevermind, whose thunderous sound  and indelible melodies embodied all the confusion,  frustration, and passion of the emerging  Generation X. Come As You Are is the  close-up, intimate story of Nirvana -- the  only book with exclusive in-depth  interviews with bandmembers Kurt Cobain, Krist Noveselic,  and Dave Grohl, as well as friends, relatives,  former bandmembers, and associates -- now updated to  include a new final chapter detailing the last  year of Kurt Cobain's life, before his tragic suicide  in April 1994.

In this eye-opening memoir, Lisa Crystal Carver recalls her extraordinary youth and charts the late-80s, early-90s punk subculture that she helped shape. She recounts how her band Suckdog was born in 1987 and the wild events that followed: leaving small-town New Hampshire to tour Europe at 18, becoming a teen publisher of fanzines, a teen bride, and a teen prostitute. Spin has called Suckdog's album Drugs Are Nice one of the best of the '90s, and the book includes photos of infamous European shows. Yet the book also tells of how Lisa saw the need for change in 1994, when her baby was born with a chromosomal deletion and his father became violent. With lasting lightness and surprising gravity, Drugs Are Nice is a definitive account of the generation that wanted to break every rule, but also a story of an artist and a mother becoming an adult on her own terms.

This intimate account of 24 legendary groupies reveals what went on behind the closed doors of rock stars from Elvis to Marilyn Manson. Consisting of Pamela Des Barres's revealing interviews with and profiles of other supergroupies, this book offers firsthand glimpses into the backstage world of rock stars and the women who loved them. The groupies—such as Miss Japan Beautiful, who taught Elvis how to dance; Cassandra Peterson (Mistress of the Dark), who tangled with Tom Jones in Sin City; Cynthia Plaster Caster, who redefined the art of Jimi Hendrix; and Miss B., who revealed Kurt Cobain’s penchant for lip gloss—tell tales that go well beyond an account of a one-night stand to become a part of music history.

Electrifying, highly acclaimed, and intensely personal, this new and updated version of Myra Friedman's classic biography of Janis Joplin teems with dramatic insights into Joplin's genius and into the chaotic times that catapulted her to fame as the legendary queen of rock. It is a stunning panorama of the turbulent decade when Joplin's was the rallying voice of a generation that lost itself in her music and found itself in her words.From her small hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, from the intimate coffeehouses to the supercharged concert halls, from the glitter of worldwide fame to her tragic end in a Hollywood hotel, here is all the fire and anguish of an immortal, immensely talented, and troubled performer who devoured everything the rock scene had to offer in a fatal attempt to make peace with herself and her era. Yet, in an eloquent introduction recently written by the author, Joplin emerges from her "ugly duckling" childhood as a woman truly ahead of her time, an outrageous rebel, a defiant outcast and artist of incomparable authenticity who, almost in spite of herself, became to so many a symbol of triumph over adversity.This edition also contains an afterword detailing the whereabouts of a large and colorful cast of characters who were part of Joplin's life, as well as "We Remember Janis," a new chapter of poignant and affectionate anecdotes told by friends.

A multi-textual memoir chronicling the life of one of our most potent pop icons.Groundbreaking rock musician. Award-winning actress. Perceptive songwriter and author. Mother. Wife of a rock god. Fashionista and trendsetter. Provocateur. In each and every one of these roles Courtney Love has demonstrated a wholehearted commitment to her art, and an intense drive and a lust for life that have made her a star and a celebrity icon—but have also led her into some unwise, uncharted, and even dangerous territory. Simultaneously candid and enigmatic, Love has a mordant wit and vivid intelligence matched in intensity only by the extraordinary life she has led, from a bleak early childhood through great fame and terrible heartbreak to the present day. By turns exhilarating and unsettling, this is a story told for the first time in Dirty Blonde.Composed of an astonishing and eclectic collection of deeply personal artifacts including personal letters, childhood records, poetry, diary entries, song lyrics, fanzines, show flyers, other original writings, and never-before-seen photographs, Dirty Blonde leads us through the unimaginable highs and the despairing lows of one of the most compelling and creative figures in the world of popular culture. Through these diaries we see Love’s accomplishments, her mistakes, her history, and her bright future in a whole new light. From her upbringing in Oregon through her years living in Japan, New Zealand, and London, from her career highs with Hole and as a Hollywood leading lady to her personal heartbreak and struggle, Dirty Blonde is Love laid bare—a wholly fascinating portrait of a fierce and insightful woman with an unblinking worldview and a determination to express herself no matter the cost.

I read this one in a day because I simply couldnt put it down. I guess there was some kind of morbid fascination in it for me as I have always wondered what it would be like if I just "let it all go" for a while and give in to excess...whether I could claw back from the edge or simply become lost or die. Of course Dave Navarro has oodles of money and unlimited access to the LA freakshow so his story is much more interesting. This book is an interesting look into his psyche and what happens when a human being has no boundaries. Dave's ego and incredible self-absorbtion as well as capacity for shifting responsibility for his own problems is just plain ugly....no romance there. Looks and talent have made the man famous but underneath this is nothing pretty (well for that year of his life anyway). It was painful to read about people exploiting things that were extremely important to him such as his dead mother and connection to unicorns just to get closer to him. I guess there are no shortage of vampires and vultures out there. Despite all of this he seems to be quite intelligent and has an ability to read people (as well as some kind of magnetism) and its a shame that he used his "powers" for selfishness and destruction...though I guess that he has moved on from this point in his life to hopefully more positive things. He did put this out there in the hope that it may help others and he did come to some important realisations "If its everybody elses fault, then why am I the guy thats dying?" and the 10 reasons NOT to tie off. All in all it was a very interesting and harrowing read.

It was small and wrapped from head to toe in dirty rags, swaddled like a new-born baby. It was suspended from the telegraph pole and fluttered in the breeze before sailing gently down. Like an autumn leaf, it landed softly in the brook and its streamlined shape was taken quickly on the surface of the water, disappearing into the distance. I squeeze my own whole body to scream but on waking all I could hear were my own muffled sobs. My small daughter cuddled closer and tried to comfort me: 'Don't cry Mummy. Don't cry.'My own mother opened the door and in the bar of light she was able to see which one of us was crying. I remembered for years an article from the daughter of Ian and Deborah Curtis, Natalie. She wrote about Samantha Morton instinctively taking her hand as her mother would when they crossed the street. Morton was playing the part of her Deborah Curtis in the film version of this book (Control). Ian Curtis killed himself when Natalie was already a year old. I wouldn't ever have to ask her how she felt about her father killing himself, the no blood tie instinct, sisters in voided family trees. Trying to understand, easier with living without. It was something she always knew. Natalie has said that she feels strongly that it was the fault of the shitty state of health care services in the UK. I agree, although I'd take it farther into the shitty support system of human beings. Ian wouldn't have been able to live on his medication and he really couldn't live on it. Deborah was left in the dark from everyone about his sinking life. It did not have to be this epileptic mysterious nightmare. She had to constrain her husband in bed so he would not hurt himself. Made into his nurse, or keeper, nothing to do. When Tony Wilson is quoted that their lives would have been harder with Ian in it, that Natalie was better off without her father, well, that was also me. When people talk to me I drift into my head to see what they are telling. I didn't want this then. Bernard Sumner says that Ian designed his own hell to confine and doom him and I believe it. Ritual of drugs, self mutilation to not live through this numb testing, stasis. He had a kind of wanting it because it was his conviction to die. Smoke and mirrors glamour, nothing to do. Cries for help had another point and it was the cutting kind that bleeds even when you start to believe it's finally going to scab over. To save is out of all reach. Never live with it. Save. Hell, this memoir thing. Deborah Curtis is interesting here. Why would you want to write a memoir about this unless it is to save someone (and I know who is already dead). Oftentimes she is honest with brutal edges. To herself maybe most of all. I finished Touching from a Distance last night and then I listened to a lot of Joy Division (more than the usual a lot) and I wanted to take in Deborah, that I could hold what was hers as she did, as an instinct like bear necessities. The movie isn't bad. Samantha Morton certainly isn't bad. It's not right. I felt they wanted to tell about loosening out of grasps, a pain with only one end, and this was about more than one kind of dead. The someone killed themselves and no one could save them kind of story. I had this feeling that this book felt written out of a place of those who couldn't save. Cries for help, not of judgement. I won't forget soon reading about Ian first exhibiting his drained body with a hose wrapped around him like a snake. Could you do anything to stop that snake from squeezing? Deborah Curtis was depressed too. This is so huge that I am afraid to read anything about this book because I remember those who believed Ian that having a wife and a baby was what killed him (he wouldn't hold his own daughter. He left his wife in shamed poverty). I want to know why she stayed with Ian Curtis. The film shows Deborah beg Ian, that she loves him. Deborah in the book won't allow herself to lie that she took it for granted that he would want her forgiveness when she discovers a major affair (there were others). She does not talk about him as if they were ever in love. His love letters to her, if they could be called that, were frightening. If she were an insect and he a small boy he would have burned her with a magnifying glass. She fell into dating him when her relationship to his friend Tony Nutall fell through. She doesn't know why. I can guess. She admits that when they first began dating she saw him as the whole group of his friends that she liked to be apart of, to do something different. Her musical interests reminded me of how my mother would like whatever the man she happened to be with liked (I was bemused by her favoritism towards A Certain Ratio. I swear the vocals on "Ocean" sound like Ian's no matter what anyone says no one else ever sang like he did). Where they did they begin, when they were with them? She is the most bitter that he didn't know poverty until the end when he was holed up with his mistress Annik. She expresses all of this with clarity. This is what I cannot get over, she would say. She feels the hole she was shoved in more than anything else, I think. Everything Deborah writes about her relationship with Ian is textbook battered woman. If she stayed with him like this then I am trapped in her purgatory of loneliness. The man wouldn't let her have any friends. Shit. No man can ever have you but me, he says. No one likes you, no one wants you. I have my suspicions based on nothing (and I wanted to chase something more tangible than my out of body forcing into their lives. No one is saving time travel style) but my own feeling is that Ian had wanted Deborah because of Tony. It's a memoir style she has of self removal to talk about Ian that I recognize, to know what he went through... and why did she stay with him when she didn't love him. It's not making herself look good ever it is a going back into her hole. I feel for Ian in his depression but fuck no was he the only one who was suffering here. Ain't no way no how. Have you ever known a person who could be all charm and politeness smiles if they had some family at home to take out all of their dark side on? Forget the living for art thing. Deborah writes that she wondered if he didn't keep his affair drama going to fuel the song fires), the soul poured into art and murdering life like Voldemort's horcruxes in Harry Potter. That's what I've got.The childhood photo of a gleeful Tony standing next to a fattened flat faced Ian (looking identical to another young photo of him on the top of the same page) is chilling. Yeah, there are photos of Ian smiling with the other guys. I felt it run down my spine the Joy Division lyric "But I remember when we were young". This was his youth, huffing household chemicals and dreams of dying young. Never young because old is his shadow. Convictions of bullheads and her in the horns. Deborah's book is great (I should probably say that by now). The depiction of Ian as so young and cleaving to his days as a dying man from the start. It may very well be true what everyone closed to him said about him living in fantasy pop land dreams. That he was only happy when he would be compared to David Bowie or Lou Reed. The loss felt in place of anything ever living there. I see broken pieces not from ever the same whole. But shit, Deborah could not have saved Ian. She keeps pointing out that she never got to hear those songs from Closer. That his songs that could have told them all what he was going to do were never in her hands. Yeah. And what the hell about Deborah? Her shame to ask for help, asking for help in spite of the shame and getting sent back to her hole again. I am so lost about something about Deborah. I don't think she was ever in love with Ian. She writes about him as a human being, if sometimes like something she needs to do for herself (and no doubt for her daughter). What I see is Ian is dead and everyone he knew thinks about the songs he was writing and they should have seen it all along... Okay, Samantha Morton is going to have to help me here. She did an interview for UK radio station XFM years ago (I want to say 2002) and played her favorite tracks. Joy Division's She's Lost Control was her song. I remember something about it being the song of her life that said all about her. I can dance to that song and believe every word of it too. She had to have been filming Jesus' Son because of the stuff about dancing around in the her USA apartment at the time. If you have seen Jesus's Son you know that Morton has this incredible dance scene to Tommy Roe's 'Sweet Pea' that is just mesmerizing let loose and letting loose if you were in the chair unable to tear eyes away. Not freedom loose. Helpless to something. I think you can know a lot if you get to see someone dance and lose that control. If someone lets you see it. If it is free or if it has to say something. He doesn't remember his epileptic attacks when they are over.And she turned around and took me by the hand and said,I've lost control again.And how I'll never know just why or understand,She said I've lost control again.And she screamed out kicking on her side and said,I've lost control again.And seized up on the floor, I thought she'd die.She said I've lost control.She's lost control again.She's lost control.She's lost control again.She's lost control.Ian Curtis' dancing I am not sure about freedom and control. His dancing he is famous for and people would go to see him. I was upset that more people came to see him the sicker he got. He drank alcohol and had fits through the medication meant to stop them. I wonder if this was on purpose, because maybe he had another life on stage. I don't know about the letting everyone watch him loose part as by all accounts their success would cease to mean anything to him once the dream came true. It had a name, this dance. It was his epileptic attacks. Was he helpless to it as to those fits? Deborah writes that her husband danced those measured beats at their wedding too so it wasn't a stage thing, exactly. He had exhibited signs of it in their early teens before the disorder owns him. Ian Curtis would fly off stage and lose control in the audience. The dancing became more mesmerizing to those watching the more he lost control. So they say. I keep thinking about this dancing for him more than the song lyrics that he denied had any meaning other than art to anyone who asked him. The people he leaves behind think about his lyrics after he is gone as a cry for help. Before he died it was inconceivable that they ever could be. I keep thinking about what Tony Wilson (I kind of think he was a douche bag, personally. This review is too long to get into that) said about how Ian got what he wanted. Deborah was miserable either way. That's what I really keep thinking about and not if anyone could have saved Ian. I don't know why he wanted what he did except to know that Ian Curtis didn't try to do anything other than his songs and his dancing. He had his love affair with the Belgian reporter, Annik. Annik rejected him when he had his fits. She wouldn't or couldn't deal with it. Deborah describes Ian as coming home with his tail between his legs. What was the saving? No one could stop him from having his attacks. Bernard thinks that it was the medication that killed him. I think it was the attacks and there was nothing they could have done. I think it was because he was born the old dying. And I remember when we were young line haunts me a little. I wonder if he didn't drink to bring on the attacks, on stage, despite the ill affects combined with his pills. Okay, a point I thought was pretty damned important was that Ian asked Bernard Sumner to pick which woman for him. Bernard refused (well yeah). All of his before death shit of watching Werner Herzog films about a man who kills himself rather than choosing between two women. Is it like when he (okay, this I learned from Chris Ott's Unknown Pleasures book) says David Bowie sold out because he didn't kill himself after twenty-five like in his 'All the Young Dudes' lyrics.There has to be more to it than this. Was he this attached to bullshit childhood ideals? His soul outgrowing small mind and too large for it only in his lyrics? His life was not lived beautifully.I also thought it was interesting that the people in his life didn't think he had the great empathy required to write the songs he did and they had to be about himself. The songs don't feel like lies. There seemed to be a lot of past second guessing and replaying about what to be done. No one could be with him at all times. What I've got is no cries for help. I don't feel that way about these songs. There's the songs and I will write about them later. I have feelings about Ian Curtis' music that are not about sticking fingers through a chest and stopping a heart(less) life. Why didn't he have one for Deborah and Natalie? Deborah did divorce him. I wish I had more than she fell in with him and it was easier when he made her quit school and get married and then he kept a photo of their dog in his wallet and not his wife and child (I felt so bad for her when she had to give up her beloved dog because they couldn't afford to feed Candy any longer. Ian blamed her and did nothing to help the situation). I don't wonder how she didn't hate him just why did she stay and kill her own life by him. I get the feeling he wasn't living at all and that was the way he was going. What about her? She writes this book about him and their lives. Okay, when one of the guys in the band, Morris, has a girlfriend that Ian doesn't like her gets her to come over to their house. Deborah finds her comfy as an invitee. Ian tells Deborah that Stephenie is threatening suicide because her boyfriend dumped her. She has razor blades in their bathroom and go get her father to come fetch her. Deborah is confused because it doesn't look that way at all. Stephenie gives her a betrayed look when her father shows up or maybe I'm just remembering it that way now because Deborah feels she betrayed Stephenie. Mostly because she's the girl shoved out of their lives. Deborah wasn't allowed in Ian's life. But she did it and she knows she did it and she's disturbed that she did it. I get this and I want to know why. I wish I could be there and watch her face. Maybe if I knew that it wouldn't feel so sick to balance remembering people in your life and not remembering them when they were old and young too soon. On purpose, like a suicide, before they could ever get there. The songs from the other side, maybe. It feels that way sometimes, when you think about dying and there's no future and the past is something you can't think about happening and the present disowned you. Or some ghosts of some kind.Staying in the same place, just staying out the time/Touching from a distance/Further all the time.

A chilling, groundbreaking investigation into the death of one of the great rock icons of our times -- including exclusive access to the case tapes of Courtney Love's former P.I., and a host of compelling new evidence. On Friday, April 8, 1994, a body was discovered in a room above a garage in Seattle. For the attending authorities, it was an open-and-shut case of suicide. What no one knew then, however, is that the deceased -- Kurt Cobain, the superstar frontman of Nirvana -- had been murdered. Drawing on case tapes made by a P.I. hired by Courtney Love when her husband escaped from drug rehab and went missing -- and on new forensic evidence and police reports obtained under the Freedom of Information Act -- Love & Death explodes the long-standing theory that Kurt Cobain took his own life. Award-winning investigative journalists Max Wallace and Ian Halperin have conducted a ten-year crusade for the truth, and in Love & Death they present a stunning, convincing argument that the whole truth has yet to be revealed.

Ian Johnston's Bad Seed offers a superb overview of Nick Cave's career to date. Through Cave's fronting of the incendiary bands The Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds, producing music of unfettered expression and explosive intensity, to his creative collaborations outside of the rock industry in film and literature, Bad Seed illustrates a life lived in barely controlled chaos: and unravels the motivation and unique appeal of a reluctant icon whose songs, according to Rolling Stone, possess 'the authority of the most primal kind of myth'.

This wild ride of a memoir takes us from Currie's suburban upbringing as a young rebel, dyeing her hair red, white and blue and dressing up as her idol, David Bowie, to, in a turn that is dramatically sudden, being asked to audition for The Runaways by Kim Fowley and Joan Jett while at her local hangout. All of a sudden, she's thrust into the big-time world of rock music, and the pace is hectic, with fame, and drugs, chasing the band.The heart of the story is Currie's quest to find a family who'll appreciate her for herself; her dad does, and, to a large degree, her twin sister, Marie, and older sister, Sandie, but she contrasts them with the sisterhood, of sorts, she finds with her bandmates. The growing infighting amongst the band, in large part of what was perceived as Currie's starring role in the press, along with her own increasing reliance on drugs and exhaustion from touring, help drive them apart. Her life post-Runaways finds her acting (in the film Foxes, alongside Jodie Foster), recording solo albums and, mainly, figuring out who she is...all while still in her twenties. So much happens to Currie while still a teenager that it's sometimes hard to remember that she is so young.This is often a dark story, including rape and attacks that read like something out of a true crime book. Her evocation of shows overseas, in Europe especially, are some of the most vivid, including garbage and knives being thrown onstage as punk hit; you can practically feel the anger hurtling toward the stage, and Currie documents these times as vividly as she does the wildness of setting out on the road for the first time.Kim Fowley emerges as the villain who turned a group of young, talented teens into a world-famous band, and while his actions speak for themselves, Currie also details the mixed feelings she had about him, at once abhorring him and appreciating the opportunities he gave her. Sadly, her teen devolution into a range of drugs continued for a while as she tried to break free of their grip, even after watching her alcoholic father die. This Currie, the one struggling for her place and her pride, is as much a player here as the one brandishing glitter and attitude onstage.She is circumspect about some moments, such as her relationship with Joan Jett, writing, "She was my anchor. How do I explain about a person that was my best friend, someone I would confide in like a sister, someone who to me became a strong, sexual attraction? Well, it's easy. Just like how easy it was to be that way with her. I can leave it by saying that I had moments with a friend that quake me to this day. And they were some of the most satisfying moments of my young life."These tender moments are few and far between in Neon Angel; much more drawn out are some of the horror stories that illustrate the dark side of fame, or rather, fame under the iron fist of Fowley. Currie's transformation from Bowie-wannabe to Cherry Bomb through recovery to mom, actress and chain saw cutter is fascinating and riveting.

“At the epicenter of Fleetwood Mac’s inner circle, Carol Ann Harris experienced all of the brightness and darkness of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. She has brought it to life in a beautifully written, passionate classic.” —Danny Goldberg; Fleetwood Mac insider; former head of Atlantic, Modern, Mercury, and Warner Bros; and author, How the Left Lost Teen SpiritAs the girlfriend of Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac’s singer and guitarist,Carol Ann Harris was the consummate insider. Here she leads fans into the very heart of the band’s storms between 1976 and 1984. From interactions between the band and other stars—Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, and Dennis Wilson—to the chaotic animosity between band members, this memoir combines the sensational account of some of the world’s most famous musicians with a thrilling love story. Illustrated with never-before-seen photographs, the parties, fights, drug use, shenanigans, and sex lives of Fleetwood Mac are presented in intimate detail.With the exception of one brief interview, Carol Ann Harris has never before spoken about her time with Fleetwood Mac.

The stylish, exuberant, and remarkably sweet confession of one of the most famous groupies of the 1960s and 70s is back in print in this new edition that includes an afterword on the author's last 15 years of adventures. As soon as she graduated from high school, Pamela Des Barres headed for the Sunset Strip, where she knocked on rock stars' backstage doors and immersed herself in the drugs, danger, and ecstasy of the freewheeling 1960s. Over the next 10 years she had affairs with Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Waylon Jennings, Chris Hillman, Noel Redding, and Jim Morrison, among others. She traveled with Led Zeppelin; lived in sin with Don Johnson; turned down a date with Elvis Presley; and was close friends with Robert Plant, Gram Parsons, Ray Davies, and Frank Zappa. As a member of the GTO's, a girl group masterminded by Frank Zappa, she was in the thick of the most revolutionary renaissance in the history of modern popular music. Warm, witty, and sexy, this kiss-and-tell–all stands out as the perfect chronicle of one of rock 'n' roll's most thrilling eras.

Mental Health A Thon: Own VoicesFrances Farmer was a Hollywood actress in the 1940's. She was not a superstar but she was a well known actress. I've never seen any of her movies but I'm gonna make an effort to seek them out. Frances' career and life came to a screeching halt with the onset of Mental Illness. In the book she never gives us a diagnosis ( she doesn't think she's ill) but from the descriptions of her behavior it seems like Bipolar. Frances Farmer spends 20 years in and out of mental institutions. Her descriptions of these institutions were horrific. I felt awful for her but I also can't help but question if all her experiences were true. This book was published in 1972 after Frances Farmer's death by her "friend" Jean Ratcliffe, to whom the book is also dedicated to. This "memoir" is at times over the top. The language is very sensationalized. Despite wanting to believe her story something just seemed off about the narrative. I'm happy I read this book, because it was very fascinating to read about how mental health was treated in the 1940's & 1950's. Luckily we have come a long way in how we deal with mental illness. If everything or even a small percentage of the things described in this book actually happened then what Frances Farmer had to endure was truly heartbreaking and terrifying. No rec.