Book Review: Rocky horrors

Published on Friday 19 December 2008 15:05

OVER THE YEARS, I HAVE NOTICED, the pop book has become bigger. What were once slim publications devoted to a superficial overview of their subject have now grown into weighty tomes, complete with lengthy footnotes and all the paraphernalia of serious critical works. Take, for example, Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music, by David N Meyer (Bloomsbury, £25). Even the title is a mouthful.

The subject of the book died when he was 26. Commercial success eluded him throughout his short life. Yet acknowledgements, source notes and index add more than 100 pages to the 455 already spent dissecting every aspect of a career that was mostly spent in a frenzy of under-achievement. The excuse is that he invented the genre of country rock. The reality is otherwise.

Gram was a dangerously glamorous figure, good-looking in that irritating American way. He was the independently wealthy son of an extraordinarily dysfunctional family, who used his considerable charm to make friends in all the right rock 'n' roll places, and his commitment to the dissolute arts was total. This is the story of a talented boy going down the tubes in style: did it have to be so long?

Similarly grand in intent is When Giants Walked the Earth, a new biography of Led Zeppelin by Mick Wall (Orion, 20). The giants of the title were four rather ordinary geezers who filled the vacuum left by Cream in the late 1960s and managed to satisfy the then-prevalent taste for heavy blues/rock with a few mystical trimmings.

Zeppelin were, in fact, a great band but their behaviour was infantile and every detail of it is included here. Wall talks us through the albums and concerts in detail but the juice is in the downtime, when the group attempted to amuse themselves with girls, damage to their immediate surroundings and illegal substances. After a while, you cease to care what John Bonham got up to with Dog Girl in his hotel room.

In the same vein (sic) is Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N' Roses, by Stephen Davis (Penguin/Michael Joseph, 18.99). The author was previously responsible for Hammer of the Gods, the Led Zep book that first told the world how naughty they had been. I feel he has come down in the world, for the Guns N' Roses story has to be one of the most derivative of all.

Because they were all desperate to be the wild boys on the block, this band committed the cardinal sin of repeating history because they were always too stoned to remember what happened the first time round. Thus the endless squabbles, blown-out gigs, shoddy treatment of women and, of course, use of narcotics and the bottle to disguise from themselves a paucity of original ideas. And through the mire strides the odious figure of Axl Rose, possibly – from the evidence presented here – the most obnoxious man ever to take a stage.

If you want a straightforward and unapologetic guide to excess in the pop business – one that is not burdened by footnotes and pleas for the participants to be taken seriously as true artists – then look no further than Rock 'n' Roll Babylon by Gary Herman (Plexus, 14.99). Cheerfully ignoring the often dubious claims of artistic integrity, Herman zeroes in on what most people want to read about: what did these musical heroes do behind the doors that had been closed until they kicked them open? The answer, needless to relate, is always the same: they behaved like absolute pigs. The singer Donovan once said: "It's as if God had come down to earth and seen all the ugliness that was being created and chosen pop to be the great force for love and beauty." Donovan was wrong, and here is the proof.

Kurt Cobain continues to be a figure of fascination even though, like Gram Parsons, he was a candle that burned fiercely but briefly because he used both ends. Cobain Unseen (Hodder, 30) is an illustrated biography that draws heavily on the treasure trove of artworks and collected items that Kurt accumulated in his lifetime and are now preserved in a vault. Author Charles R Cross managed to get Courtney Love's permission – no mean feat – to make use of them for this book.

The result is a fascinating hotchpotch of material, including handwritten song lyrics, a CD of spoken words and pages from journals. Even more interesting is the revelation that Cobain was fascinated by porcelain dolls' heads and seahorses. Now we can see where all that music really came from.

Eminem, rather surprisingly, is still alive, a miracle celebrated in The Way I Am (Melcher Media, 20), which he claims to have written himself, and who am I to disbelieve that statement? Rather predictably, this is the story of all those bad guys who would have nipped his career in the bud, but the rapper's affection for his late friend Proof, who got his white friend some recognition, is heartfelt.

Those of you who haven't been reading the tabloids lately can catch up on the news with Beg, Steal or Borrow – The Official Babyshambles Story by Spencer Honiball (Octopus, 14.99). In it, Pete Doherty admits taking a few drugs in between flashes of inspiration. On the other hand, if you want to know some new stuff, get hold of The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia by Michael Gray (Continuum, 16.99). This is a massive tome that deserves its size for once. Facts are presented amusingly, yet the critical tone prevails. Lewis Carroll gets a look-in. A really great read for bedtime.