I want to thank all of you readers this week. I have blogged way more than usual and I appreciate you reading. I will be taking a break after Monday until the 17th and then I’ll be back! I’ll see you all this weekend.
I’m not ranking these books… but I will kick it off with another Marx Brothers book. If you missed the first one it’s here.
Raised Eyebrows by Steve Stolliar. Stoliar, who was Groucho’s personal secretary and archivist while attending UCLA published this book in 1996. He was there in the seventies in Groucho’s house for the last three years of Groucho’s life. A who’s who of movie and rock stars visited. From Queen to Barbara Streisand to Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. So many came by and Stoliar doesn’t pull punches.
Sound Man by Glyn Johns – I read this book not knowing what to expect but I did know of Glyn Johns… so many of my albums had his name on it…A name that is known throughout the music industry as a great recording engineer, producer, and mixer. Glyn has worked with huge rock groups such as The Rolling Stones, Beatles, Who, Small Faces, Led Zeppelin, The Band, and more.
Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones by Paul Trynka – A biography about Brian Jones who founded the Rolling Stones written by Paul Trynka. This is more of a sympathetic look on Brian than other books I’ve read. Trynka digs deep with meticulous research. He tries to be fair and Brian isn’t always shown as the nicest guy in the world but he also isn’t always the person that Mick and Keith seem to remember when they actually remember him at all.
This book is not just a rehash of the best-known things about Jones and the Stones. Some instances that Stones fans know like the period where Keith ran off with Brian’s girlfriend Anita Pallenberg, we get more information on what happened. He researched Brian’s childhood and adult life thoroughly and you feel like you know the man before the book is over.
Moon The Loon or Full Moon – This book is for fans OR non fans alike. The book will have you physically burst out laughing at different parts of it. Keith left a trail of wrecked cars, wrecked drums, wrecked hotel rooms, wrecked nerves, wrecked bars, and many smiles.
Dougal doesn’t try to tell Moon’s life history. Full Moon highlights the tales of Mr. Keith John Moon…Patent British Exploding Drummer. It is a very quick read at around 250 pages. The audio version is approximately 9 hours long.
Butler worked for Moon for ten years and was right there during much of the craziness. He was behind the wheel of Moon’s AC Frua 428 as it flipped end-over-end through a field off Chertsey Lane after Moon decided to grab the shifter and downshift at around 120 mph.
In my next edition…I’ll include Tony Fletcher’s nearly 700 -page book on Keth Moon. It is fantastic.
IT by Stephen King – I always describe this book as a coming-of-age book that just so happens to have a psychotic alien shape-shifter clown. The book is brilliantly written. It takes place in a fictional town called Derry. After you read it…it doesn’t feel like a fictional town. You know every detail of the city and where everything is located. The films, 1990 and 2017, don’t even come close to this book.
I have re-read this book so many times and I find something new every time. I wanted to include a fiction book in this edition so here you go.
Miss O’Dell: Hard Days and Long Nights with The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton… by Chris O’Dell and Katherine Ketcham
I enjoyed this book immensely. It’s almost like a fantasy book. You are a fan and suddenly you get thrown into the world with The Beatles as friends and co-workers. You move from the Beatles to the Stones, CSNY, Bob Dylan and the list kept growing.
I will say this… as a Beatle fan, this book gave me insight that I never had before. Chris O’Dell happened to meet Derek Taylor (press officer of the Beatles) in Los Angeles in 1968…she worked for him for a few weeks in LA as a PA. He told her she should come over to London to check out the new company that The Beatles were starting called Apple. He didn’t promise her a job but she took a chance and sold her records and borrowed from her parents to go to London. She was like Alice down the rabbit hole, O’Dell stumbled upon a life even she could not have dreamed of.
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PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 
I’d probably like the Glyn Johns one, I’ll be keeping that one in mind or on a list probably. I read ‘It’ years and years ago, I hardly remember a thing about it other than Pennywise the clown , popping up from sewers, but at the time I did think it one of his better ones . I was always impressed with his attention to detail, especially in his fictitious town of Derry. I figured he probably had a huge map of what it would be like so he could keep all the streets and landmarks straight.
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I think he did have a map…and now fans have made a map from the book.
The Keith Moon one…is hilarious…not just for music fans. Thats the one out of all of these I think a person may like the best off the bat. The stuff he did was great.
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Imagine working for Moon back than? You would have to take out an extra insurance policy on yourself being in the vicinity of Moon The Loon
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Yes you would. Dude those stories are hilarious. I have friends who are not music fans that love that book.
Man…it felt good seeing the Beatles at #1 on the Itunes chart. Thats a site I won’t see again lol.
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Enjoy the time away Max. I find my teachers were right, they said as we ‘mature’ (good luck there Mr Filer I’m still a childe at heart and grubby little mind) that we will read less fiction, more biography. It is mostly true, I think we like to find out what or who makes the real things in our life important, whereas when younger it is more all about the tale. When you read something in your adolescent formative years ilke, say the Narnia books you are only interested in the story. Only later do you want to find out the writers back story.
Wouldn’t Mr Filer be proud of me, writing that little thesis? (No, that soulless bastid had no words for me other than letters that started at D+ and went all the way down to E-.)
I think the Moon one is at the local library, I’ll wander down between 10 to 2.
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Thanks Obbverse…after Monday I will vanish for a little bit.
That is a good explanation for reading more fiction books when you are younger. I never thought of it in that way. Yes he would be proud!
I promise you the Moon book is great for a laugh. Quick read and full of Moon goodness. The other Moon book I will go over next time will be a real bio of the guy…around a 700 page book if my memory is correct. You wouldn’t think he lived long enough to have that but yea his story is a long one. The author met him as a kid a couple of weeks before Moon passed on to that great drum stool in the sky.
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Truth is always stranger than fiction, but I prefer fiction most of the time.
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The one in this bunch I want to read is Miss O’Dell. I’d love to learn about the insider’s view.
See you on the flip side, homey!
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If I have to choose one to read first, I’d choose Glyn Johns. But several of those look intriguing. I still need to re-check out Miss O’Dell from the library and finish it. I got maybe half way through it and couldn’t believe the way she would find another intriguing position (or one would find her) each time one of her situations was ending.
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I guess once you are working for the Beatles and then Stones…just from them alone other jobs would come her way. She knew enough people at that time. The tour manager postition was pretty historic I would say for a woman in the 70s. She was probably the only one…I never heard of another.
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My dad has re-read IT about eight times. I’ve read it three times. It’s just too good for a movie adaptation, and I’ve been mainly disappointed with all of the interpretations. I still like what I’ve conjured in my head more than what I’ve seen on the screen. The latest two-volume movie series went over the top, I thought. It became another justification for more CGI tricks and jump scares, and none of it computed with me.
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