An insightful look at punk rock's—and his own—beginnings by former Sex Pistols' lead singer John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten), with some help from enemies and friends. Lydon has a harrowing story, and he tells it with all the rage and disdain that marked his early music. A youthful sufferer of spinal meningitis, he returned home from a long hospitalization at age seven with no memory; his mother spent her evenings for two years outfitting him with a life, telling him all she knew about the world. A poor, hunchbacked adolescent, Lydon suffered shyness and explosive anger; his intensity overpowered all who approached him. His book is a loose series of reminiscences that spares no one—least of all his friends—its honesty and occasional contradictions. He tells how he named Pistols' bassist Sid Vicious for his hamster; how he tried to kill Sid's girlfriend Nancy; how lead guitarist Steve Jones stole equipment for the Pistols; of having his father sleep with his fans; and of being stabbed by royalists enraged by the group's hit ``God Save the Queen.'' Lydon offers plenty of insight into the punk subculture itself, including punk fashion, which flourished and died in just two years in the late '70s and had colorful (not all black-clad) beginnings; the class barriers punk straddled; the opportunities it afforded women, historically marginal to British pop; and the enormous degree to which the music industry—which quickly co-opted punk's energy and narrowed its meaning—influences English life. Included is testimony from Lydon's father and rockers Chrissie Hynde, Billy Idol, and others; a track-by-track analysis of Pistols recordings; and a reading of affidavits in Lydon's suit against former manager Malcolm McLaren for back pay. Though disorganized, occasionally repetitive, its pages afroth with revolting, delightful anecdotes, this book is an informative document and great fun to read.
Pub Date: April 7, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-09903-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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