Even though the late-sixties/early-seventies cusp wasn't exactly a time when high energy rock 'n roll was capturing the imaginations of the standard 18-34 year old buying public, there sure have been some pretty hotcha books about hard-edged definitely anti-hippie love 'n jamz music written during them times. Well, at least books which had chapters regarding hard-edged anti-hippie love 'n jamz which was cool because you could always skip over the soft stuff and get to the high energy musings at hand. And really, some of these books were not written by Richard Robinson, Lenny Kaye, Andrew Zwerling or any combination thereof which really was a deal considering how such scribes were way more connected to the "o-mind" than a good portion of the rock press that was up and about at the time.
I've seen this 'un up for sale before, but it wasn't until I read Peter Stanfield's review that I decided to dish out the few bucks a book like this'll set one back. Good choice I've made too, because I got my share of visual adrenaline into my own musical being if only from gazing at the snaps of the big hitters at hand, along with reading some somewhat engaging words that went along with 'em that is. Only goes to show you that no matter where you were or what era the mode of the music was changing into, there were good sounds to engage your own hard-edged punk diameters out there. Like those with sick perverted porno tastes you just hadda know where to look for it.
Just like with every other then-contem(p)to book on the teen market you have a lot of boring and downright hideous musical acts to wade through before getting to the meat and potatoes. Dunno who this Michael Ross was, but he sure cut a huge swath through the entire musical scene in the book and yeah, the bulk is dedicated to the likes of Joanie Phoanie and Bonnie Bramlett types who only gives me pure shudders of disgust. Thankfully this guy also threw in a few heavy duty under-the-underground hitters, perhaps in order to appease the bigtime labels who were losing money on these groups like anything but at least they make A MUCH NEEDED APPEARANCE that might have sold an album or two at the local cheapo fly-by-night record shop of the day.
Yeah, searching at least a shard of information on the groups you like is almost as bad as when you used to get hold of a ROLLING STONE and combed through it with the hopes of seeing one of your faves even mentioned, but at least the good acts are here and they don't even get the ol' poo-poo (or condescending) treatment like the hippoids at STONE would most likely have given 'em so be thankful for that!
So yeah, musical entities the high caliber of Captain Beefheart and the Velvet Underground get some decent and introspective mention and so do the Detroit scenesters with three pages devoted to the likes of the Stooges et. al. Even the pre-fame and oft-loathed Alice Cooper get some attention, though Alice himself is NOT PICTURED and the act is referred to as "a quartet" because of it! Well, my own "research" during the eighties never was that detailed so wha' th' hey...
Sheesh, but I gotta say that I cracked up when I read the MC5 being described as "a mixture of (Country Joe and) the Fish and Little Richard"!!! Not bad considering just how acts like these stood against the flitsy hippie offal that is taking up a sizable portion of this relevant read, even though Ross' writing can obviously be unintentionally har-de-har-har due to remarks like this 'un and many more.
Not too expensive either, so when you come across one and the price is ok well like, it might be worth taking that proverbial plunge y'know?
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