Well, I already wrote a review here, and goodreads didn't save and I lost it so here I go again (sigh).
I read the book in a day and a half. Thats realWell, I already wrote a review here, and goodreads didn't save and I lost it so here I go again (sigh).
I read the book in a day and a half. Thats really fast for me as I usually put down a book I'm reading for days, weeks, or months at a time before I pickit up again to read a few pages or a chapter just to put it down again.
The book was a lot of fun. The writing style was great. Blunt, pulls no punches, and REAL.
It follows the author from a college Freshman through graduation (briefly - only the important points that highlight her nerdiness), and her move out to L.A. to try to become a famous music writer, along the lines of Lester Bangs.
First, let me say what I didn't like, and what took away that 5th star. There's not a whole lot about the actual metal scene in L.A., and not just because hair metal was starting its decline when she got out there (I lived there about a year or two before she did, and it was already showing hints of its impending decline when I moved away in the fall of '89).There's a glimpse here and there, but not much. If you read this expecting to read about what the scene was like in the Sunset Strip's hey day, or even in its last months, this isn't the book. For those that were there, here's a hint - the Rock N Roll Denny's was mentioned in passing on one sentence in the book. Gazarri's wasn't mentioned at all, though places like The Troubadour, etc. were. The book follows the author's exploits, and while there are glimpses of that scene here and there (the part about the review of Wikked Gypsy was totally spot-on for about 99% of the bands in L.A. who thought publicity, hair, and lipstick were all that was neededto make it, and skill on their instruments and musicianship was about 5th or 6th down the line), it is mostly about the authors experiences and the settings are far more often the local bar(s) that the author hung out in (not the Sunset bars), her apartment building, and her work location(s), including her work for the skeevy writer.
So thats why a star is missing. On the positive side, its still an addictive read. Its a lot of fun and I thoroughly enjoyed her writing style. All of the seediness of Hollywood that I remember is there. Although less of the seediness is about the Poison wannabes, most of the Hollywood inhabitants, musician or not, tend towards the seedy it seems. If you want to get somewhat of a feel of what Hollywood was about on the fringes of the music scene at that time, from the perspective of a pretty 'normal' person (IOW, not someone seedy), this is the book. When I lived there, I used to say "Hollywood, a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there". This book will kinda show you why. The book did kinda of seem to end rather abruptly, which I thought was odd, but a quick google search of the author shows what she is doing now, and the missing ending details are pretty simple to fill in for yourself (she got her MFA from VCU, and is now selling Real Estate in Richmond, and wrote a book about Belly Dancing (my over simplification) before this one).
If she wrote another book either concentrating on her views of the metal scene in LA itself, or maybe something about her life before moving out to LA (or at least in more detail than the few chapters at the beginning), I'd pick it up in a heartbeat....more
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