Book Reviews

Slash
by: Slash and Anthony Bozza
​Rating: 3 of 5 Pink Guitars

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If you know anything, of any kind of music, I’m pretty sure the name Slash has rolled off of your tongue a time or 2. He is one of the greatest guitarists to ever grace the stage, most synonymous with the band, Guns n’ Roses.  

You’ve heard a lot of stories about this band and their disregard for rules, drug overdoses, unprotected sex with groupies and trashed hotel rooms. In this book, you will hear a lot about those particular things, especially his numerous drug overdoses which were caused by such drugs as heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, crack and oxycontin. Makes you wonder how he’s still alive as with several other rock stars who had the same problem.

This book feels as though he is hammered or all drugged up while writing it. Anthony Bozza, a writer for Rolling Stone magazine doesn’t do a very good job of “doctoring” it up at all. All I can visualize is Slash standing there with a cigarette in his mouth, booze on his breath and a needle hanging out of his arm.

At certain points in this book, I really feel Slash is an asshole. (sorry for the language). Not only did he make horrible comments about his bandmates, he did it with several other bands as well, for example, his constant bashing of Great White. Poison and various “sunset strip” scene bands.

His life seemed to be all about strippers or porn stars, drugs, booze and bad choices, but hey, this isn’t the first time we’ve ever seen that happen with rock stars, right? He was present for 2 overdose deaths and neither of them made any lasting impressions or prompt him to want to change his bad habits.
    
You learn in this book that Slash was a troubled teenanger and it kind of gives you the vibe that he wants you to still think of him as a punk-ass kid as means to gain attention, but that’s just my opinion.
    
The best part of this book, for me, was that he overcame his demons eventually and got his life on track. Considering the years he spent abusing himself, I wasn’t sure he would be able to. After the birth of his 2 sons, he started going down the right path and has kept going down the straight and narrow.
    
I give this book a ⅗ guitars. Had he not been such a colossal d-bag throughout the book, he would’ve gotten a ⅘, but putting people on blast like he did in this book was not cool in the least.

~M

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The Dirt - Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band
By: The Members of Motley Crue and Neil Strauss
Rating: 5 of 5 Pink Guitars

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Now, right from jump street, you KNOW this book is going to take you for a ride! I mean, the Crue is well recognized for their reckless and crazy behavior. As you are reading this book, you will go thru ALL kinds of emotions, from disgust to tears. This book has it ALL!
    
When you think about what you consider “the rockstar life”, THIS is what you think of...sex, drugs, partying, rock n’ roll, hot girls and no rules. But with this lifestyle, comes a price. Drug addiction, broken friendships, depression and self loathing.
    
Without getting into too much detail (because you DEFINITELY want to read this book), we go from straight up raunchy, nastiness like the time they had a groupie insert a phone receiver into her “V” and call and talk to her mother, all the way down to a death and back experience that forever changed the life of one, Sixx & drunk driving which led to the death of another band’s drummer which led to nothing more than a slap on the wrist for Neil.
    
Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and Mick Mars didn’t “invent” rockstar decadence, they literally just perfected it. Most of the things these bad boys of rock did throughout their career, outside of the music, really was just things they thought were expected of them.
    
After reading this book, I have to say, I have lost a lot of respect for these guys. I mean, I still love their music but some of the things they did were inexcusable, not to mention criminal. I’m not saying it wasn’t a good read at all, because it was written very well and it was chucked full of entertainment, however, as men (and I use that term loosely), not so much.

 I give this book a 5/5 pink guitars.

~M

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18 and Life on Skid Row by Sebastian Bach
Rating: 3 of 5 Pink Guitars

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As soon as you get into this book, you can definitely tell this was solely written by Sebastian Bach and him alone. The iconic, lead singer of Skid Row offers a unfiltered, raw memoir of how a once choir boy turned into a notable rock star. Through this journey, Bach takes you on quite the ride. Nothing off limits. Stories about sex, drugs, rock n’ roll all the way down to what hair products he used during the 80’s. (those of which I am stealing! lol)

 The overall perception of Bach is an unconstrained, jovial person who, on occasion, finds himself caught up in some trouble. In the beginning of the book, he starts off telling you about the time, in 1989, that someone from the audience threw a glass bottle on stage and he retaliated by throwing the bottle back into the audience and hitting an innocent girl which led him to the back of a police car in the end.

There are a lot of things in this book that set Bach apart from the normal, sex, drugs, rock & roll you would expect in a book from a rock star. He shares personal stories involving his family’s personal experience of 9/11 and talking to his father on his deathbed and telling him Skid Row had a number one record. You will also find out about the steps leading up to becoming Skid Row and how big of a role Bon Jovi played in it and also the many friendships he had forged with other rockers that lead up to some pretty funny stories.

 All in all, this book was pretty good. I liked that he exposed his more sensitive side and let us know that he isn’t just a rock star, he’s a human being, just like the rest of us.

I give this a ⅗ pink guitars

~M

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Sex, Drugs, Ratt & Roll: My Life in Rock
by Stephen Pearcy and Sam Benjamin
Rating: 3 of 5 Pink Guitars

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As soon as I started reading this book, I knew I was in for a hell of a ride. The book opens with a story of Stephen Pearcy in the hospital with the birth of his daughter, Jewel, trying to cut the umbilical cord with a host of drugs and alcohol searing thru his veins.Shortly into the book, you will begin to understand WHY Pearcy led the life he did. A highly dysfunctional family with a father who was a heroin junkie that never spent much time with his children and the times he WAS there, out of their 4 children, Stephen seemed to be his punching bag.

As a young teen, Pearcy had found a love for racing and got himself working in the pit crew, with a noted race car driver in SoCal by the name of Walt Rhoads. Pearcy was his sort of protege. Soon, it became evident that thru this racing journey, Pearcy developed a need...a need for speed! He would ride his bike at top notch speeds and one unlucky event, he was hit by a car while he was riding into heavy San Diego traffic which left him hospitalized with 2 broken legs for a year. During that time, a friend of his came for a visit and left him with an acoustic guitar, which he had no idea how to play it.

 If you are looking for a book that is sexually explicit, this book is certainly for you. He managed to tell more stories about all of the drug/booze filled sexcapades than he told about the band. While the book is brutally honest and a good read, I was hoping it had more stories about the band as a whole.

 After reading this, it will leave you wondering how he managed to still be alive to this day after all of his excessive drug/alcohol use and unprotected sex! Had it not been for the birth of his daughter, Jewel, which was the moment that changed his life, he just may have not been around today.

  I give this book a ⅗ rating.

~M

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Dirty Rocker Boys by Bobbie Brown and Caroline Ryder
Rating: 4 of 5 Pink Guitars

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 Being synonymous with the lyrics, “she’s my cherry pie, cool drink of water such a sweet surprise...”, Bobbie Jean Brown along with her co-writer Caroline Ryder  put together a no-holds-barred book about the lifestyle of the L.A. rock scene.

 Born in Louisiana, she had dreams of becoming a successful model and the future wife of Tommy Lee, drummer for Motley Crue.
She was crowned Miss Louisiana Teen USA, in 1987 then represented Louisiana in the Miss Teen USA pageant later that same year. She went on to win the spokesperson competition a few years later on the show “Star Search”, shortly after she had moved to L.A.

  In this book, Brown is not afraid to let herself go and open herself up to criticism and judgement. She is very candid about her relationships and what they entailed. She was married to Warrant’s frontman, Jani Lane and they had a tumultuous relationship. She documents how Lane’s addiction to alcohol had been a driving wedge between them. After the birth of their daughter Taylar, he became mentally and verbally abusive. They were married in 1991 and divorced in 1993. Soon after their divorce, she had met and gotten engaged to Tommy Lee, her childhood crush. This relationship went on until 1995 and just 4 days after the break-up, Lee married Pamela Anderson.

 Through the L.A. scene, Brown found herself addicted to drugs, particularly cocaine and methamphetamines. These drugs, for her, were a quick fix for weight loss when she would need to drop a few pounds before modeling shoots. Brown has appeared in numerous videos, movies, commercials and tv shows. In 2013, she was a co-star in the reality tv show, “Ex Wives of Rock” on E!, to which you got a glimpse in her daily life as a recovering addict with the help of her friends, one of which was Tommy Lee’s sister, Athena.

 Overall, this book is really good. She’s definitely not afraid of what people will think of her after reading this book. She is a survivor! I have to imagine it had to be incredibly freeing for her. Through her journey, you can see how she heals herself and moves on to a better life for herself. She now runs her online store, bobbiejeanbrown.net where she sells rock apparel, vintage clothing and accessories.

  I give this book a 4 out of 5 pink guitars and would recommend it to anyone who would like the know the 411 on the L.A. music scene.
   
​ Until next time…

     ~M

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