Based on suggestions from the first poll, plus several others.

Which of these have you read? Do you recommend any of them?

•

Not included (but by all means create your own poll):

Gary Barlow – My Take
Geri Halliwell – Just for the Record (her sequel to If Only)
Matt Goss – More Than You Know: The Autobiography
Victoria Beckham – Learning to Fly: The Autobiography (did she ever actually learn to fly?)

A few days ago I started reading Dean Wareham's (formerly of Luna and Galaxie 500, now Dean & Britta) autobiography.

Seems to me like a very honest book. Not that surprising if you know the Luna documentary "Tell Me Do You Miss Me". He makes no apparent effort to appear faultless or excessively sympathetic. Most of his ex bandmates are getting a rather negative description, but this happens in at least one other recent book as well...

Took me almost four weeks to finish Renegade, so don't expect a definitive statement soon. :huh:

John Cale - What's Welsh for Zen? An inspired format beautifully laid out, Cale comes across without self-regard and at regular intervals he's enjoyably indiscreet. Early chapters feature comments by others too (e.g. Billy Name), a device nicely employed by Lydon in No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs - another memoir well worth reading.

I enjoyed the Johnny Rotten book.

andy summers book

dont like police or anything to do with them but this book is excellent. well written. good for musicians, fans, historians. has everything. and really really funny in places

Only read 24 Hour Party People, which is very good and not the book of the movie.

I've heard the Lydon and Summers books are good, obviously borne out by the votes. I've also heard the Bez book is a suprisingly good read.

Of the five votes so far, one has gone to Andy Summers and one has gone to Sting!

Only read two - Chuck Berry & Dave Davies and prefer the Chuck Berry.

Umm, the only book I've read here is Cliff Richard's.
I had to review it - stop laughing.
Quite like to read Lemmy's.
I voted for Tony Hadley's To Cut A Long Short Story Short purely for comedy value.
If you want to cut a long story short, why NOT write your autobiography?

I'm an Art Pepper/Straight Life bore so I will vote for that. Quite an amazing book.

Derek Bailey's book is more about different processes of improvisation rather than a memoir as such, which was a shame because I'm sure he had a very interesting life and seemed like a nice chap.

'Really The Blues' by Mezz Mezzrow is fantastic, but I like the sound of the Art Pepper one.

Voted for Lemmy's 'White Line Fever' - really enjoyed this. A life lived to the full you would have to say.

I'm just about to start Boy George's 'Take It Like A Man'.

I voted for Levon Helm: An interesting life, with firsthand accounts of some "historic" times in rock music, spiced with some severe bitterness toward Robbie Robertson (who does seem like a wanker).

x

Bez

freaky dancing

I'm about three-fourths through the Chuck Berry and I should have picked that over Levon Helm. It's a great read that feels richer the further you get into it (initally I put it aside to read Renegade). A remarkable life story too: a black man in the United States serves time in prison and goes on to become a self-made superstar in the pre-Civil Rights-era. All told in CB's very unique language. And no ghost writer, which really helps.

Me too. Lemmy seems like a very down-to-earth and straightforward guy. Sure, he's a sex fiend and a speed freak, but he doesn't pretend otherwise.

I also liked Levon Helm's book: It can't be healthy, though, to hold a grudge against another person for so long. Thing is - Robbie Robertson couldn't have done what The Band did on his own, all of the others were crucial (and it was when Richard Manuel started losing it that The Band started losing it); but the others couldn't do it without him either. The reunited Band is proof for that; great band (I like the Jericho album a lot), but hardly any new songs.

True, but it is a great book for anyone interested in improvisation and I voted for it for that reason.

Yep!

:applaud:

"Enjoyably indiscrete?"
In the James Young Nico bio, Young calls Cale a "flatulent druid."
Bet that was fun in the recording studio...

Just finished All That Glitters by Pearl Lowe. It's highly readable – mainly an account of her addiction to heroin and cocaine and her various attempts to overcome drugs. There's not a great deal about her Britpop bands Powder and Lodger, but mainly because she says she was too out of it to put any time into making the groups successful. There are also a couple of hair-raising 'child neglect' sections, although not quite up there with the baby crawling over used needles in John Phillips' Papa John. Now she designs dresses and still lives with long-term partner Danny of Supergrass, having 'got it together in the country' a couple of years ago.

Deke, definitely. He is a great descriptive writer (rare).

When Man happen to be staying in the same hotel as Tommy Cooper, one of their roadies makes him laugh, and they find said roadie later, away in a corner muttering to himself over and over "I made Tommy Cooper laugh....I made Tommy Cooper laugh"
The on-the-road antics of Martin Ace knock everyone else's into a cocked hat.

Just finished the Rotten book and found it highly entertaining.

I was in a charity shop this afternoon and saw two copies of Gary Barlow's My Take (£1 for the paperpack and £2 for the hardback). They also had Life is a Rollercoaster by Ronan Keating (hardback: £1.50) and Kurt Cobain's Journals (paperback: £2). Are any of these worth reading?

If you want to read the tortured, harrowing, suicidal, searingly honest, manic depressive account of what it was like to be the Face of Underground Rock and the reluctant icon for Generation X in the early 1990s, I would have no hesitation in recommending the Gary Barlow book.

Rather mixed reviews on Amazon:

Ms. B. Harper "Bry" (Flackwell Heath, Buckinghamshire United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
Firstly I struggled with the overuse of the first person. writing the whole book with I in every single sentence was a sure fire way to turn me off. Before reading the book I thought that Gary was quite boring but basically a nice guy, but it reads that he was so ruthless to get his success - he stitched the other band members up about writing credits and stuff. Another thing that struck me was that he wanted to be brave and admit his past faults, but then he would immediately double back on himself blaming someone else. I thought the point of a book like this was to help you understand and like the person more? I came away feeling such sympathy for the other band members (particularly Rob and Jason) and yeah, it made me like Gary less. At one point he says that he is convinced that Robbie never took drugs - which to be honest is a fairly unsubstantiated claim.


Curlybing - See all my reviews
I am not one for autobiographies but this book made a refreshing change. Gary Barlow talks frankly and from the heart. I could not put this book down; even my mum was the same! This is one man you can relate to, he is not up his own backside; you could sit in the pub with him and discuss the world over a pint and a packet of KP's! He is a normal everyday man (unlike Robbie Williams!) Thank you Gary for an insightful view into the hyped world of Take That.


Simply The Pest (London UK) - See all my reviews
People all over the world, this book has it all! From the Bank Manager style side parting of Gary on the cover to the 42 pages dedicated to his handkerchief collection this biography will leave you speechless and incapacitated. I had no idea that his great aunt was an olympic shot putter or that he is a fully qualified masseuse but my life is richer for knowing these golden nuggets of information and i feel now i can pass onto the next life happy and content. Gary speaks at great length in this revised edition about the trimphant return of Take That and how they were hoisted onto the shoulders of the residents of Grimsby and marched into the town centre where their images were cast into stone and left as a reminder to all mankind what feats are capable when you have a PR manager and the Sun newspaper on your side. This novel will stand alongside War and Peace and Great Expectations as books i haven't read but then again a thousand drunk housewives can't be wrong, can they?