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A review by lpm100
The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl
medium-paced
2.0
"The Storyteller"
Dave Grohl
Rocker's Bildungsroman
2/5 stars
This book doesn't take all that long to read, but if you want the short version (ie, without all of the directionless prose and excessive name dropping), you can just read this review.
If you want the *really* short version you could just listen to Billy Joel's "The Entertainer."
This autobiography is probably the third one that I have read written by a recording artist in his words only (the other three are listed below), and I'd have to say that both of the other books were excellent and definitely better written than this one.
It has such a stream of consciousness feel, and he could have said everything that he needed to say in under 200 pages without much diminishment.
Some of Grohl's word- imagery is good:
--"Now my reflection bears the chipped teeth of a weathered smiled, cracked and shortened from years of microphones grinding their delicate enamel away. I see the heavy bags beneath my hooded eyes from decades of jet lag of sacrificing sleep for another precious hour of life. I see the patches of white within my beard. And I'm thankful for all of it." (Intro)
--"Everyday was a blank page, waiting to write itself." (p.121)
He comes across as a good, common, down to earth guy--if a bit of a Mama's Boy. At 20 years old (p.130): "On a collect call......., I tearfully explained my dilemma, and she understood entirely"
And a family man.
Also, the young version of him was not bad looking. (I guess all those years of pot/touring/other drugs can make any man look like the caved-in ashtray that Grohl has started to resemble.)
Another way in which this book differs from the other two that I mentioned is that: Grohl does not show us all of himself.
- Each of his marriages got one sentence. He also has us believe that he was a stoner, but somehow he managed to easily draw the line at hard drugs (said no rocker ever, except maybe Frank Zappa).
-Dave Grohl is the second wealthiest drummer in history of rock, after Phil Collins. As of today, he is worth $260 million. (For the record, that is half as much as Elton John who is twice as old and has been playing for twice as long. Unlike EJ, Grohl never went through a bankruptcy proceeding.)
How did he not end up broke? Or drug addicted?
Background:
1. Awkward kid from a divorced suburban home;
2. Discovers rock music as a new passion. (Also takes the trouble to name / notice a lot of the more obscure rock bands that he looks up to that were not as commercially successful. This seems to be a rite of passage for musicians that it made it--to give shoutouts to those who have not. Elton John idolizes/ does an album with Leon russell. Billy Joel idolizes/does a song with Ray Charles.)
3. Grohl learns his craft (he started out as and primarily is a drummer) by treating the albums of his favorite punk rockers as "play alongs" and gets his foot in the door playing for a local punk rock band.
4. Eventually, he wiggles his way into Nirvana, whom he met in California. (That land of so many hundreds of thousands of lost migratory souls. "Like it was the world's largest Greyhound bus station, people came and went through a revolving door of opportunity and demise, leaving their filth behind for the next wave of visitors to wade through in hope that they would be the next big thing."[p.126])
5. If Kurt Cobain had lived, then the band would have gone down the tried and true pathway of Breaking Up Over Creative Conflicts. But it didn't work out that way, and a year later the Foo Fighters were born. (The songs for their successful eponymous debut album were recorded over 4 days. All had actually probably been written years ago, but Grohl didn't have any creative input into Nirvana.)
Wow (p.222): 30 or 40 takes of each song on "The Color and The Shape."
6. Afterlife as a gently aging celebrity/family man. (Replete with pointless and gratuitous name dropping.)
*******
Verdict:
I'm going to have to say that this book is the least preferred of the celebrity bildungsroman, for the following reasons:
∆∆First, because so much of this is old wine in new bottles and so the events of One Musician Becoming A Star blur into those of another. (I don't know why musicians are always so overcome with anguish. Or have to go through rehab so many times. Or, want to knock themselves out to prove that they are folks AFTER they've gone through all the trouble to knock themselves out to prove that they're celebrities.)
∆∆Second, because I've already heard a thousand times the conflict between musicians--who don't understand that the music business is a BUSINESS--and music agents do have to make ends meet and turn a profit.
∆∆Third, because for every 1 person that makes it..... There are at least a million more who don't and play a whole career doing pick up jobs or in small bars. Sometimes they might be session musicians, which is a little bit better. Grohl's experience is interesting, but it is not representative.
∆∆Fourth, because we don't get that much information about the details of being in the music industry. And I don't think that the music industry today is the same way it used to be. It's likely that these events were just at the tail end of the music industry as it was before it turned into what it is today. All this is before the days of "American Idol"/ "America's Got Talent," where one (sometimes) nice looking person resings a song that was made several decades ago and gets one or two hit singles and then vanishes. (I'm looking at you, Susan Boyle.)
*******
For better writing/humor, better you read: "A Cure for Gravity," by Joe Jackson.
For more introspection and honesty, better you read: "Me," by Elton John.
For a more realistic/gritty picture of making it from ground zero and struggling as a pickup/session musician, better you read: "Redneck Woman," by Gretchen Wilson
This book is worth it only at the price of about $3--and not the $14.79 that I paid for it.
New vocabulary:
Chrysalis
"Neanderthal disco dynamic" (p.129)
bellower (p.230)
Law of Attraction (New Thought)
Small quibble (p.119): "An army of skinheads and right-wing fascists had organized and attack on the building."
Sorry about that, Dave, but fascists are actually on the extreme left and not the extreme right. No matter how many times it is repeated, that is just not the history.
Dave Grohl
Rocker's Bildungsroman
2/5 stars
This book doesn't take all that long to read, but if you want the short version (ie, without all of the directionless prose and excessive name dropping), you can just read this review.
If you want the *really* short version you could just listen to Billy Joel's "The Entertainer."
This autobiography is probably the third one that I have read written by a recording artist in his words only (the other three are listed below), and I'd have to say that both of the other books were excellent and definitely better written than this one.
It has such a stream of consciousness feel, and he could have said everything that he needed to say in under 200 pages without much diminishment.
Some of Grohl's word- imagery is good:
--"Now my reflection bears the chipped teeth of a weathered smiled, cracked and shortened from years of microphones grinding their delicate enamel away. I see the heavy bags beneath my hooded eyes from decades of jet lag of sacrificing sleep for another precious hour of life. I see the patches of white within my beard. And I'm thankful for all of it." (Intro)
--"Everyday was a blank page, waiting to write itself." (p.121)
He comes across as a good, common, down to earth guy--if a bit of a Mama's Boy. At 20 years old (p.130): "On a collect call......., I tearfully explained my dilemma, and she understood entirely"
And a family man.
Also, the young version of him was not bad looking. (I guess all those years of pot/touring/other drugs can make any man look like the caved-in ashtray that Grohl has started to resemble.)
Another way in which this book differs from the other two that I mentioned is that: Grohl does not show us all of himself.
- Each of his marriages got one sentence. He also has us believe that he was a stoner, but somehow he managed to easily draw the line at hard drugs (said no rocker ever, except maybe Frank Zappa).
-Dave Grohl is the second wealthiest drummer in history of rock, after Phil Collins. As of today, he is worth $260 million. (For the record, that is half as much as Elton John who is twice as old and has been playing for twice as long. Unlike EJ, Grohl never went through a bankruptcy proceeding.)
How did he not end up broke? Or drug addicted?
Background:
1. Awkward kid from a divorced suburban home;
2. Discovers rock music as a new passion. (Also takes the trouble to name / notice a lot of the more obscure rock bands that he looks up to that were not as commercially successful. This seems to be a rite of passage for musicians that it made it--to give shoutouts to those who have not. Elton John idolizes/ does an album with Leon russell. Billy Joel idolizes/does a song with Ray Charles.)
3. Grohl learns his craft (he started out as and primarily is a drummer) by treating the albums of his favorite punk rockers as "play alongs" and gets his foot in the door playing for a local punk rock band.
4. Eventually, he wiggles his way into Nirvana, whom he met in California. (That land of so many hundreds of thousands of lost migratory souls. "Like it was the world's largest Greyhound bus station, people came and went through a revolving door of opportunity and demise, leaving their filth behind for the next wave of visitors to wade through in hope that they would be the next big thing."[p.126])
5. If Kurt Cobain had lived, then the band would have gone down the tried and true pathway of Breaking Up Over Creative Conflicts. But it didn't work out that way, and a year later the Foo Fighters were born. (The songs for their successful eponymous debut album were recorded over 4 days. All had actually probably been written years ago, but Grohl didn't have any creative input into Nirvana.)
Wow (p.222): 30 or 40 takes of each song on "The Color and The Shape."
6. Afterlife as a gently aging celebrity/family man. (Replete with pointless and gratuitous name dropping.)
*******
Verdict:
I'm going to have to say that this book is the least preferred of the celebrity bildungsroman, for the following reasons:
∆∆First, because so much of this is old wine in new bottles and so the events of One Musician Becoming A Star blur into those of another. (I don't know why musicians are always so overcome with anguish. Or have to go through rehab so many times. Or, want to knock themselves out to prove that they are folks AFTER they've gone through all the trouble to knock themselves out to prove that they're celebrities.)
∆∆Second, because I've already heard a thousand times the conflict between musicians--who don't understand that the music business is a BUSINESS--and music agents do have to make ends meet and turn a profit.
∆∆Third, because for every 1 person that makes it..... There are at least a million more who don't and play a whole career doing pick up jobs or in small bars. Sometimes they might be session musicians, which is a little bit better. Grohl's experience is interesting, but it is not representative.
∆∆Fourth, because we don't get that much information about the details of being in the music industry. And I don't think that the music industry today is the same way it used to be. It's likely that these events were just at the tail end of the music industry as it was before it turned into what it is today. All this is before the days of "American Idol"/ "America's Got Talent," where one (sometimes) nice looking person resings a song that was made several decades ago and gets one or two hit singles and then vanishes. (I'm looking at you, Susan Boyle.)
*******
For better writing/humor, better you read: "A Cure for Gravity," by Joe Jackson.
For more introspection and honesty, better you read: "Me," by Elton John.
For a more realistic/gritty picture of making it from ground zero and struggling as a pickup/session musician, better you read: "Redneck Woman," by Gretchen Wilson
This book is worth it only at the price of about $3--and not the $14.79 that I paid for it.
New vocabulary:
Chrysalis
"Neanderthal disco dynamic" (p.129)
bellower (p.230)
Law of Attraction (New Thought)
Small quibble (p.119): "An army of skinheads and right-wing fascists had organized and attack on the building."
Sorry about that, Dave, but fascists are actually on the extreme left and not the extreme right. No matter how many times it is repeated, that is just not the history.