Somebody To Love?: A Rock-and-Roll Memoir (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
A Rock-and-Roll DelusionThe 60's are so different from now, the past is another country.Even if you love that period of music and culture, it's still possible to say that the two bands from that period that are the most over-estimated and the most under-estimated are the Doors and the Jefferson Airplane.They both do things that get right up your nose, but they both did things that took you to the top of the mountain.My taste in music is firmly rooted in the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed and John Cale.Just about all of the music over the last 40 years that I love can be traced to the influence of the Velvets.So I judge the west coast music scene with an east coast bias.I have always found it wanting.It was the soundtrack to a scene that thought it was eternal, but ended up being ephemeral.It was self-consciously groovy, but ended up passé.It got into the wrong groove.The DoorsThe Doors divided opinion, even at their peak.You either loved them or you hated them.You either loved Jim Morrison or you hated him.Morrison has to be the ultimate self-mythologiser, even to the extent of putting his life on the line for the sake of the myth.I hate this practice in contemporary bands, I hate it in the distant past, I hate it in the recent past (e.g., the Go-Betweens).Ultimately, a band should just make their music and put it out there for us to enjoy and judge and understand.Still there is something that I love about the music of the Doors (I'll come to the Airplane).It was way more complex than the pop and rock music that surrounded it.It integrated jazz and classical into a rock vehicle, without being prog rock or disappearing up its pretensions.It still had an intellectual and physical drive about it that I find modern, possibly even better than modern.If someone made this music now, I would still want to listen to it.The Doors were the soundtrack to a million acid trips.Both when they were performing and when an attempt was made to resurrect their music and their myth in the 80's.If you got into them in the 80's to be part of a scene, man, then you probably dumped them when you moved on from acid to some other opiate or politics or normality or weariness.If you map out your life according to the compass of cool, then you will either get lost or move on when true north changes, even temporarily.Divorced of cool, the music of the Doors is still there, and I like it.That's just a personal opinion. You don't have to agree with me.Jefferson AirplaneMy other favourite band from the west coast was the Jefferson Airplane.I listened to them a lot through the 70's, 80's and 90's.Superficially, I wondered why they weren't more popular, why they were never as big as the Doors, why nobody had tried to resurrect them or impersonate them (like the Cult and Ian Astbury impersonated the Doors).But in my rock 'n' roll heart of hearts, I knew that they weren't as good as the Doors, they weren't even that good at all, a lot of the time.They were too much of the time, rather than timeless.If you weren't there at the time, then you have really lost your opportunity, you really missed it (man).You just can't catch yesterday's wave.Some things deserve to be ephemeral.There is another attempt to resurrect their legacy happening now.An unprecedented amount of bootleg material is being released officially.Most of it won't find a home, even with aficionados.When I try to define why some 60's or 70's music hasn't travelled well, I keep coming back to beats per minute.Some of it is just too slow, it plods along, it has no sense of urgency.Quite apart from the west coast hippie subject matter, the Jefferson Airplane are behind the pace."Greatest Hits Live"I did get very excited a few years ago, when I picked up a semi-official bootleg of a live gig called "Greatest Hits Live".It was fast, it was speedy, it was a precursor to the Stone Roses.Grace Slick was in top form, gutsy and dynamic and modern. If she was contemporary, she would be Chan Marshall and PJ Harvey combined. But the joke was on me.The planespotter in me has tried and tried to find when this concert happened.If I could find out, I could get more, I could get the boots from around the same time.I could prove to the doubters that the Airplane were great, at least live in one phase of the band.I went to the top of the mountain and I consulted the oracle, and I came away dissatisfied.The oracle believes that what I thought was the quintessential Airplane is probably not the Airplane at all (we know it's not Starship).Indeed, he even wonders whether the singer was actually Grace Slick.So my attempts to mythologise this band might have come to nothing, in fact less than zero, I might have gone backwards.I have deluded myself.Grace SlickI read Grace Slick's book when it first came out.I learned a bit about her and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin.I learned a bit about the person as opposed to the star.I re-lived my memories for a few days.I liked the book, because it was some evidence I could use in my one man crusade to mythologise the Airplane.But I read it before I consulted the oracle.I go back to the music now and again.But I have to admit that I go to Greatest Hits Live.I go back to the band I wanted the Airplane to be, not the real thing.I like my version better.I don't like their myth.I prefer my own delusion.
A friend of mine handed this to me and said, “It’s a quick read and surprisingly good.” Fair enough, I’ll give it a go. Turns out she was spot on. Grace Slick’s autobiography is a quick read and is interesting, quirky and lively enough to be quite enjoyable.Slick comes across as an intelligent, witty veteran of those fabulous 60’s. She’s not bitter and she’s not overly jaded. She dishes a little dirt here and there about her Jefferson Airplane band mates or Jim Morrison or whoever, but it never seems at all snarky or malicious. In fact, her take on the whole era is kind of refreshing because she doesn’t overly romanticize things.What’s more interesting than her tales of concerts and hedonism is her outlook on life. Her observations. The way she looks at things. I like that, as a child, she was fascinated with bygone eras when everything was handmade and of higher quality, as opposed to her own era of plastic and mass production. “Aided by an imagination that was always ready to shift centuries, I simply ignored most of the mediocrity that prevailed.” I like that idea of ignoring mediocrity, though in this day and age, I’m not sure anyone but a child could do it successfully. I suppose that’s the attitude I take with music, ignoring all the mediocrity. I’ve been pretty successful with that.I also liked an idea she put forth in reference to attachment to material possessions; “Be more gentle with and tolerant of your humanity.” That’s a nice sentiment.Slick’s recounting of the Plaster Casters phenomenon is pretty funny and she asks the poignant question, “Where are the dicks?” Seriously, where are they? This is probably the place to start:http://www.cynthiaplastercaster.com/I totally think Noel’s and Jimi’s should be at the Experience Museum in Seattle.It’s interesting to think about how much has changed since Jefferson Airplane were a young, revolutionary band. Specifically, the view of young revolutionary people by established society. Kids today don’t have to worry about getting beat up for having funny hair or weird clothes. “You’ve got to remember, the gap between ‘straight’ and ‘freak’ was so wide then, we weren’t even considered human in some southern states.”Slick is smart, funny, pragmatic and wise. She’s honest about her faults and seems to be at peace with herself and her life. In that sense, reading her book is almost soothing, maybe even therapeutic.“And when we sing together, everyone becomes prefect for a while.But only for a while.”
What do You think about Somebody To Love?: A Rock-and-Roll Memoir (2006)?
I have a problem with autobiographies. Generally I end up liking the person a lot less after watching them gloss over their own faults and failings -- or conversely, exaggerating them to come across more hard-assed. But "Somebody to Love?" doesn't come across as a typical autobiography, it's arranged more or less chronological but it feels more like just sitting around and having a conversation with Ms.Slick. And she is a great conversationalist. The only thing I hoped to learn but didn't was where the name Jefferson Airplane came from.
—Norrin2
I hit puberty about the same time as the Summer of Love hit so of course I was in love with Grace Slick. I kind of wish I had never read this book now. I was hoping for a little more insight about some of the great Airplane songs and the band dynamics. What the book contained however was a bunch of very short chapters without going into much depth about anything. There really wasn't much here that I couldn't have gleaned out of a few Rolling Stones back in the day. Well I did learn that Jim Morrison's Johnson was above average but I could have guessed that. It was also pretty clear that the editor took the first manuscript and said " we need more chapters" so there was some fluff in there about PETA and other stuff. Gracie I still love ya but the book was... meh. I did think Andrea Cagan her ghost did a nice job of the actual writing though. I was never real bored. I just didn't learn anything.
—Steve Bolen
I am really not into celebrity confessions or pop culture icons, but I sometimes read memoirs like this to relive the days I never completely got to live myself. Of course I was only 11 during the Summer of Love, but echoes of it still reverberated through college campuses a few years later when it was my turn.Here are rambling recollections of a woman who was not afraid to live life and she did it on her own terms. If, like previous reviewers, you wish to think of this as selfish hippie privilege, that is your own privilege. I prefer to think of it as releasing the indomitable human spirit. I wish something like those Halcyon days would return. We're in dire need of a new Summer of Love to free us from the oppressive straight jacket society has once again saddled us with. or at the very least free us from an increasingly disfunctional government.
—Kevin
