Rock Bottom: Dark Moments In Music Babylon (1996) - Plot & Excerpts
This highly entertaining and yet disturbingly grim collection of tales of rock and roll excess was authored by a lady who knows her rock and roll well, and she knows too all about the excesses that come with the lifestyle, Pamela Des Barre.Contained herein are the tales Ms. Pamela collected of some of rock and roll's brightest stars who shined brightly with promise and then burned out too soon: Syd Barrett, Jan Berry, Marc Bolan, John Bonham, Kurt Cobain, Eddie Cochran, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Rick James, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Keith Moon, JIm Morrison, Ricky Nelson, Gram Parsons, Johnny Thunders, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Sid Vicious, Dennis Wilson, G.G. Allin...and more - their stories are all here. They were all brilliant musicians with so much to offer but their fast paced lifestyles led to serious and in most incidences, deadly final chapters.I originally read this book back in 1998, and just this past summer I picked up the very same copy from my library at their annual book sale for $1.00. It was a great addition to my bookshelf. Highly suggested reading for any serious student of rock and roll history...as well as those who just like a story filled with sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Like the Hollywood Babylon books, Rock Bottom is a collection of voyueristic tales from the world of contempory music. Contempory in this sense refers to US-centric rock and/ or roll, and as all good rock it riffs on all the expected themes of debauchery, indulgence, vanity and failures.Written/ collected by a 60s uber-groupie, some of the stories have a personal angle which puts the book above the "bitchiness" in Hollywood Babylon. At the close of the book though it is still trash. A quick easy read to giggle at those wacky rock star antics.Tempted to give it an extra star for being the only book I have found with an account of GG Allin! One angry man. For the most part, crap music but he certainly was at the far end of the bell curve of humanity.
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