The Bitch’s Book

ONE

Right off the bat: I am proud of that title.

TWO

This is not a review; you know that. If someone wants to pay me to do a proper review, then I’ll accept the gig and promptly fuck it up, but let’s be real: no one needs another review of anything. There used to be, like, four movie reviewers: Pauline Kael, the fat guy, the bald guy, and the fucker with the stupid-looking mustache. Now, 90% of YouTube is movie review sites. Who can take all these takes?

THREE

Me! is far more Paul than Phil. Allow me to explain.

Nestled within the genus Rockus Literaricus are various species:

• Scholarly Tomes These are biographies of musicians or bands that are just as well-researched and sourced as any Presidential volume, but instead of being about, say, James Polk, they’re about, say, James Taylor. These may be written with the cooperation or approval of the subject, but they are NOT autobiographies.
• Autists And Archivists These are books–generally with tiny type and many grainy pictures–about faaaaaaar too specific a subject. Where were all four Beatles on the afternoon of June 2nd, 1968? What precise modifications did Stevie Ray Vaughn make to each guitar? How often did Ray Davies punch Dave, and vice versa, during the recording of 1977’s Sleepwalker? That kind of bullshit. Deadbase is the king of this species.
• Those 33 1/3 Fuckers These books aren’t the right size, and I resent that. Also, I have not been asked to write one about The David Johansen Group’s David Johansen Group Live record, so clearly the folks behind the series don’t know what they’re doing.
• Picture Pages Also not the right size, but perfect for Christmas. Brother on the Dead gives me one every year; he’ll probably give me Jay Blakesberg’s this go-round.
• Minder/Behinder Written by a (former) manager, roadie, or drug dealer, M/B books are hands-down the most fun. Are they the most truthful? Who gives a shit! Are they often not released in the UK and Australia due to those country’s absurd libel laws? What part of “the most fun” do you not understand?

And, finally, the grandpappy of ’em all: the Rock Star Memoir. Hard-cover releases with thick paper and glossy inserts for photos, followed six or eight months later by a trade paperback (with additional material). They are all exactly the same:

CHAPTER 1: An overdose, or a big concert, or a car crash. Something dramatic from the middle of the artist’s career to catch your attention, ending in “I wondered how I got here…”

CHAPTERS 2-10 Childhood. Skip.

CHAPTERS 11-15 The early years. Sleeping in a vehicle! Weird bandmates that disappeared! Drugs, but in a lark-ish light.

CHAPTER 15-25 The stuff you bought the book for.

CHAPTER 26-END All the shit that happened to the artist after the world stopped caring. May involve sobriety, cancer scares, cancer diagnoses, or the wonders of raising children. If the latter, the line “Who could imagine that the guy who once vomited on Adrienne Barbeau at Studio 54 would now find such joy in washing a toddler’s hair?” will most assuredly appear.

Very rarely, the RSM is actually written–as in someone sat down and typed–by said Rock Star; the vast majority are “As-Told-To,” which means said Rock Star babbled a bunch of stories into a tape recorder, and then later someone who knows what commas do put all of it into book form.

So where does the Phil-to-Paul scale come in? Enthusiasts, it measures the level of raw bitchitude contained within the pages. Phil’s book, Searching For The Sound, was a well-told volume spanning a great musician’s ups, downs, and replacement organs. It is honest, and it has many delightful stories, but Phil doesn’t settle any scores whatsoever. He writes like a guy who knows he’s gonna have to deal with the people he’s writing about shortly.

On the other side of the scale is Face The Music: A Life Exposed by Paul Stanley, in which Paul–as the kids say–spills the tea. There wasn’t as much tea spilled in Boston Harbor as there was in Paul Stanley’s book. Everybody gets it: Gene is a bald creep, Ace is a closet case and a Nazi, Peter can’t play drums or spell his own name, and that’s just the original members of KISS. Paul also shits on other bands, replacement musicians, and–for some odd reason–Henri Cartier-Bresson. (“A little editing wouldn’t hurt you, Hank” was the exact line, if I recall correctly.) Enthusiasts, it is a GLORIOUSLY petty book; I’ve read it four times.

Me! is well towards Paul on the scale.

FOUR

Wanna know how much money Elton John made?

20% off the top–OFF THE TOP–to his manager, John Reid, who was also his former boyfriend. Figure another 15% to agents, publicists, lawyers, and money managers.
PLUS he never left England, meaning he paid the onerous taxes of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Heath.

And he still had enough for Faberge eggs and Rolls Royces and multiple mansions.

FIVE

There was so much money because, for a while in the 70’s, 2% of all record sales were Elton John records. Not in the UK, or America, or the English-speaking countries, no: the world. One out of every fifty records purchased on the face of the Earth was one of his. Sinatra didn’t do that, nor The Beatles, and certainly not the Grateful Dead.

SIX

Speaking of which: the album Honky Chateau was recorded at (and got its name from) the Château d’Hérouville, where the Dead famously found themselves stranded after a festival went bust, only to dose the entire town (including the gendarmes) and choogle on the lawn. This incident is mentioned, along with the fact that Elton was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the same evening as the Dead and a cardboard cutout of Garcia.

If Elton has a favorite Dark Star, he keeps it to himself.

SEVEN

I totally want to write a 33 1/3 about David Johansen Group Live now, but look at this bullshit:

I’m exhausted just screen-shotting it. Here’s my counter-offer of a proposal: It’s me. I’m gonna write it, so it’ll be phenomenal. Just lemme do it, but you gotta send me the money first, at least some of it.

EIGHT

I have been reliably informed that the title of Elton John’s memoir is not Me! but simply Me. Me! is the name of Taylor Swift’s second-to-last single. I regret the error, but it’s an understandable one. I’m sure Elton considered slapping that exclamation point on at one point.

NINE

One is supposed to call him “Sir Elton” now, but fuck that shit: Americans who aren’t currently in the military don’t have to call anyone “sir” if they don’t want to, and I don’t want to. I’ll call Ben Kingsley “Sir Ben,” but he was Gandhi, whereas Elton John dressed up like Donald Duck to play Your Song once.

TEN

Elton has to be physically prevented–in two different impoverished nations–from adopting children who already had families, or, as the act is known in Malawi, “pulling a Madonna.”

ELEVEN

As I mentioned, Rock Star Memoirs are overwhelmingly “As-Told-To” volumes. Writing a book is different than being a Rock Star; for example, the trousers are completely dissimilar. The fun comes in seeing where the collaborator’s credit is placed. The Rock Star (and the publisher) would rather not put the writer’s name anywhere in the book, so as to allow the reader the fantasy that Ozzy Osborne made himself a cup of coffee, plopped himself down at his Smith-Corona, and bashed out the pages before you all by his lonesome. (You know, like a real book.) The writer does not want that. Generally, the bigger the Rock Star, the harder it is to find the writer’s credit. The poor bastards who had to translate Ace Frehley’s beer burps into 300 pages got on the cover. Keith Richard’s amanuensis is not on the cover, but inside on the title page.

Elton? Just a “special thanks to” a journalist named Alexis Petridis on the Dedication page, with no mention of why Mr. Petridis is deserving of such gratitude.

TWELVE

Does anyone have a Bob Dylan story where Bob acts like a normal human being? There’s gotta be one. Elton’s Dylan story is that Bob came by the house to play charades and was so inept at the game that Elton started chucking oranges at him. One of the problems, we are told, is that Bob can’t get the hang of “sounds like.”

THIRTEEN

Elton was a virgin when he played the Troubadour.

That was 1970, and you could still get famous from one engagement. Sammy Davis, Jr, did it in ’51, right down the street at Ciro’s. Sang and danced so good that, by the end of the week, all of Hollywood had filed in. Don Rickles, too. He was scrapping along trying to make it as an actor when a club called Slate Brothers on La Cienega called him to replace some asshole from New York with a filthy mouth. Lenny something-or-other. Sinatra walked in the first night, Don said “Frank, make yourself at home: hit someone,” and that was it.

Read this.

A virgin. Jesus.

FOURTEEN

That first band doesn’t get enough credit, but they made a massive noise for just three guys, none of whom had a guitar.

Nigel Olsson on drums and Dee Murray on bass. Nigel’s still in the band; Dee’s dead.

FIFTEEN

I’m not kidding about the David Johansen thing. Someone make a call to the 33 1/3 people for me.