Recommendations of the Editorial team
The funny thing about rock ‘n’ roll memoirs is that they usually have the same storyline. Our heroes start out with big dreams of succeeding as rock stars. There are seedy bars, cheap motels and shady managers.
Then they get a taste of great success. Hit albums, limousines, drug orgies, groupies, illnesses. The whole program. What could possibly go wrong? Craaaash! But hey, Elizabethan revenge tragedies all have the same plot. And no one complains when the royal family is slaughtered in the final scene.
Great rock memoirs don’t always come from great artists. Sometimes you need one-hit wonders, losers, writers, junkies, crooks. Every rock ‘n’ roll character has a story to tell. Here are 50 of our favorites.
50. Steven Tyler: “Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?” (2011)
If you find a single coherent sentence in this book, write to the publisher so that they can correct this error in future editions. But good luck with your search. Because Steven Tyler’s brain is, as he himself says, “in a different sphere”.
From Aerosmith to American Idol, Tyler was “61 Highwayed and I did it my way; Little Willie Johned and been-here-and-gone; million-dollar riffed and Jimmy Cliffed; cotton-picked and Stevie Nick’d.”
49. Nikki Sixx: “The Heroin Diaries” (2007)
This book deserves the Truth in Package award. Nikki Sixx does so many drugs in this book that it should have a dust jacket made of aluminum foil.
It’s more personal than “The Dirt,” but just as spicy. It may be unfair to mention “The Heroin Diaries” in a list like this, as his music is barely mentioned in it. But anyone even remotely interested in Mötley Crüe will have no problem with this.
48. Alice Bag: “Violence Girl” (2011)
An East LA Chicana punk coming-of-age story in which a barrio kid named Alicia Armendariz forms a hardcore band called The Bags, fights her way onto the stage, and then realizes she has to keep fighting.
Growing up with her immigrant parents’ Mexican “Ranchera” records, baptized in the glam rock of the 1970s. Alice Bag thrives on her confrontational clashes with the slam dancing mosh pit crew, in her pink dress and high heels. For them, it’s all about “the exhilarating adrenaline rush of combat.”
47. Billy Idol: “Dancing With Myself” (2017)
Billy Idol seems to appear at least once in every memoir from the ’80s and ’90s. Mostly when some type of pharmaceutical dessert is consumed. It’s only fitting that he wrote his own.
Hell, Billy’s Index is more dramatic than most books. “Idol, Billy, cocaine use by”, “GHB overdose by”, “hair by”, “police anti-crack raid”, “violin lessons by”. From “White Wedding” to “Cradle of Love,” his flowery prose is a delight, as when an early punk romance falls apart because drugs “shattered my hopes on the rocks of desire as the sea crashed into our kingdom.” No matter where he is, Billy is never idle.
46. Debbie Harry: “Face It” (2019)
The grande dame of Blondie has already told her story. Especially in “Making Tracks”, their great photo documentary from 1982 with Chris Stein and Victor Bockris.
But “Face It” contains the entire saga. How Debbie Harry came from nothing to seduce the world, from CBGB to The Muppet Show, then lost it all but refused to give up and quit. The whole book is characterized by the glorious contempt of a tough old punk queen who knows how cool she is and doesn’t care if people agree with her.
“My Blondie character was a blow-up doll, but with a dark, provocative, aggressive side. I played that off, but I meant it very seriously.”