Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Best Rock & Roll Books To Read This Summer [Episode 142]
Transcript
- 0:00We're totally booked. I mean, I'll leave you do you're reading Little Hands,
- 0:06It's time to run and roll rollo. We are totally booked. Hey,
- 0:15welcome back to bookedown Rock, the podcast for those about to read and
- 0:19rock. Subscribe and follow on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and
- 0:24TikTok where you get exclusive videos. Links to all the social media sites at
- 0:28booked on rock dot com. The latest blog on the website. Vote for
- 0:32your favorite Cure album. Just had Martin pop off on the show. He's
- 0:36got a brand new book out on the Cure, Wild Mood Swings, Disintegrating
- 0:40the Cure album by album that's out now. And you can hear that interview
- 0:45in episode one, and that leads us to this episode. We were going
- 0:49to run a regular interview, the guest had to reschedule, so we're going
- 0:53to do that next weekend. So I figured, now it's a good time
- 0:56to maybe go over some books that are a good summer reading, summer rock
- 1:00and roll reading, if you have your vacation coming up for even if you've
- 1:03already had your vacation. He got some time off on the weekend's head down
- 1:07to the beach, bring a book with you. Got some good recommendations,
- 1:11so let's get to it. Here are some rock and roll reads for you
- 1:15this summer. What my favorite book? You're top priority of the summer.
- 1:21It's existential, yet it's so accessible. It'll be a good summer. Who
- 1:29doesn't love the Beatles? Right? Most people have a favorite Beatles song.
- 1:32In fact, most people grew up having a favorite Beatle. Charles F.
- 1:36Roseney put out a brand new book called The Book of Top Ten Beatles Lists,
- 1:40sixty four celebrities and Beatles associates revealing their top ten favorite Beatles songs,
- 1:45albums, themes, and memories. Roseney's well known to Beatles fans for over
- 1:49four decades of promoting conventions, festivals and events. Since nineteen eighty three,
- 1:55he's hosted the magical Mystery Tour to London and Liverpool during Beatle Week event which
- 2:00brings travelers on the ultimate fan experience. For almost twenty years, he was
- 2:04the publisher and editor of the world famous Beatles magazine Good Day Sunshine. After
- 2:08years of contacting celebrities, rock stars, actors, athletes, authors and notables
- 2:13connected to the Beatles history, Charles has put together this book for pop culture
- 2:16enthusiasts, music lovers and fans of the greatest rock and roll band in history,
- 2:22The Beatles. That book is out now and we had Charles on the
- 2:24show for episode one twenty eight. The Bigger Picture. I always say the
- 2:30stars aligned when The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, but they start
- 2:35the stars aligned before that because it was meant to be. Pete Best was
- 2:39a great drummer, a great personality, a great guy, but he wasn't
- 2:45a Fab four. He wasn't the mesh for John, Paul and George.
- 2:51And you know, whether whether he sees it or not, it's the truth.
- 2:54Will they have gone as far as they did with Pete or not?
- 2:59I'm that's a whole book, that's a whole speculation that we can talk about
- 3:02forever. I think they would have. But would they have been as happy,
- 3:07would they have been as creative? You know, they loved Ringo.
- 3:09They loved Ringo more than Pete. You know, why does somebody love a
- 3:14friend more and want to be with a friend more than another friend. Yeah,
- 3:17they were mates with buddies with Pete, you know, longer than Ringo.
- 3:22But there was something that clicked and it proved I mean you look,
- 3:25look at the success, Look at the fact that we're talking about a band
- 3:30whatever. Sixty years later they did, Okay, they did pretty decent.
- 3:34What's better than Summertime and Van Halen undoubtedly one of the most influential rock and
- 3:38roll bands America has ever seen and my personal favorite band of all time.
- 3:44In Van hill and Every Album, Every Song, author Morgan Brown takes readers
- 3:47through the band's classic albums, charting their ascent from sunset strip amateurs to chart
- 3:52topping arena rockers and beyond. He explores the components of their music and its
- 3:57inspirations, as well as introducing us to the musicians behind the songs, including
- 4:00the late Edward Van Hillen, the one of the kind frontman David Lee Roth,
- 4:04and Sammy Higgar, who revitalized the band when he took the reins.
- 4:09This book is perfect for new fans and longtime fans. Morgan was on episode
- 4:14one twenty nine of book Down Rock But Me. Although nineteen eighty four has
- 4:18so many great high points, I'd go back to the debut of the two.
- 4:23I think it's more even, the qualities more even across the album,
- 4:30and I think sonically it's a bit Bepper two. I think that's Sunset sound
- 4:34recording is great. Obviously the fifty and fifty allowed Eddie so much more creative
- 4:42control, which is excellent for him. But I think they made some compromises
- 4:46because of that. You get Alex starting to have to use a scale down
- 4:50kit and like electric drums to fit to physically fit into the into the room.
- 4:55Which, yeah, it's kind of the sound at the time, but
- 5:00doesn't sounds so good to my ears now. Van Halen every album, every
- 5:04song is out now also out this summer is To Live Is to Die The
- 5:09Life and Death of Metallica's Cliff Burton. The updated edition to coincide with the
- 5:14fortieth anniversary of Metallica's debut album Kill Them All. Joel McIver has put out
- 5:18a revised and updated edition of To Live Is to Die, originally published in
- 5:23two thousand and nine. It adds a new chapter that looks at Cliff's legacy
- 5:27from a fresh perspective and includes commentary from current Metallica bassist Robert Trahill and aquaman
- 5:31star Jason Momola, as well as an eyewitness account of the opening of the
- 5:35Cliff Burton Museum in Sweden. In twenty twenty two. Testament bassist Steve de
- 5:41Jurjo also adds his memories of meeting Cliff as a teen and then watching he
- 5:45and his band Metallica take off. Joel was on episode one, twenty eight
- 5:49of the podcast to talk about the life and career of the late great Cliff
- 5:54Burton. He had become a bass player for the Ages by this point,
- 5:57and yet he was in this thrash metal world, which lows my mind because
- 6:00it's not traditionally the home of virtuoso based players. That are the ones we
- 6:03just mentioned aside Puppets. I mean, it's to me it's not just Meternica's
- 6:08best record. And really that's a generational question anyway. You know, you
- 6:13ask people under thirty what their favorite record Meternica isn't it probably won't be Puppets.
- 6:16You ask people you know of all generations, may you know where they
- 6:20stand on Metallnic You'll get different answer his time, quite riley. But I
- 6:24do think that in terms of musical sophistication, that's where they peaked. Although
- 6:30and at the same time those songs are catchy as hell as well. You
- 6:32don't forget any of them. There's no escape on that record, right,
- 6:35there's no slightly dodgy song that they really didn't need to record those eight songs
- 6:41that they're all excellent, you know, beautifully put together, unmemorable Tool,
- 6:46every album, every song by Matt Karper. Matt was on episode one thirty
- 6:50one of the podcasts his book All About All. One of the most unique
- 6:55bands in rock and metal history. Their music extremely complex and intelligent, while
- 7:00their insistence on privacy makes them an enigma to many. Matt documents all of
- 7:03this Los Angeles band Studio releases from the Rhyme Unapologetic n eighteen ninety one dem
- 7:08or Tape to their twenty nineteen epic Fear in Ourculum, the stories behind every
- 7:13song, including the pivotal track sober Anima, Schism, Ladder, Alice,
- 7:16and Rosetta Stone. Here's Matt from episode one thirty one of book Down Rack.
- 7:20I specifically remember skis and came on the first time I'd heard of this
- 7:25band, Tool, and straight away, you know, just just a name
- 7:28Tool. I thought, that's been a strange name for a band, and
- 7:31when it leads in with that that base riff, I mean, I was
- 7:34like, whoa this is? This is not you? Know, this isn't
- 7:38a rap metal song, This isn't this isn't going to be the sort of
- 7:42thing we're used to hearing. And yeah, it just came in with that,
- 7:46with that, you know that it made you sit up and take notice.
- 7:49I guess. I called it a legendary and other worldly based riff,
- 7:55and it just came in so different to what he was hearing at the time.
- 8:01I've read that an analysis of the track also found that the meter of
- 8:05the song altered at forty seven different times. I mean, I'm not going
- 8:09to say on the most understanding in terms of the terms of you know,
- 8:16used in song structures and different things. So even for tour for this book,
- 8:20I had to really sort of delve into the reasoning behind them and what
- 8:26sort of everything that went into the song, I guess. And it's quite
- 8:30ironic that one of the lead lyrics is I know the pieces fit. Because
- 8:33this really was a song that was concocted meticulously. I can imagine why it
- 8:39took so long to to be put together, and yeah, it's just absolutely
- 8:46that time. I do remember. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard again,
- 8:50and it was the reason why I did end up going to the shops
- 8:52and buying latter alys to to see what else they was capable of. Arthur
- 8:56Sean Kelly has put out a brand new book, Don't Call It Hair Metal
- 9:01Art in the Excess of Eighties Rock. The nineteen eighties, it was the
- 9:05era of excess. Bigger is Better, a little just ain't enough, a
- 9:09time when the musical and cultural ideas of rebellion and freedom of the great rock
- 9:13and roll of the fifties, sixties and seventies were taken to dizzying heights of
- 9:16neon excess. But time hasn't always been kind to the artists and bands of
- 9:20that gold and platinum era. The music often overlooked and ignored by critics,
- 9:24with the focus more on what the bands look like and less on the songs
- 9:28they wrote and recorded. And Don't Call It hair Metal Art in the Excess
- 9:31of Eighties Rock Sean Kelly sets out to give these artists the respect they deserve.
- 9:37Sean stop by for a visit for episode one thirty two of Booked on
- 9:39Rock. We covered the book, plus I asked them about Motley Crewe and
- 9:43how they've replaced Mick Mars with guitarist John five. Listen Man John five is
- 9:48a remarkable musician, an absolutely incredible musician. I've got nothing but respect from
- 9:56But I also have no interest in a Motley Crew without mc mars. And
- 10:00you know what, even with the Karab stuff, I actually love that Karab
- 10:03record. I love it. I love John. It's a beautiful record.
- 10:07Sure they have called it Motley crue. I don't know, because, honest
- 10:11to God, Vince Neil, he's not the technical the most technically gifted vocalist
- 10:16in the world. We know that. But the sound and even Nikki back
- 10:20in the day, I don't know how much. I don't know if he
- 10:24played everything on Too Fast Beloved, but it showed at the Devil. If
- 10:26you listen to the isolated bass tracks, we're not talking about a virtuoso at
- 10:31work here, like I'm listen, but together the slop, with the tight
- 10:37the musicianship of lean Mars, the vision, I'm really Nikki six. It's
- 10:41thought about being a bass player. It's about being a visionary and seeing it
- 10:43through and and and a lyricist and a songwriter, right like I mean that
- 10:46those are his gifts. Yeah, you know, and being a great bass
- 10:50player doesn't really matter in that context, you know, you got Mick Mars
- 10:56He's covering all the basses. You're good, you know, Uh yeah,
- 11:00I'm just not that interest. Who knows. Maybe they'll come up there in
- 11:03the studio with Bob Rock right now, Maybe they'll come up with something mind
- 11:07blowing, and I hope they do because the world needs more mind blowing rock.
- 11:11Why do you go? But at that time, it was those four
- 11:16personalities that made that happen, and I don't think it could have been anybody
- 11:18else. Another phenomenal book to read this summer, especially if you're a Bruce
- 11:24Springsteen fan, Deliver Me from Nowhere. The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska by
- 11:28Warren Zanes fascinating story behind the making of Bruce's most surprising album, Nebraska from
- 11:33nineteen eighty two. Bruce considers this his best album, and we find out
- 11:37why from Warren, who spoke to Bruce Springstein himself for the book, along
- 11:41with the many people involved with the making of the album. Here's Warren from
- 11:46episode one thirty three. Bruce, he gives you a great description of what
- 11:50it was like recording the songs. This is chapter eleven. He uses a
- 11:54teac one forty four four track recorder. Is that. Yeah, it looks
- 12:01kind of like what I'm recording my podcast. I was like a little you
- 12:03know, I went on eBay. Um, I just I found a broken
- 12:09one. And when I do book events, I bring it with me just
- 12:13because it's good to make contact with the material history and to see this thing.
- 12:22You know, it's it was ahead of its time at that point,
- 12:24right ahead of its time, and now it looks like just this artifact of
- 12:28deep funkiness and it's cool for people to see it. When we did the
- 12:35CBS Sunday Morning, Um piece, I brought it out there and you know,
- 12:43it's beautiful. Bruce kind of put his hands on it, you know,
- 12:46but both his hands just like feetle things like yeah yeah, um.
- 12:52But it's recording on a cassette that you could buy. You know, at
- 12:58the time, you could go buy that CVS and you know, little kids
- 13:03would use them to tape their voices and play it back. The difference with
- 13:07the TAE forty four was that it's four track recording, and so that was
- 13:11the revolution. It had been there for a couple of years, been out
- 13:16on the market for a couple of years. But to put it really simply,
- 13:20it was the first consumer multi track machine. You know, now multi
- 13:26track recording is a mundane thing. It's on everybody's laptop, you know,
- 13:31if you choose to do it. But then it was like whoa multi track
- 13:37recording? And pretty soon you see that shift where people are starting to take
- 13:43it home. And in that respect, the Spring scene's move was very prophetic
- 13:50of what was coming. Author David Jackson was on the podcast for episode one
- 13:54thirty four to talk about his book Peter Asher Life in Music, another must
- 13:58read for this summer. It covers the life and career of English guitarist,
- 14:01singer, manager and record producer Peter Asher, who was one half of the
- 14:05sixties pop duo Peter and Gordon before going on to a successful career as a
- 14:09manager and record producer. He's worked with James Taylor, Linda Ronstat, Bonnie
- 14:15Raid, Steely, Dan's Donald Fagan, Diana Ross, Share, Neil Diamond,
- 14:18Randy Newman, Kenny Loggins, Morrissey, Ed Shearon, and Steve Martin.
- 14:22David spoke with Peter himself for the book, along with over one hundred
- 14:26artists, friends and colleagues. Here's David from episode one thirty four. I
- 14:31want to go back to the first album that James recorded, which was under
- 14:35Apple Records. There's a familiar song title on that album, but the song
- 14:41itself is different from the one that most know, and that's Carolina in my
- 14:45mind, the version that's included on James Taylor's Best of from nineteen seventy six
- 14:50very different. The story behind that new recording is in your book. Warner
- 14:54Brothers asked Peter if James would re record that song and something in the Way
- 15:01She Moves from the Apple Records album. Can you talk about why Warner Brothers
- 15:05wanted those two new recordings, why did they end up being recorded differently?
- 15:11Yes, Well, if you recall in the late seventies early eighties, for
- 15:18a while Apple was in you know, there were a lot of lawsuits going
- 15:24on between the Beatles, between Apple and Capitol. I mean, it's like,
- 15:30you know, just law your heaven for a while, and so those
- 15:35tapes, those sessions were kind of in this limbo where you couldn't just license
- 15:43them, which you know, would have been the easy thing to do.
- 15:48And so because they weren't available and Warner Brothers one of those two songs on
- 15:54that Greatest Hits album, they needed to rerecord them, and Peter was always
- 16:02and even James Taylor told me that though that first album was a little overproduced,
- 16:08Peter was so enamored of James and the talent and the songs that he
- 16:14wanted to make them stand out from the folk world. So he, uh,
- 16:19you know, there's some string quartet on it. They're fuller production.
- 16:23I mean even you know, Carolina in my mind the first time I heard
- 16:26it on the radio, it's a great production. But by the time James
- 16:33Taylor became a hit with Fire and Rain and those Warner Brothers records, he
- 16:40was doing things much more low key and acoustic. And so since they had
- 16:45been doing Carolina in my mind in that way for a few years now live,
- 16:52it was like, whoa, let's just do it in that way,
- 16:53not try to recreate that original version. So it's much more like I said,
- 17:00sticky and so little slower. So that's the way those two songs were
- 17:04done. For the Greatest Hits. Another fascinating summer read Magic the David Peyton
- 17:11Story. David Payton is the singer, songwriter and bass player with the group
- 17:15Pilot, and he's written the worldwide hits Magic, January and just a smile.
- 17:18He was a member of the Alan Parsons Project for ten years, did
- 17:22session work with The Pretenders, Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Chris de Burgh,
- 17:26Chris Ray and Jimmy Page. He also spent three years touring the world
- 17:30and recording as a bassist for Elton John. He even performed with Elton at
- 17:34nineteen eighty five's Live eight. David was on the show to talk about some
- 17:38of those stories, episode number one thirty six. You know, I asked
- 17:42people about that song. I've been bringing up the fact I'll be interviewing you,
- 17:47and I said, you know, he wrote that song. Oh whoa,
- 17:49it's magic, And it's an immediate response, like they'll say, oh
- 17:53God, I remember the first time I heard that. That reminds me of
- 17:56or you know, I just I play that for my kids and they love
- 18:00you write about composing the four bars on piano. And then after that the
- 18:03challenge was getting the right verse. Can you cheer with us how that verse
- 18:07came to you? Yeah, Well, as you say, I had the
- 18:11chorus, I had as little chorus. It just went oh ho ho,
- 18:15it's magic. You know, never believe it's not. So it's only four
- 18:18bars and I used to sit up my piano with a cassette recorder above the
- 18:25piano, and every time I wrote something, even something that was just four
- 18:27bars, I would press record and record that little four bar piece, then
- 18:33move on to something else. So that little piece was on my cassette player
- 18:38waiting for a verse to come along. I had to get up early one
- 18:42morning as the sun was rising, and I accidentally woke my wife up as
- 18:49I was getting up, and she said to me, wow, look,
- 18:53I've never been awake to see the daybreak. And suddenly I heard it as
- 18:57a melody, and my little Magic chorus came into my head, and I
- 19:03thought, this little line, I've never been awake to see the daybreak.
- 19:07Well I modified it a little bit, never been awake, never seen a
- 19:11daybreak, but I knew there, and then I had a full song.
- 19:15Those songs you only need a verse in a chorus. Sometimes you'll add a
- 19:18middle eight, but Magic didn't need the middle late and that was it.
- 19:22Yeah. I usually get it from something that somebody says to me, you
- 19:26know, and just a little line or even you know. I wrote a
- 19:30song called love Is, which was based on the little look bad that you
- 19:33used to get and I said, love is in the corner. You know,
- 19:37little things like that. It's always something somebody says and you just think,
- 19:41oh, that sounds like it could be a song. Author Joe Mattera
- 19:45was on episode one thirty seven to talk about his book Backstage Passed the Grit
- 19:49and the Glamour. Here's a book that's a definite must read for this summer.
- 19:53Joe has interviewed artists from all over the world, covering the full spectrum
- 19:57of genres. He takes the reader backstage and beyond to get behind the facade
- 20:02of the rock stars he's met. He's got stories on Nickelback lem Me from
- 20:06Motorhead, The Shadows, guitarist Hank Marvin Riem and Zerich, Brain May,
- 20:10George Martin, Gene Simmons, and John Mayer. Here's Joel from episode one
- 20:14thirty seven. John came out to Australia. When he came out, no
- 20:17one knew who he was. I didn't even know who he was. I
- 20:18just got this press release saying, you know, this singer songwriter from America
- 20:22has got this album and you know he's coming out to do a showcase.
- 20:25So I was invited to the showcase and it's only about twenty people at this
- 20:30really sort of dingy, sort of inner city sort of bar, and most
- 20:36of them who were there were more interested in having their their free alcohol when
- 20:38you know, just sort of checking out who this guy guitar player said,
- 20:41John's on stage. He's he's playing all he's tunes. You now, no
- 20:45one's sort of really taking much note. And you know, I can sense
- 20:48that, you know, this is a guy who's really extremely you know,
- 20:52talented on the guitar, and he's got some great songs. And he got
- 20:56to the last song and he could see that he wasn't winning you know,
- 21:00many people away us, so he decided to throw in a cover of Stevie
- 21:03ray Vaughn's Lenny Right and which is He just played it, and all of
- 21:10a sudden, everybody just swammed in front and go wow. And he just
- 21:14this amazing cover, one of the best covers I've ever sort of heard from
- 21:18from an artist, and he won everybody over and I knew straight down,
- 21:22I thought, well, this guy is going to be going places. So
- 21:25what happened then was six months later he broke he was he was becoming a
- 21:30really big star in Australia. So he came out again and I got to
- 21:33sort of interview him again. He remembered, he remembered it and in detail
- 21:37where we were, what we talked about. I thought, wow, this
- 21:40guy is pretty switched on. He remembers me. He must have done hundreds
- 21:44of interviews since then. Then, So we got on really well and he
- 21:47opened up to me, and he just kept getting bigger and big and bigger.
- 21:51One of my favorite bands is Living Color, and there's a brand new
- 21:52book out for you to read this summer called Living Colors Times Up. It's
- 21:56part of the thirty three and a third series. Kimberly mac has the author.
- 22:00She was here for episode one thirty eight of the podcast. This book
- 22:03is an in depth exploration of the nineteen ninety Living Color album Times Up,
- 22:07recorded in the aftermath of the critical and commercial success of the band's debut record,
- 22:11Vivity. She interviewed members of Living Color and others involved in the making
- 22:15of Times Up. You know, I think I would describe it as an
- 22:21album that if you listen to it right now in twenty twenty three, it
- 22:26sounds fresh. I mean, every time I listened to it, it doesn't
- 22:30feel dated to me. It doesn't sound old. It sounds like it could
- 22:36have been made this year, in part because of the I think the fluidity
- 22:44between the different categories of music. I think artists do that more now than
- 22:51what was happening in the late eighties or early nineties. So I would say
- 22:56this is a record that's going to sound kind of familiar in some ways to
- 23:00you, and sonically it's not going to be like, oh, this is
- 23:03old or whatever. Also, I would say it's just a fantastic record in
- 23:10terms of the level of musicianship, the level of Corey's vocals, and just
- 23:17the songs themselves. I think the songcraft on all of them are you know,
- 23:22it's just I think it's like a consistently strong record. I don't think
- 23:25there's a weak track on that record. And then I would say, from
- 23:30a lyrical standpoint, for better for worse, probably for worse, so much
- 23:34of it again could have been written right now. You know, history is
- 23:38a lie that they teach you in school, a fraudulent view called the Golden
- 23:41rule. I mean, you know, when I hear those lyrics, I
- 23:45think about all of the kind of you know, panics around you know,
- 23:49in case through twelve, around critical race theory and banning books and all this
- 23:55stuff. It's like, you know, I think about that when I hear
- 23:57that song Time's Up. Yeah, Corey was sounding an alarm, but now
- 24:03the environment is worse, you know, like we didn't listen to the alarm.
- 24:07You know, information overload. It's kind of predicting the chaos of the
- 24:11Internet and you know, and social media. This is the life. You
- 24:15could also think about it in terms of social media and you know what young
- 24:21people are kind of dealing with in terms of you know, they've been studies
- 24:25about young girls in particular and how detrimental the Internet has been for young teenage
- 24:32girls on their self esteem, on their feelings about their bodies and their in
- 24:37their physical attractiveness. It's just been terrible. So yeah, I think this
- 24:41is a record where I would say, for somebody right now, we're young
- 24:47somebody right now. There's so many things on there that you can listen to
- 24:49and get something out of. Even though it was recorded more than thirty years
- 24:53ago. Mud Honey guitar is Steve Turner teamed up with author Adam to pedal
- 24:57And to release a book that is one of the best of the summer mud
- 25:02Ride a messy trip through the grunge explosion. If you're a fan of nineties
- 25:06rock man, this is a great book to read. Chronicles the birth and
- 25:08evolution of the Seattle grunge scene, from amateur skate parks and underground hardcore clubs
- 25:14to a worldwide phenomenon, told by one of its founding fathers and the lead
- 25:18guitarists of legendary alternative rock band mud Honey. Steven Adam appeared in episode one
- 25:23thirty nine of Booked on Rock, and Steve revealed, as he does in
- 25:26the book, that he was offered the job with Nirvana back in nineteen ninety.
- 25:30You mentioned in the book you were asked to join Nirvana as a second
- 25:33guitarist. You didn't think that was a good idea. Now why you felt
- 25:38they were better as just one guitarist would have? I mean they weren't anything
- 25:42yet, you know. Remember this is like right when Dave Roll joined and
- 25:51you know, right after they kicked Dan out. So and Dan was my
- 25:55roommate at the time too, So I was like, I can't join a
- 25:57band that just kicked out Dan, you know. But but I also I
- 26:03legitimately just thought they were a great three piece, and so my advice is
- 26:07like, don't get a second guitar player. You guys are great as a
- 26:10three piece, you know, like there's not that's a rare beast. A
- 26:12really good, powerful three piece is a rare beast. And you know,
- 26:17I didn't even think of it at the time. It didn't matter or anything.
- 26:19And years later I thought about it, like, well, you know
- 26:25what, if I had said yes, I wouldn't have lasted more than a
- 26:27few weeks, I don't think, because there's just a lot of chaos involved
- 26:30with those people. And as much as I love them, Chris is awesome.
- 26:36I've known Chris forever. But I wasn't the guy to be in that
- 26:40band, and that's pretty obvious. You know, it wouldn't have worked out.
- 26:44And they got Pat smear and he was the dude. I was gonna
- 26:48ask, what did you think? How did they sound when when they added
- 26:51pair it was great, but they had a second guitar player earlier, which
- 26:55is terrible. It was just muddied up the sound. But Pat Smeir was
- 26:59the dude. He was the right guy for the job. You know,
- 27:02he's a great guitar player and could somehow maneuver his way through those very volatile
- 27:10personalities. One book, I want to mention it came out in November of
- 27:15twenty twenty two, but we just recently had the author on and this is
- 27:18a definite summertime read Secret Stars, the greatest Underdogs of the Rock and Roll
- 27:22Era. It's by Matt Brenson. Discover some amazing musicians that flew under the
- 27:26radar. Some you may have heard of, some you may not have.
- 27:29They may not have received as much radio play, if any at all,
- 27:32as their more famous counterparts, but their music and stories are just as incredible
- 27:36and personally. The one band that I now love because of this book is
- 27:40the band Love, with the legendary late great singer and songwriter Arthur Lee.
- 27:45Love was a rock band the way you think of a rock band. They
- 27:48put out albums, they lay shows, they have had lyrics to their songs
- 27:52that you know that. They were not a house band for anyone else.
- 27:56They were their own thing, LA band, And basically once I found out
- 28:00about them, I found I heard their album Forever Changes, their third album,
- 28:06was sort of the album they were famous for and that some people considered
- 28:10among the greatest albums of all time. The Library of Congress has it on
- 28:12their list, right, Library of Congress. There we go. It turns
- 28:15out if you look at almost any list from the twentieth century of the greatest
- 28:22rock albums of all time, it'll be there. Rolling Stones five hundred Greatest
- 28:26Albums of all Time from like I think it was the year two thousand and
- 28:27three. The first one they did, Forever Changes, is like, you
- 28:32know, one hundred and fifty on the list. It's way up there,
- 28:34you know, any and in the UK it's much bigger than it is here.
- 28:38Any list of the greatest albums of all time in any UK music magazine
- 28:44will include Loves Forever Changes. So they are bigger there and better known in
- 28:48the UK than they are here. But they never had any They had one
- 28:52top forty hit here, minor hit called well two, but really like not
- 29:00huge hits at all. One was a cover of a Burt backrock song called
- 29:03My Little Red Book, which was fantastic. Their version of it is so
- 29:06much better than his. And then a song called seven and seven Is,
- 29:11which I was actually surprised was their biggest hit here because it's very punk.
- 29:18It sounds like a really agro early punk song, really early punk song because
- 29:22it was, like, you know, nineteen sixty six. They were way
- 29:25ahead of the curve, and I just fell in love with all of it.
- 29:27Their first three albums, which are the three with the original lineup,
- 29:33and then really he recorded several great albums as Love after that, but not
- 29:38as great as those three. The first song Jimmy Hendricks ever played guitar on
- 29:42was written by Arthur Lee, and it was recorded by a female artist before
- 29:48Love existed, even when Arthur was a teenager. He wrote a song when
- 29:51he was nineteen. He and Arthur met each other then and remained friends for
- 29:55the rest of Jimmy's life. And I tracked that friendship through the whole through
- 29:59the whole chapter. As you know, So Arthur Lee starts an integrated rock
- 30:04band, and wouldn't you know, so does Jimmy Hendrix. So Jimmie Hendricks
- 30:07and Sly and the Family Stone were the first famous integrated rock bands, or
- 30:12in the case of Sly and the Family Stone, R and B soul.
- 30:17But you know, Jimmy Hendricks learned a lot from Arthur Lee. That's all
- 30:19I can tell you. Arthur loves guitar player Johnny eccles used to play the
- 30:25guitar behind his head. Yeah, so Jimmy Hendricks was around before the Jimmie
- 30:30Hendrix experience. There was love And I mentioned earlier Martin Popo's book whild Mood
- 30:34Swings Disintegrating The Cure album by album that is definitely one to add to your
- 30:40list for this summer, presented in a Q and A format, and it
- 30:42takes a critical analysis of The Cure's thirteen studio albums and some books that will
- 30:48be coming out very soon that you definitely should check out. One of his
- 30:51brothers and sisters, The Almer Brothers Band and The Inside Story of the Album
- 30:53That Defined the seventies. Author Alan Paul will be on the podcast. I've
- 30:59got that interview set up for this week, so should get it out by
- 31:02the end of the week. It's due out July twenty fifth, to out
- 31:04August fifteenth through Backbeat Books. The Jive of ninety five and Oral History of
- 31:08America's Greatest Underground Rock Radio Station KSA N and San Francisco. An Oral History
- 31:14of America's greatest underground rock radio station KSA N San Francisco. It's an oral
- 31:18history of America's first hippie underground FM station. Hank Rosenfield du on the podcast
- 31:25very soon to talk about that book. Looking forward to that. Another author
- 31:29we're looking forward to having on as Nina Antonia. Nina wrote the cult Bible
- 31:33of all things Johnny Thunders with their book Johnny Thunders and Cold Blood back in
- 31:37nineteen eighty seven, The Definitive Portrait of the Condemned Man of Rock and Roll,
- 31:41from the baptism of fire and tragedy that was the New York Dolls,
- 31:44through the chunky punk years of the Heartbreakers to his sudden and mysterious death in
- 31:48nineteen ninety one. There's a brand new edition out now, a new closing
- 31:51chapter and photos and more. We're gonna have Nina on the show very soon.
- 31:56Also looking forward to that one. That's to look at some of the
- 31:59summer rock and roll books that are out now or coming out soon. You
- 32:01can go to bookdown rock dot com as well to get a link to all
- 32:05the new releases. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen.
- 32:09We're on Spotify, Apple, Stitcher, Google Podcast, YouTube, iHeart Spreaker,
- 32:16tune in and more. That's it for now. I'm Eric Senich.
- 32:20Thanks for listening to book Don Rock, that's it's in the books.