The Rise, The Fall and the Rise - Brix Smith-Start (2016)

I started listening to Turned Out a Punk, Damien Abraham's podcast, sometime this fall.  An entire post should be written about the podcast but suffice to say, Brix Smith was one of the first guests that I wanted to hear.  Her episode probably made me want to read this book.  I'm very glad that I did.  While it is not a perfect book and will not make the Best Books list, parts of it are so incredible that make it worthwhile.  I could not agree with Abraham that it was the best book I had read that year.  It was however, extremely entertaining and highly readable, at times.  As a huge fan of the Fall going back about 14 years, it was a totally amazing experience. On both the podcast, and in this book, Brix references being classmates with Donna Tartt and Bret Easton Ellis at Bennington College in the early 80's.  She does not aim for the heights of The Goldfinch, but sometimes lapses into Ellis-styled prose.  That is, her life could be one of his novels, particularly with the ending in the fashion industry.  What she ends up doing is completely her own.  It may not generally be as artful, but I personally found that I could identify with Brix very closely.  We are all Brix Smith, or Brix Smith is all of us.

I re-listened to the episode today, and forgot the two other Bennington classmates she mentioned--Jonathan Lethem and Jill Eisenstadt.  Apart from that there is not much else to mention--you can listen to the podcast yourself.  I will note that Brix has one of most unique accents I have heard--British valley girl.  She was born in L.A. and spent her childhood there, and splitting time between there and Chicago in her teen years.  She now lives in England.

The stuff about Chicago is fantastic.  On the podcast, Brix mentions that her first concert was at this outdoor venue outside of Chicago, where people have picnics, Rav-en-ia, where she saw the Carpenters and Neil Sedaka on a double bill.  Having recently seen Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons with my family at Ravinia, I found it touching.

Most notably, there is the story of where and when she met Mark E. Smith:

"On Saturday 23 April 1983, Lisa and I paid the $6 ticket price and entered through the front doors of Cabaret Metro, 3730 North Clark Street." (144)

This was within a week of my birth, not very far away, so I have one more reason to feel connected to the band and this book.

Brix writes compelling stories through the first 75% of the book.  In truth I lost some interest after she left the Fall, and it was briefly exciting when she rejoined for a couple years in the mid-90's.  The opening of the book confused me--it's an account of her grandmother seemingly losing it behind the wheel and driving from the Disneyland parking lot through the main gates and into the park before plunging into the lagoon at the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride.  I thought it was real, but Brix later reveals it to be a dream.  I wonder how many other people have that reaction.  It seems like it could have happened, because so much of the rest of her life has been crazy that anything seems possible.  Her stories about her father are both hilarious and horrifying.  There are so many things I would excerpt from this book it's not even funny.  On that note, I should perhaps vault it into Best Books territory, but I think it is instructive to compare it to the other recent female rock musician memoirs that I've read.

If pressed, I have to say that it is better than both Kim Gordon's Girl in a Band and Carrie Brownstein's Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl.  Both are excellent books.  All three of these books are fantastic and totally worth reading, but Brix's is the heaviest.  To be sure, Kim Gordon's account of the dissolution of her relationship with her husband and bandmate, Thurston Moore, is the most powerful piece of writing in the bunch.  This is not to say that Carrie Brownstein's account of the dissolution of her romantic relationship with bandmate Corin Tucker is weak.  In fact, Brix's account of the dissolution of her relationship with husband and bandmate, Mark E. Smith, is the least evocative, in part due to the inscrutability of the man it involves.  Now I love Mark E. Smith but this book definitely sheds some light on him in an unflattering fashion.  It feels fair, though, because there are also moments of extreme vulnerability, humanity, and cuteness.

There are some parts of this book that are tough to read.  Yet even during the most atrocious moment, Brix offers some levity and resists victimization.  As I said, there are many quotable excerpts in this book, so I have to include one about Mark E. Smith that almost made me want to start crying:

"One night, a few months later, there was a knock at the front door of my apartment.  I opened the door to find Mark E. Smith standing there.  He was drunk and held a half-empty bottle of whiskey.  He begged me to let him in, and was in a state.  He told me he had made a mistake leaving me.  I let him in and tried to calm him down.  He asked if he could sleep over.  He was emotional.  I was torn.  Part of me was happy he'd come to his senses and realised what he'd lost in leaving me.  The other part of me was cold and shut down.  After having experienced the attentions and kindness of other men, I was no longer attracted to him.
But still, I felt connected to him.  That would never go away.  He had been my soulmate.  The songs we wrote together would forever be a testament to that.  I allowed him to sleep over, in my bed.  I made it patently clear he was not to touch me.  As he lay next to me, I felt sad.  The next morning, it would be years before I ever saw him again." (267-268)

The stories of the songs were surprising.  It always seems like the Fall are singing about conspiracies or manifestos but in truth are just slices of life.  For example, Brix writes about her sleeping problems and reliance on pills in "US 80s-90s":

"My mother's pills came in the prescription bottle with her name on it.  When we landed in Boston, immigration singled us out to be searched --this happened often, being in a rock group; when we came through carrying guitars and music gear we set off internal klaxons inside officials' heads; we practically had stickers on our foreheads saying 'Search me' -- and the customs officials were aggressively questioning us about the prescription pills not in our name.  This experience led us to write our version of a hip-hop track, 'US 80s-90s': 'Had a run-in with Boston immigration/to my name they had an aversion/Nervous droplets due to sleeping tablets....'  In the airport the signs would read, 'Welcome to the United States of America', but we would always get tormented by security and feel like we were entering a police state.  In the song Mark proclaims, 'I am the original white (big shot) rapper', and it's not hyperbole." (222)

She writes often about "Hotel Bloedel" and "LA."  She seems to consider these her best songs.  She wrote a lot of great songs with the band and I think most people consider the "Brix era" to be the second-greatest period in the Fall's catalog (behind the Hex Enduction Hour era).  Certainly she brought the band in a more accessible direction.  Other noteworthy song inspirations include "Carry Bag Man" (about how Mark E. Smith likes to carry around his stuff in plastic bags).  Actually, her causal dismissal of The Frenz Experiment (the last album she would record before re-joining the band as his ex-wife) is worth capture:

"'Carry Bag Man' is fine, and chugs along, but is a phoned-in effort from Mark, a song about how he likes to carry plastic bags.  'Get a Hotel' is just annoying.  'The Steak Place' is boring and conjures images of gross food, the kind of restaurant that might have photos of the food on their menu.  The most annoying song I ever had to play on was 'Oswald Defence Lawyer.'  I think it was the worst song we'd done since I'd joined the band.  It was interminable, and when we played it live I watched the audience switch off.  It makes me cringe today, just thinking about it.  I was expected to really belt it out, but it just sounds irritating and grating: 'Oswald Defense Lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of Mark Twain.'  It was cool to name-check Twain, though." (238-239)

Brix writes a fair amount about her post-Fall band, Adult Net, and I was dismayed not to be able to find anything on Spotify or Amazon Music.  I would definitely have listened to The Honey Tangle if I could.  Maybe Brix realizes that streaming services will net her approximately zero and that her fans will seek out old copies of the album.  Or likely it's the record label's fault.

I don't want to give away too many details about the book but can say briefly that Brix's parents divorced when she was young and her mother moved to Chicago and she moved around in fairly fancy places with her father in L.A.  There is more than a fair share of celebrity name-dropping in this book.  It's not always totally necessary, but if I was writing my memoir, I would totally do the same thing.  It's the tangents that usually end up being memorable, such as the story of her professional soccer player friend who soils himself on the field and fakes an injury, or the friend at her bachelorette party with a crazy party trick. 

She goes back from her father in L.A. to her mother in Chicago multiple times through her teen years.  She does not have kind things to say about Chicago, but her account of working at Marshall Field's in the Loop was especially charming (sometimes I like to reflect on the significance of being in the same place as another person in recorded history).  She meets Mark E. Smith at Smart Bar after seeing the Fall in concert at the Metro.  What happens is the definition of a whirlwind romance and is completely insane and showcases the true spontaneity of Brix.  She quickly decides to move to England, move in with Mark, and get married.  She becomes a member of the Fall and stays with them for another four years.  This will be the highlight for the majority of readers.  However, Brix's life outside the Fall is arguably more interesting.  For example, her section about being an aspiring-actress-waitress in L.A after being left by Mark and effectively kicked out of the band is especially compelling.  She meets Nigel, a classical violinist, who is apparently quite a sensation, and is led into a different world, seemingly a little more refined but no less debaucherous.  In fact, I'm sorry, but I have to give a snippet of her encounter with Courtney Love, who invites her to audition for Hole:

"....But as I went to sleep, I had a sixth sense that something was wrong.  A bad feeling.  Something was burning.  I got up, out of bed and rushed to Courtney's room and pushed open the door to the master bedroom.  In her room, she had a selection of candles and incense burning.  Two sticks of incense had fallen over and caught fire.  The carpet was aflame and I caught it just in time.  Had I been five minutes later I dread to think what would have happened.  I put out the fire by smothering it with a blanket and stamping on it.  Courtney was in bed, slumped over her computer.  I fleetingly clocked that she had been mid-conversation with Billy Corgan, of The Smashing Pumpkins.
She said, 'Get into bed, sleep on Kurt's side.'  So I did.  It was really weird, but I felt honoured to be asked to sleep there, in her bed, on his side.  Courtney was warm and kind.  I feel she's often misunderstood.  She is a complex person, as we all are.  At times she has been her own worst enemy, but when you get down to it there is kindness and warmth to her, that is not often talked about." (362)

She then proceeds to talk about how Courtney turned her onto Rohypnol, in one of the more outrageous habits detailed in the book.  Later on, she rejoins the Fall briefly, and then meets her current husband, who then opens a fashion store with her in London.  She also co-stars briefly in a reality series, Gok's Fashion Fix, which sounds like it would be amazing to see.  She has an amazing kitchen and is in love with her pugs.

That is pretty much the whole story, but Brix's mysticism is also worth noting.  She seems to have some sort of otherworldly presence.  One could easily write off her ramblings as hippie-ish, vaguely drugged out, but the realities she has known are so insane that I am inclined to believe her if she says she believes in ghosts.  The precognitive powers of Mark E. Smith are also referenced poignantly, in a story I had read before, about the origins of the song, "Disney's Dream Debased."  The story is that she had taken Mark E. Smith with her to Disneyland and they got in line for the Matterhorn and while waiting he said he didn't like the ride, that it was evil, and that he didn't want to go on it.  They rode it anyways and left.  A few minutes later, there was a commotion in the area, and Disneyland employees came out from hidden elevators and Disney characters tried to distract parkgoers' attention from the Matterhorn.  It came out that a woman was killed when she fell out of her car at the unloading zone onto the track, and the next car could not be stopped from dismembering her.  It's a horrifying story and it would be interesting to know what became of the incident legally, whether Disney has publicly acknowledged that it occurred.

There is another truly insane story about Disneyworld (Brix always goes to Disneyland, but goes to Disneyworld for the first time in her late 20's or early 30's) and how Mickey Mouse may or may not be trying to ask her on a date or hook up with her.  This story appears to be in there solely to detail the breakdown of Brix's mind at the time (it is a weirdly hallucinogenic chapter), but she later brings it full circle when she becomes one of the very few to get Mickey Mouse to appear at an event for her fashion store.  Her comment on the usual gender of the person wearing the Mickey Mouse costume is poignant. 

I could go on a lot longer and pick out more passages, but I think I've said pretty much everything I wanted to say about this.  It's a great book, but it occasionally feels like Brix is going through the motions, telling the story because she has to and not necessarily because she wants to.  The grammar is correct and proper, but the writing is not especially complex and definitely devolves into purple prose at times.  However, I would want any friend of mine to read it, regardless of whether they liked the Fall or not.  I think it would make a great movie--"Scenes from Brix" or something, like Moonlight and three different periods in her life.  Not everyone wants to sell the movie rights to their life, but really, you would do it if you could, wouldn't you?

Autobiography - Morrissey (2013)

I don't know where to begin with this one.  It's another in the line of recent so-called indie rock memoirs that have been reviewed on Flying Houses, after Bob Mould, Carrie Brownstein, Patti Smith, and Kim Gordon.  Morrissey is a bigger star than all of them, and his Autobiography is much longer.  Stylistically it is also much more unique.

A quick word about my relationship with Morrissey: I love him, and have enjoyed his music since the early-to-mid aughts.  I would have to pinpoint You are the Quarry as the moment when his music began to take on a bigger role in my life.  I have pretty much the whole Smiths catalogue on my iPod (with the exception of Rank) and I have a few Morrissey albums--but something extremely curious has happened: most (almost all) of the Morrissey solo material (excepting Years of Refusal) is no longer playable on my iPod.  The songs still exist, but the iPod freezes up, and the songs get skipped.  No more "Suedehead" for me, nor anything off of Quarry.  I almost feel like the iPod has become self-aware, as the lyrics change on the Live at Earl's Court recording of "Bigmouth Strikes Again" from Joan of Arc's "Walkman" starting to melt to "iPod."  Apple fears Morrissey, and would rather silence him.

Now perhaps Moz himself would find this ridiculous (that a machine denies his music to me), but I would like to think he finds it rather amusing, because so much of Autobiography concerns itself with little ironies such as this: Morrissey is great, and everyone knows he's great, but he is still perpetually misunderstood and maligned regardless, singled out for his accomplishments, perhaps out of envy or the cruel nature of humanity.  He's too effete or he whines too much or he's too self-obsessed and people just don't give him the respect he's due--nobody except the fans, that is.  

But back to the book itself.  The most striking thing about this book, without question, is its structure, or lack thereof.  I cannot remember the last time I read a book that had zero chapters breaks, whose separation only came in the form of paragraph breaks or an extra space between paragraphs, so this may be the first.  In other words, it is not an easily digestible volume, and I feel this is done for stylistic reasons that go along with its unusual cover, which make it appear as if it truly is something from the Great Books canon, perhaps like an edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for use in a high school or college curriculum.  In form, it resembles 19th century literature.  Truthfully, there are many more music courses in college and I am sure this book could end up on a couple college reading lists.  At the very least, it sheds light on the oft-explored issue (on VH1's "Behind the Music") of the hapless musician faced with contracts he or she cannot comprehend, and the swindle carried out by record companies:

"...In time-honored tradition, we were just two more pop artists thrilled to death with the spinning discs that bore our names.  The specifics of finance and the gluttonous snakes-and-ladders legalities were deliberately complicated snares that all pop artists are expected to understand immediately.   The act of creating music and songs and live presentations are relied upon to sufficiently distract the artist so that labels and lawyers and accountants--so crucial to groups in matters of law--might thrive.  It is nothing new.  The basic rule, though, is to keep the musician in the dark at all costs, so that the musician might call upon the lawyer repeatedly.  In fact, pop artists live in a world that is at a dramatic distance from the world of commerce, and they are usually exclusively consumed by their gift or drive at the expense of everything else.  A vast industry of music lawyers and managers and accountants therefore flourish unchecked due to the musician's lack of business grasp.  Thus, any standard recording contract deliberately reads like ancient Egyptian script--surely in order to trick the musician.  Rather than hide your face under the bedcovers, you are thus forced to do business with those whom you least mind ripping you off--chiefly because you have no choice, and also because the law insists upon a documented trail of every penny that you earn--mainly so that someone might take it from you.  The artist is the enemy.  Solicitors are trained to squeeze as much money out of their client as possible, and accountants might deliberately steer their client into tax troubles so that those very same accountants are further needed to unravel the mess that they created in the first place..." (170-171)

The other reviews I've seen of Autobiography are predictably polarizing.  On the one hand, most recognize that this is not a perfect memoir, but there are occasional flashes of brilliance.  On the other, many profess that it is in dire need of a strong edit, and no one will fail to mention the 1996 Smiths Trial.  Now personally, for me, this was the best part of the book.  It just kept going, and going, and going, and I thought it would go on until the book ended.  At first I thought it was ridiculous that he would spend 25 pages discussing this trial in sharp detail.  It actually ends up going on for 50 pages.

But before we get there, we have to hit on the first target of Morrissey's ire: Geoff Travis, the "moral conscience" of Rough Trade Records.  There are about two anecdotes where Travis comes off well (an extremely complimentary letter on The Queen is Dead stands out); at every other mention he is skewered.  Perhaps there is no funnier moment than when Travis says, after hearing "How Soon is Now?" for the first time, "WHAT is Johnny doing, THAT is just noise." (178) then later proposes it as the A-side to "Shakespeare's Sister" B-side.  But that has been quoted on other various sites.  I can't find the quote I'm thinking of, but this is the second time Travis removes his glasses:

"Geoff leans forward and removes his glasses.  'Do you know why Smiths singles don't go any higher?' 
I say nothing because the question is horribly rhetorical.
'Because they're not good enough.' He puts his glasses back on and shrugs his shoulders.  I glance around his office searching for an axe.
Some murders are well worth their prison term." (207)

I think he says something arguably more offensive the first time he removes his glasses, which Morrissey says he does when he is about to relay some harsh truth.

The opening of the book feels "Dickensian," befitting the Penguin Classics imprint, and all of the material about his childhood seems to be written at more of a distance than the material about his career.  In general I have to say that this is not the most enjoyable book to read, but that fans of Morrissey (of which there are very many) will find it irresistible.  Maybe I am not a big enough fan to truly "get" it, but I found much of the book charming.  I really do not think this book sheds light on many situations that casual fans might ponder.  Morrissey is well aware of his mythological status, and he plays with it throughout the book to amusing effect, particularly with references to his romantic life.

Many people believe that Morrissey is celibate or asexual or gay, or some variant, but it appears after taking everything in this book together that he is bi.  This is mainly because he writes of a few relationships that turned into quasi-domestic partnerships, two with men and one with a woman whom he nearly had a baby with.  I don't want to dwell too particularly long on this topic, but there are some amusing passages on these times.

However, we should continue the recent trend on Flying Houses of quoting passages about Patti Smith (Patti Smith is turning into the "topic of the year" on this blog, as nearly every book reviewed seems to reference her in some form or another, a testament to her incredible influence):

"....Cross-legged by a dying fire later that night, and with only a side-light for company, I allowed Horses to enter my body like a spear, and as I listened to the bare lyrics of public lecture, I examined the genderless singer on the heavyweight album sleeve.  So surly and stark and betrayed, Patti Smith was the cynical voice radiating love; pain sourced as inspiration, an individual mission drunk on words--and my heart leapt hurdles, scaling and vaulting; something won and overcome.  Unfulfilled as a woman, impotent as a man, Patti Smith cut right through--singing and looking and saying absolutely everything that would be thought to go against the listener's sympathy.  But the reverse happened, and the wisdom of centuries shook me and told me that, however heavy-hearted and impossible you might feel about yourself, you can still bestow love through recorded song--which just might be the only place where you have the chance to show yourself as you really are since nothing in your disposed life gives you encouragement.  The fact that you do not look like a pop-star-in-waiting should not dishearten you because your oddness could become the deciding wind of change for others.  There is nothing obvious about Patti Smith, least of all any obvious biological conclusions, and this gives its own erotic reality in a shyness of arrogant pride.  The past snaps.  I have never heard or seen anything like Patti Smith previously, and I have never heard truth established so sincerely.  The female voice in rock music had rattled with fathomless depths of insincerity, whereas Patti Smith spoke with a boy's bluntness, and she looked for squabbles wherever she went.  Horses pinned all opponents to the ground.  It shook the very laws of existence, and was part musical recording and part throwing up.  Its discovery was the reason why we could never give up on music, and its effects were huge..." (111-112)

As others have noted, Morrissey is not so revealing about his own music as he is about other artists.  That is, his modus operandi or r'aison d'etre can be explained through the observations he makes of other artists, and that is no more true for me than here.  Perhaps one could say what Patti Smith means to Morrissey, Morrissey means to me.  The true power of art is inspiration.

So it comes as a pleasant surprise (in what will surely be an annoyance to most) that Morrissey is OBSESSED with the legal system.  It is almost like he has been through the wringer so many times that he might as well be a solicitor himself.  I believe that the section of the book on the 1996 Smiths Trial is so protracted specifically because Morrissey wants everyone to know all the tiny nuances of the case to see just how rank an injustice was done.  Long story short: Michael Joyce and Andy Rourke, drummer and bass player in the Smiths, were basically paid 10% of the total earnings from the Smiths, and Morrissey and Johnny Marr, the principal songwriters, were paid 40%.  Aspersions are not cast on Rourke so much as Joyce.  Joyce asserts that he should actually receive 25% of the proceeds, and that he just "assumed" it was an equal partnership between the four.  Despite having zero proof, Joyce ends up winning, and Morrissey is absolutely miserable.  Now this could be a point where anyone can turn on the author, because let's admit that he has been allowed to have a fabulous life where he does not need to worry about money.  But it seems like the principle of the thing.  He's getting taken advantage of because people don't like his attitude.  At least that's what it seems like from everything said about the judge.  It will be impossible to pick out the best passage from this lengthy section, but here is a representative sample.  Keep in mind that the reason almost every single review considers this the chief failing of this book is because it is repetitive.  (And to reiterate, I do not feel this is a failing at all):

"Three words were used that had never previously described me, thus their weight as a catchphrase for eternity.  Had Weeks described me in words befitting my character, no would care or give any attention.  The meaning of 'devious, truculent and unreliable' is to present a description so patently unlikely that ears prick up.  We all know that, if repeated often enough in print, words are bound to eventually be believed, and it seemed obvious his quote would indeed be printed enough.  In the event of any future court action shading my life (fame = money = lawsuits), the 'devious, truculent and unreliable' stinger alone need only be used once by any opposing party and my defense would come unstuck, because 'devious, truculent and unreliable' in judicial parlance means 'evil, aggressive and a liar'.  What was the reason for this attack on me, so aggressively fueled and so overdone that it appears to want to bring a life to an end?  Surely judges have no need to unleash thoughts that are actually more violent than anything done or expressed by either plaintiff or defendant.  What, then, was John Weeks thinking of?  In the quiet room of his final years he will be delighted that his potential was realized by a famously recurring quote.  It is a quote powerful enough to poison everything.  Weeks could have merely said that someone was right and someone was wrong--or, indeed, that both parties were wrong.  Instead he leaves a quote that might be rancid and powerful  enough to cause one subject to be unable to ever again conduct business; to never again be trusted, or--even better--to kill himself with the brandishing shock of it all.  It doesn't take much to force someone over the edge, but Weeks' judgment in itself could have constituted manslaughter." (320-321)

This is my second review in a row that prescribes certain behavior for judges, and again I agree: there's no need for what Weeks did (just like there was no need for me to get "bench-slapped" last month--one day I will go off about the meanness in the legal profession, and how perfectly miserable human beings can make one another for no reason other than the mistaken belief that it's always been done that way, and it's the only way it can work).  Morrissey may be whining a bit much about it, but it's true that judicial opinions have "staying power" in a certain sense of the word, and that labeling this particular litigant with these particular adjectives destroys his credibility in any future proceeding.  It really is not fair, and Morrissey has every right to spend 50 pages defending his own character through the prism of this trial, even if casual readers may find the section rather long-winded.

In general, this is a long-winded book, and there are so many different things I could mention that this review will inevitably lack something.  I do want to say, that, like another famous Irish author, it ends on a stunningly beautiful note.  That is, for me personally.  And I truly believe that the magic of an artist that one admires comes through in things that mean something unbearably personal to you.  And by unbearably personal I don't mean painfully personal--I just mean something that spurs one to believe that the artist is speaking to you directly.  There are several references to Chicago (and an especially humorous one about the Genesee Theater in Waukegan, IL) but the final paragraph of the book paints a picture of a scene outside the Congress Theater.  This venue is in my neighborhood, and has been closed for several years by the City of Chicago's Department of Buildings, and is now being refurbished to hopefully open in 2017.  Actually I was part of the legal team that prosecuted the case against this theater.  A very small part, but a part nonetheless.  So I feel some ownership over this space, and to see Morrissey end his autobiography on an image outside this theater, where he has just played a show, which must have been one of the last shows held there before the venue was shut down, well it made me smile:

"For a year's-end concert at the Congress Theater in Chicago, the audience heaves with responding kindness, and I am immobilized by singing voices of love.
All along, my private suffering felt like vision, urging me to die or go mad, yet it brings me here, to a wintry Chicago street-scene in December 2011 - I, a small boy of 52, clinging to the antiquated view that a song should mean something, and presenting himself everywhere by way of apology.  It is quite true that I have never had anything in my life that I did not make for myself.
As I board the tour bus, a fired encore is still ringing in my ears, and then suddenly a separated female voice calls out to me--full of cracked now-or-never embarrassment above the still Illinois winter atmosphere of midnight, and it was dark, and I looked the other way." (457)

Such a great fucking ending.  And you have to love the "still Illinois" line.

Morrissey does that a lot in this book--inserts lyrics or song titles into lines.  And there's a lot of alliteration.  But as I just mentioned, the real power in this book comes in the multitudes it contains.  Everyone will find something extremely personal (like I found in its ending) within it, and the only ones that will fail to be touched will be those that, for whatever reason, are predisposed against the author himself.  And why would anyone be predisposed?  Because we don't like whiners.  But as a whiner himself, I can say that the world has needed Morrissey, and is richer for his presence.

See a Little Light - Bob Mould (with Michael Azzerad) (2011)

I first became aware of Bob Mould and Husker Du in late 2003.  I forget what spurred me to ask for Our Band Could Be Your Life for Christmas that year, but it had only been out for a couple years, and I tore through it rapidly.  My memory must be off because I recall also getting Mission of Burma's Vs. and Husker Du's New Day Rising on that day.  Whatever, it was basically my junior year of college that I got into them.  I had also been aware of them via the Dennis Cooper novel Try, in which the main character is a real fanboy.

Soon after New Day Rising, I got a burnt copy of Zen Arcade.  About a year later, after college, I picked up Flip Your Wig.  Not long after that, I saw Bob Mould play at the Metro in Chicago, on the Body of Song tour.  Of course during this time I was clamoring for all of the OBCBYL bands to reunite so I could see them live.  Mission of Burma did, and soon after so did Dinosaur Jr.  Husker Du never did, and apparently never will, even though rumors will always continue to swirl, such as last year when they decided to reissue some of their merchandising.  Bob Mould just plays some Husker Du songs live, and that will be as good as it gets.

The chapter from OBCBYL on Husker Du is one of the best.  Most chapters would make me want to listen to the band in question, if I hadn't heard them before.  Their music fit my taste: loud, fast, angry/anguished.  Perhaps more intriguing is that 2 of their 3 members were gay.  They were sort of a mysterious band to me, and I was really into them from about 2003 through 2007 (though I've always listened to their albums), then my ardor sort of faded.  I'd check out the last few Bob Mould albums, but a true reunion was the only thing that would have really excited me.

Enter Mould's latest album, released a little over a month ago in late March 2016.  It was probably the Pitchfork review that did it, reminding me that he had actually released a memoir.  I remember hearing about it when it was released, but I guess I was distracted in law school or whatever in 2011.  Anyways I put a hold on it at the CPL, and voila, it arrives quickly and now continues along our path of indie rock memoirs after Kim Gordon and Carrie Brownstein.   

It's hard to compare the three.  I don't want to say any single one is the best.  The most obvious thing is that Mould's is the biggest.  It's definitely the longest, around 380 pages, and it feels more revealing than the other two, even though one could not call either Gordon's or Brownstein's opaque.  Here is the best way I can differentiate them: theirs are more poetic and impressionistic; Mould's is more intricately detailed and informative.  One might say that Mould's is less edited, but the book is credited "with" Michael Azzerad, who is, of course, the author of OBCBYL.  So yeah, maybe it is a little more bloated, but I found pretty much the whole thing entertaining.  I guess him and Kim Gordon have been active in the music scene for roughly the same amount of time, but the kinds of songs they write are quite different, and that translates to different styles of memoir.  But enough with the comparisons--most people are not going to blindly pick up See a Little Light, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, or Girl in a Band unless they're already familiar with the artists.  All three are great.

If what was previously known about Husker Du was mysterious, then this book changes everything.  Mould is completely open and honest throughout the entire narrative, and he provides very detailed accounts of his entire musical journey, from his early upbringing, through Husker Du, his early solo work, Sugar, his shift to electronica, and back.  Perhaps sensing that he is kind of a unique figure in the larger scheme of gay rights, he writes quite eloquently on the topic.  Obviously, apart from interband tensions (only a small portion of which overlap with such themes), this is the major "drama" of the memoir.  Most of the passages I would like to quote, the most compelling portions of the text, are on this topic.

But also, like OBCBYL, this book made me rediscover some older material.  I had never really heard "Eight Miles High," a cover song that I would probably rank in their top 5.  I had never really explored Candy Apple Grey or Warehouse either--not even Metal Circus to be honest.  I had Land Speed Record but I still haven't really heard Everything Falls Apart.  As for Sugar, the only thing I previously heard was File Under: Easy Listening, which I bought in the summer of 2007 on my road trip through the U.S. from some random record store in the Midwest for a few bucks.  Copper Blue and Beaster seem to be the more definitive releases, and Mould mentions the Beaster track "JC Auto" several times, and yes, it is a really intense and awesome song.  Also interesting is that "Gift" from FU:EL, which I considered that album's best song, features a guitar pedal that Kevin Shields lent to Mould, the same one used on "You Made Me Realise."  Mould was also heavily influenced by Loveless at the time of its release.

Mould also moved around the country a lot.  Off the top of my head, he is born and raised in a small town in upstate New York, then moves to Minneapolis for college, and lives there until Husker Du becomes big enough that he can purchase a home in a rural suburb, where he lives through their end.  After that, he moves to New York City (being something of a pioneer in Williamsburg), then Austin, then back to NYC, then Washington D.C., and finally ends in San Francisco.  I feel like I'm missing a couple places in there, but whatever.

***

Anyways, I've finally returned from a weekend away in which I neglected to bring the book and reflected upon it in absentia.  I went to see my sister graduate from college and I brought way too much stuff for a two night stay as it was.  Here is one of the aforementioned promised quotes.

First, I would quote the whole opening of Chapter 17, but its not necessarily poetic.  It just tells the story of how Dennis Cooper interviewed him for Spin:

"The writer Dennis Cooper was a huge Husker Du fan.  He'd even touched on the band in one or two of his novels.  Now he was trying to build a name for himself as a journalist.  Dennis Cooper is gay.  So in the summer of 1994, Spin magazine asked Ryko, How about we send Dennis Cooper down to Austin to spend some time with Bob?
I knew what was about to happen.  This was to be the "Bob is gay" story, and I could do this the easy way or the hard way.  I wasn't thrilled about it for a number of reasons, beyond personal ones.  My first concerns were that this news would make it tough for my family, and that my fans and peers would recontextualize everything I had done with my work.  I also knew that the press was always going to write whatever they were going to write.  I could try to steer the story the way I wanted it to read, but ultimately, editorial always wins out.  It's the business."  (221)

Okay, I'm having trouble locating the one really poetic passage about how people might start interpreting the meaning of the songs differently after they found out he was gay.  He writes about how the themes of his music are universal and apply regardless of gender and sexuality.  Except for one instance, which comes amidst the description of side two of Zen Arcade:

"A lot of side two is my blind rage and self-hatred, my failed relationships, and my confusing sex with love.  That whole side was a blur while recording.  It sounds like someone is being pounded into a gigantic pile of broken glass.  Some of the words and ideas seem misguided now, but history has proven they're made of a lasting substance.  Gay people have always pegged "The Biggest Lie" as a gay song, and it is, seeing as it was informed by a sexual misadventure with a straight friend.  It was about me hoping an awkward physical tumble would turn into something more, and it not happening." (90)

Later, Mould mentions that the only part of his oeuvre that he will not revisit is this part of Zen Arcade and it is upsetting to think that we will never get to hear "I'll Never Forget You" performed live again.

Mould also tells the surprising story of how he briefly worked for the WCW in the late 90's.  He also fairly casually mentions how he started taking steroids after four weeks on the job.  He doesn't seem to mention stopping them, though one presumes that was the case.  He also tells the fairly insane story of the wrestler Chris Benoit from his perspective.

But it is the stories of his relationships with Michael and Kevin that are ultimately some of the most painful:

"I had been faithful to Mike, faithful to Kevin, and now I was single.  Everything was open and new.  I'd been unhitched for one month in the last twenty-one years.  Now I was learning the ropes of dating and casual sex in D,C.  I had my freedom, but I knew I had to be somewhat cautious.  I said to Rich, keep an eye on me and tell me if I start acting stupid.  I don't think I ever got too crazy." (333)

The ending of the book pretty much tells the story of how he never really embraced the gay community or the gay lifestyle until this period in his life.  The story of how he meets up with another gay blogger is "both comical and sad" and quite endearing, such as his disappointment with the dude being heavier than his pictures looked, but still being intimate despite a few other sketchy details.

Along the way there are some pretty good stories about other indie rock luminaries, and reflections on what it means to be "out" and his life's work (up to age 50).  He ends the book by saying that it has been a pretty good first 50 years and he is excited for what is to come.

Are you jealous?

Sure.  After reading this book, try and tell me that you could have a more interesting and entertaining life.  Not necessarily everyone wants and interesting and entertaining life, and I'm sure many would not want to have the experiences Mould has had.  The book is brimming with trauma, but I suppose that's the sort of material that makes for the best writing.

Take, for example, people who would never smoke:

"I started smoking a pack a day at the beginning of college, and by the end, I was up to three packs a day.  Smoking had become both the centerpiece and timepiece of my life.  Every cigarette was six minutes long, and I could practically mark out the whole day with smoking, like a sundial.  Six minutes on, nine minutes off.  Repeat sixty times a day.  It was like playing Scrabble: when it's your turn, you turn over the egg timer and start thinking.  I have an innate sense of time, but smoking was this additional timekeeper, like a wristwatch." (258)

You see, some people smoke and are just lazy, and other people that smoke are like super successful and amazing.  In short, while I could never say there is any "right" way to smoke, using it as a timekeeper through sporadic bursts of energy sounds nice in theory, but I don't think that's normally the way it is in practice.  Mould quits when he is 37, and also starts to make other changes in his life.  It's the focus on these kind of personal details that make this memoir so well-rounded.

There is not much more to say except that Mould is playing the Metro again, two days from now!  I just found this out a day or two ago.  Though it is sold out, I may try to go.  His newest album is very good, as have been his last few.  I'd imagine he can build a pretty strong setlist with his entire discography.  So, I guess this book came around at the perfect time for me, just in time to remind me that I should go.

Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: a memoir - Carrie Brownstein (2015)

I first became aware of Carrie Brownstein and Sleater-Kinney when I was a sophomore in college, back when they were touring behind One Beat.  There were a couple girls I met that burned me a copy of Dig Me Out and let me accompany to them to the show they played at Irving Plaza, one of a series of NYU concerts that cost $5 or $10 per ticket.  I would see them several times over the next few years, and collect all of their albums (except their first).  I kind of had a crush on Carrie Brownstein when I saw them, though people seemed to intimate that she wouldn't necessarily appreciate that crush.  I got my hair cut in the spring semester of my sophomore year and a friend remarked that I looked like "that girl from Sleater-Kinney" (that I presumed wasn't Corin Tucker due to our facial features).  I just assumed that Carrie Brownstein was old, because they had been together for so long.  I come to find out that she was younger than I am now when they went on their hiatus in 2006.  She's like, barely older than me (at least to me--and maybe I'm alone, except for Nicki Minaj, when I say that '06 feels like yesterday), may or may not be single, and has one of the greatest and most unique catalogs of any rock band in history under her belt, and what, six seasons of a seminal sketch comedy show?  She's like, perfect.  Whatever she is on, I want to be on.

I'm only not naming this book one of the Best Books of Flying Houses because I didn't bestow that recognition upon Kim Gordon's Girl in a  Band.  Both deserve to be on the list, but in a way they are too easy: they both had such incredible stories to tell that the books must have written themselves, to an extent.  I feel a little dirty saying this, particularly in light of my previous review of an anthology of the genre, but I think memoirs are easier to write than fiction--except for the requisite "bloodletting" that they generally require.  All the source material is there before you; all you need to do is to decide where to start, where to end, and what to leave out.  You don't need to think up names for characters, or build whole mythologies out of imaginary people.  Having said that, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl is probably better written than Girl in a Band, but Kim Gordon has her own separate barometer of authenticity or credibility that renders it more powerful.  Gordon is certainly vulnerable and confessional in hers; Brownstein opens up a lot in hers, but keeps most of her ex-lovers anonymous.  Sonic Youth is a bit more of an institution than Sleater-Kinney--at least, it was, when it broke up, before Sleater-Kinney came back.  Now, who knows, Kim was nearly 60 when Sonic Youth folded, so if Sleater-Kinney goes on another ten or fifteen years, then I would say they're of equal cultural import.  Frankly, though I love Sonic Youth deeply and dearly, so much that they must be included if ever asked to name my top five favorite bands, Sleater-Kinney has a stronger and more consistent catalog, and albums that are generally more solid from top to bottom.  I like them all--except maybe for The Hot Rock--I mean, I like The Hot Rock, I'd prefer the album to music by most other bands, but it's just my least favorite by them.  Maybe the self-titled is my least favorite because I don't have it on my iPod, but I actually don't have No Cities to Love on it (owing mostly to my own cheapness and reliance on Spotify and my unwillingness to load up my precariously aged device), though that album sits comfortably alongside their best work, which, to my estimation, includes The Woods and One Beat.  I love Dig Me Out and Call the Doctor, and All Hands on the Bad One to a slightly lesser degree, and The Hot Rock to a slightly less degree than that--but they're just a band that seems to get better with each new album they release.  I saw them about a year ago in Chicago and they were as good as they've ever been.  I seriously hope they come back every few years or so with new music, but another longer hiatus seems inevitable, particularly after reading about the exhaustion that Brownstein recounts occurring after each album and tour cycle.

So I love the music and I love her work on "Portlandia."  Do you really think I would say this is a bad book?

For a while near the end, I thought she was getting a little bit boring, writing about her pets.  I was like, oh, I wrote about my pets in my memoir, so that's normal.  Regardless, just writing about your pets can sometimes be boring.  However, she writes about her pets, in this segment, to ridiculously powerful effect, to the point that it is one of the most heartbreaking moments of the entire book.  There's a quote on the back from Miranda July, whom I learned was a friend and collaborator of Brownstein's in their earlier days (and more recently if I'm not mistaken)--Brownstein admits at one point that they both wondered if they should be together--as well as a noteworthy artist herself.  Me and You and Everyone We Know is a modern indie classic, and she also has a pretty good book of short stories, from what I've read.  July writes, as the last sentence in her blurb, "I wept."  I wonder if this story about her pets instigated those emotions.

Make no mistake, this is a great book.  It's a must read for Sleater-Kinney fans and musicians everywhere.  But it takes a really incredible memoir (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, for example) to make the Best Books list.  Brownstein is a terrific writer, but I must admit that she doesn't seem to employ the "be harder on myself than anyone else" rule of memoir-writing.  Now she might say, "Come on, I'm pretty hard of myself a lot here!" And truthfully, she is pretty hard on herself a lot of the time.  But she still could have gone harder, more embarrassing, more vulnerable, more revealing.  This is a personal preference for memoir writers, and I totally understand not wanting to give out the most painful, secret, unflattering memories one has of oneself, but it's my personal preference that memoirs are as honest and unflinching as possible.  I would never say this memoir is dishonest in any way, shape or form, but I would have liked to have known more about Brownstein's personal feelings on bisexuality.  I believe she identifies as bi, though in practice mostly sees women, and she keeps a fair number of her exes anonymous and gender neutral.  It would be a generous act, if somewhat unsettling, for a writer to open up about such personally confounding matters.  Brownstein certainly describes her first moments "experimenting," but never really addresses the "choice" that's implicit in identifying as bisexual.  That would be something that I just personally would like to read.

It's also pretty much where my criticism stops, because even in that last paragraph, I had to qualify every blanket statement I made about this book.  It took me about a week to read this book, and I loved most every minute of it.  If you go purely by ease of reading and entertainment and occasional moments of profundity, this book should definitely be on the Best Books list.  It's only out of my snobbishness towards memoirs that it's not.

***

Carrie Brownstein grew up in the suburbs outside of Seattle--mostly Redmond, WA.  At this point I must make another personal statement: Brownstein's childhood memories are primarily set in the 1980's, and as such feel very close to mine.  At least in the sense that, I had three older siblings who were closer in age to her, so we had some Cabbage Patch Dolls in our home.  Our father also went to Australia on business and brought back a few things.  And we were also in the suburbs of a big city and we also had a dog named Buffy.  The similarities pretty much end there, though.  Brownstein had one younger sister.  Her parent's marriage broke up while she was in high school, her mother suffering from anorexia nervosa and her father suffering from repressed homosexual feelings.  These are delicately detailed in the third and fourth chapters "Disappearance" and "No Normal."

These very personal chapters showcase Brownstein's exemplary talent for writing (as if she needed to be talented at one more thing).  Earlier I've accused her of not being hard enough on herself in this book, but I want to say something else to tip the balance: she is extremely modest in this book.  She never once even seems to admit that she is a good musician, guitarist, songwriter, performer--anything.  Sometimes she admits that Sleater-Kinney is a very good band, but she is always laying the praise on Corin and Janet (in truth, Sleater-Kinney is such a good band because all three of them--like, say, Shellac--are ferocious players).  In writing about her mother's disease and her father's guarded lifestyle, she exhibits tenderness, strength, empathy, and realness.  She doesn't pity them for their troubles and she is very level-headed about she handles them.  She laments that her family was not "together" throughout most of her life, but she really seems like one of the best sisters or children anyone could have.  She learned from these troubles and became a stronger person for it.  (There could be more details about exactly what happened with her mother leaving the family--she briefly mentions staying at her house with her 2nd husband during the recording of Dig Me Out, I think--but I'm not going to push that criticism too hard.)

Most of this book, however, is about Sleater-Kinney.  And while the details about their earlier records are interesting (I had no idea they started the band in Australia, and the chapter about that is super weird--I don't know how they survived in the early part of their career, and I would have liked to see a few more paragraphs devoted to their ostensible poverty), it is really the material on the later stuff that is the most compelling.  Because despite their steady growth, they were never "really big" until the end, when they opened for Pearl Jam on the One Beat tour and when they finished up with The Woods.  When they got really big, Brownstein seemed more prone to depression, which seems odd but makes sense in a "Kurt Cobain kind of way" (which she references, and must reference, as this book is also thoroughly a document of the Pacific Northwest scene, K Records, Olympia, Seattle, Portland, grunge and riot grrl).  In fact, the book opens up in a kind of "teaser chapter" (not unlike Girl in a Band) about the shingles she developed on The Woods tour and her increasing frustrations with the band.  It's sort of unbelievable that anyone making what must have been pretty good money, doing what they love, could ever be unhappy with their situation, but Brownstein convincingly portrays the Big Picture and why it wasn't working for them (primarily due, it seems, to Tucker wanting to be a good mother to her children, which Brownstein completely understands).

Here is one example of how Brownstein takes this memoir to another level--her ability to write like a writer:

"The ways that oddity and detachment intersected in the family might best be summed up in the story of the family dog.  Buffy, a forty-pound golden retriever mix we adopted from the pound when I was six and my sister was three, had been smothered with love in her youth.  Buffy, for whom we took a pet first-aid class in order to learn how to be responsible owners, who was the muse for my grade-school poetry exercises ('Buffy is fluffy!'), our sidekick for picnics and outings, on the sidelines for soccer games, and the subject most featured in my first roll of film--posing on my baby blanket and wearing sunglasses--after I was given a camera for my birthday.  Buffy, who followed us around the cul-de-sacs while we engaged in dirt clod fights with the neighbor kids, and trotted after us while we rode Big Wheels and eventually bikes.  Buffy, who suffered the sting of the archaic idea that you could punish a dog by smacking it on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper and whose tail was run over by my mother as she backed the car out of the driveway.  And Buffy, turned back into a stray in her own home on account of the rest of us surrendering to emptiness, drifting away from anything we could call familiar, her skin itching and inflamed, covered with sores and bites, like tattoos, like skywriting, screaming with redness, as if to say Please, please pet me!  But we didn't.  When we decided to put her down, not because she was sick but because she was old and neglected--a remnant of a family we no longer recognized--my father asked my sister to do it.  My sister was sixteen.  She drove the dog to the vent one day after school by herself.  No one else said good-bye." (34-35)

And then beneath that is a hilarious picture of Brownstein as a young girl with Buffy and a Cabbage Patch Doll.  It was moments such as this that reminded me of my earliest memories from the mid-to-late 80's.  The only thing that would have made that paragraph more literary is if the word "the" had been excised before "cul-de-sacs."  Brownstein may as well write a novel whenever Portlandia wraps.

There are great little references to other musicians in this book.  One of my favorites involves Jeremy Enigk, because he's relatively obscure, but not to those that understand what "emo" really means.  I guess I was surprised to read that he was pretty popular.  There is also this shocking anecdote about tour bus listening:

"We smoked cigarettes and weed, when available, ate copious amounts of chocolate and cheese, and fell asleep mostly tipsy if not outright drunk.  On one long drive, in a fit of giddiness and in the spirit of sisterhood and spreading cheer, Corin and I convinced Janet to throw a mixtape out of the van window.  It was a cassette she'd been listening to nonstop, made for her by a friend, a boy she was trying to no longer have a crush on.  That boy was Elliott Smith.  I still think about that tape, flung, and how I urged it to be so.  Gone." (147)

Harsh!  Finally, there is a priceless one about Jack White near the very end.  It's not really worth excerpting, just a funny story.  There is also a funny story about Sleater-Kinney's groupies, or lack thereof.  Brownstein does open up about her personal life here, and it is quite endearing to read about trying to maintain a relationship while on tour.  We will end with another extremely literary passage, this one in the fashionable 2nd person:

"Here's one way not to go about diminishing the distance: Obsessively call your girlfriend, who is eleven years older than you, crying and telling her you hate being on tour.  Rack up more than $1,000 in pre-cellphone calling card fees on various payphones because you are hopelessly in love, willing to ditch everything for this person, and paranoid that she will go back to dating men while you are away.  Get so worried that you walk into a family-run restaurant--perhaps the only restaurant--in the town of Lokev, Slovenia (population: around 1,000), ask to borrow their cordless phone, and call your girlfriend some more (sticking them with an international long-distance bill).  Write lugubrious, handwritten love letters that compare thee to a summer's day.  Drive your bandmates crazy by quoting your older girlfriend all the time and only reading books or listening to music that she has recommended.  Now your bandmates are practically begging you to dump her.  But, guess what, she dumps you.  Of course she does.  This girlfriend, who also plays music but who is not as successful as you in this field, you think she wants to hear how sad you are to have an album that is blowing up?!  She doesn't.  Months later you are still angry and confused and for the first time very, very heartbroken.  You freak out and drive to her house one morning and place a bag containing every letter she ever wrote you on her doorstep.  Then you write songs for what will become The Hot Rock, songs about a love that is so airless, it's suffocating.  Songs about wanting to steal your heart back from someone you never feel deserved it.  And thus begins a cycle, of falling in love and then getting hurt, or hurting someone else by falling out of love with them.  About trying to maintain closeness despite geographical disparities, then finding inspiration from all the ways you feel splintered and separate, hurt and broken.  So, this is one version, and not a pretty one, of being young and in a band and trying to be in a relationship.  This is the version in which being gone and busy eats at you because you are scared of being left even though you are the one who is technically always leaving." (151-152)

You should read this book, even if you've never heard of Sleater-Kinney.  You will not be disappointed.