BANG BANG CRASH

Amiable memoir by a rock drummer–turned-writer.

“I never play the drums anymore, but they never cease playing me,” writes Brown, who found elementary school fame by slapping knees and desk in a creditable version of Ringo Starr’s drumming on “The End.” Ask the author about his career in rock, though, and he’s likely to demur—in large measure, he writes, because you wouldn’t have heard of the bands he played with despite the fact that they had a radio hit or two. Brown likens himself to a minor league ball player called up to the majors but never quite distinguishing himself: “I wasn’t one of the greats. I was just good enough.” An ardent music fan might be the judge of that, but Brown delivers a well-written rock memoir that evades the usual clichés. There’s not a lot of sex and drugs, for instance, but there’s plenty on how a nondysfunctional rhythm section works and how a drummer can get the yips as surely as can a golf pro. Egos, contracts, publishing rights, rolling along the interstate on a tour bus supporting the Foo Fighters—all figure in Brown’s pages. The author also tackles deeper issues, such as the racism that pervaded the music scene in the North Carolina city where he got his start and the musical differences that cleaved communities (“It’s just rock stuff,” he says apologetically to a jazz master). There are funny anecdotes along the way, as when Brown figures out a devastatingly difficult drum pattern before an audition only to discover that the band had actually used two drummers. The author also writes seriously without taking himself too much so, as when he recalls reaching a sideman’s apogee: “I’d made myself invisible.” Later passages of the book recount his friendship with mentor and writer Jim McPherson and how he developed his own writing chops while becoming a more appreciative consumer of music.

Both former and aspiring rockers will find plenty to reflect on in Brown’s reminiscences.