The Boy Who Cried Freebird: Rock & Roll Fables And Sonic Storytelling (2007) - Plot & Excerpts
I'm typically a sucker for the Great Rock Critic's Memoir, the collection of tales of their time in the business combined with their best work from the day and maybe a few extra stories or pieces that deserved to see a bigger audience and help fill in the gaps in their literary worldview. It's kind of a cliché at this point, but similar volumes from Jim Derogatis, Nick Tosches, Richard Meltzer and my personal lord and savior Lester Bangs take these messed-up people with amazing skills, and turn their short pieces into a mosaic that reveals something of the time they wrote in, the bands they covered, and how they approached their writing, their love of music, and their art.Those books are the template for this one. Mitch Myers didn't roll with the punk crowd so much, and it doesn't sound like he really got the edgier stuff that lit the creative fire under Bangs & Meltzer. Sure, he covered them -- he may not have understood Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" the way Bangs (thought he) did, though clearly it wasn't for lack of trying -- but his best writing comes when he waxes elegiac for the John Faheys and Doug Sahms of this world, more laid back types who swim in a different musical end of the pool than the gritty fuckyou types over whom Creem and Rolling Stone went skeetcrazy every week.I want to fault this for being boring. I suspect it's largely that he seems to like music that I'm not crazy about, but you know, one of the jobs of a critic is to make the reader interested in what they're interested in. I don't think Myers is all that great a writer, especially compared to the Christgaus, Guralnicks, Marshes & Toscheseses of the world. And the "Adam Coil" fable-between-pieces conceit gets old real quick. (He mentions his music-executive father and his uncle Shel Silverstein many times in the book, and it makes me wonder how he got some of these writing gigs.)Look, if you want a book about the about the music of the last 40 years that crackles with the force of literature, don't start here. If, on the other hand, you're really down with people like Leo Kottke and think he's been woefully underappreciated in modern music, then maybe this book will signify with you, the way I wish it did with me.
Like mildly snarky rock 'n' roll fables? Mitch Myers writes 'em. Like thoughtful, insightful biographical essays? Myers' writes those too. How about gently probing missives on fringe artists like Gong and Albert Ayler? Check and check. This is sort of the problem with "The Boy Who Cried Freebird," really -- it's all corner points with very little center. Myers' writing is always smooth, and occasionally verges on greatness, but it doesn't really draw you in. Definitely worth reading for music geeks, but maybe not at $25.95 list.
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