"LZ-'75 is a personal portrait of the greatest rock band in history, at the apogee of its flight. For Led Zeppelin, everything they had done until then led up to the epic music they would create in 1975: a year of travel, incredible artistic success, personal exaltation, near-death traumas and creative rebirth under painful hardship and dislocation. It was the top year for the band. After 1975, Led Zeppelin would never be the same again." (p. 5)
From the 1960's onward The Beatles and Rollings Stones among others may have paved the way for the rock era's golden age, but only one band would claim the title as greatest rock band in history according to music journalist Stephen Davis. It wasn't just Led Zeppelin's deafening volume, clangorous beats or songs bordering on pandemonium which set them at a level above the rest. It was their variety. Their ability to assimilate blues and soul with more traditional rock stylings, folk rythms and varied instrumental arrangements helped sustain their creative edge and spur their popularity as a global phenomenon. Moreover it was the way they combined hard driving heavy metal with distinct elements of myth and mysticism which helped establish them as unquestionably one of the most influential and successful rock bands ever (if not the most).
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Davis, author of numerous other Rock bios and memoirs, recounts the year when he was only 22 and the most popular band in the world allowed him to accompany them on their 1975 North American tour. Doing almost 40 shows in 29 different locations, the tour marked the pinnacle of the band's success as a live act. And though their legacy would continue, their legend growing as the years progressed with their fanbase expanding through each new generation, nothing would or could compare to the in-concert atmosphere the group created.
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From Bonham's frenetic percussion to Paul Jones' sledgehammer bass to the genius of Plant and Page, the tour highlighted the band's most prolific album to date, Physical Graffiti, in addition to promoting their already portentious body of work. The regularly sold out shows became legendary as the band's polished performances helped promote Zeppelin's signature, no-doubt-about-it sound and enthrall its already rabid fans. Davis lets the reader in on the group everyone wants to know about but few have had the privelege to get close to. Led Zeppelin was (and remains) notorious for their privacy and restrictive policies. They granted virtually no interviews and had by that time made enemies of most prominent members of the press including the editors at Rolling Stone magazine. Davis was the exception, recalling all he heard and witnessed inside this intricately detailed reflective journal based on the author's own thought-to-have-been lost notebooks he'd originally toured with. (782.4216 DAVIS)
"We were the next big thing once." (p. 55). That about sums it up for Blood Orphans. Not so long ago, they were on top of the charts and on 
top of the world as one of the most talked about hard rock bands around. Back in the day in the midst of the always overcrowded LA music scene, the Orphans were the darlings, one group deemed by everyone to break it big. All of the necessary pieces were in place: Shane the edgy, charismatic and spiritually-attuned lead singer; Darlo the all-out libertine for a drummer; wonderboy guitar prodigy Adam; and a soulful bass player, Bobby, the unspoken glue holding together the foursome. And of course they had the all-important recording contract with a reputable label, a booking agent, the right A and R people and the backing of loyal fans. .
Then everything went south. Their dreams turned to mush just like Bobby's hands which, in eerily corresponding fashion, succombed to a particularly virulent strain of eczema. Like anything else which falls apart, it wasn't just one thing which caused the burgeoning supergroup's crash back to oblivion. Through a series of ill-fated concert expeditions, bad management moves by drugged-out agents, multiple personal indiscretions as well as scandalous incidents both public and private, Blood Orphans took an irreversible nosedive. Now in Amsterdam, their last stop of a flamed-out Euro tour, the Orphans muster what they can from their rapidly fading rockstar ambitions, rehashing any verifiable good times of old while clinging to their last days of alcohol/sex/drugs/rebellion, all the time trying to pinpoint just what went wrong.
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Where Spinal Tap (DVD THIS) lovingly parodied the the world of faux rock stardom through the farcical comeback tour of an aging, washed-up and thoroughly delusional heavy metal band, Rock Bottom pulls no punches in its more hard-edged pursuit of a tragic truth. It decries, derides and downright defames the built-in romanticism of Rock n' Roll riches, revealing a largely undignified world of despair, exploitation and self-destruction. Though at times humorous and witty, nothing seems very lighthearted about the story which is really a backstory of the band's rise and fall, retold in parts by each of the four members during one 24-hour period. It's an honest rendition by a quartet of tired, disappointed, angry and thoroughly disillusioned musicians on what they feel has been the anti-climactic pinnacle of their young lives. As a "recovering rock musician" himself, Shilling knows his subject matter. Having lived the Seattle grunge scene as a bit player for numerous bands, he tells a story worth hearing about a band which never quite made it. Simultaneously and to his credit, he manages to avoid any of the smarmy, over-the-top portrayals similar platforms (VH1's Behind The Music) have dispensed with in the past, instead delving into the very human, very visceral, thoroughly flawed but perhaps not totally irredeemable worlds of his characters. (FIC SHILLING)
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Cobain Unseen / by Charles R. Cross
More a collage of Cobain’s personal letters, photos, notes and memora
bilia with little interference from chronological details, Cross’s book is essentially a shrine published in memoriam of the deceased Nirvana front man. If any doubt remains that Cobain was (and will likely continue to be rendered as) the most iconic figure in Generation X pop culture, books like this one tend to reconfirm and proliferate—with venerating affectations only a melodrama like Cobain’s could provoke—his never-ending legacy.
Neil Young Nation / as Lived and Narrated by Kevin Chong In a time when Rock n’ Roll was dominated by performers from Britain and America, Neil Young was a Canadian guitarist who
rose to the pinnacle of the industry and is still going strong today. A musician of extraordinary talent, moxy and creative ingenuity, Young’s career has spanned nearly five decades and has earned countless fans the world over. Kevin Chong, a music journalist and lifelong Young-devotee, takes an eclectic look at this iconoclastic figure, recounting how his own personal obsession with the performer has meshed with his real life interaction alongside him.
Queen: As It Began / by Jacky Gunn and Jim Jenkins; with an Introduction by Brian May Probably the one Rock band which has had the most airtime of any one music
al act owing to their anthem-like ballads which have filled sporting arenas worldwide, Queen is second-to-none when it comes to mainstream appeal and popularity. A book which was published within months of frontman Freddie Mercury’s death (a disclaimer at the end says that the other bandmembers were ignorant of his illness—he died of AIDS), ‘As it Began’ tells the definitive story of one of music’s most visionary acts, commenting on everything from their collaborative song writing to their flamboyantly innovative concerts.Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Me / by Pattie Boyd w/ Penny Junior
From schoolgirl model-turned-supermodel posing alongside Twiggy to acti
ng with the Beatles and finally on to superstardom as a 60’s and 70’s sex symbol, Pattie Boyd was the definitive Rock mistress as wife and muse to both George Harrison and Eric Clapton (Boyd's generally noted as being the inspiration for Harrison’s “Something” as well as Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight”, “Layla” and “Bell Bottom Blues”) and a famous face of the glamorous Rock n’ Roll lifestyle. Here she details the good, the bad and the downright wild times reflecting on her two (failed) marriages to Clapton and Harrison and also delving into her current passion of photography and activism.
I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie / by Pamela Des Barres Perhaps the most famous American Rock groupie of all time
and a thoroughly “experienced” veteran of the glamorous Rock n’ Roll golden age, Pamela Des Barres—in her newest explicitly rendered memoir—dishes on her times spent among Rock royalty. Almost no name is unfamiliar as the likes of Mick Jagger, Frank Zappa, Don Johnson, Pete Townshend, Alice Cooper, Robert Plant, etc. grace the pages of Des Barres’ extremely intimate autobiography..Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns n’ Roses / by Stephen Davis
The late eighties saw one band rise above the post-punk/hair-metal/thrash/glam scene to become the era's one hard rock group singularly recognized by its raw sound and fury. From lead singer Axl Rose’s screeched out lyrics of 
rage, misogyny, greed and apathy to guitarists Slash and Izzy Stradlin’s versatile guitar riffs, Guns n’ Roses was one band you could count on not only to never sell out, but to push the envelope of ferocity, havoc and reckless behavior in the Rock arena. Not only were they not very nice, 'Guns' truly carried an 'appetite for destruction' everywhere--Axl’s propensity for inciting concert riots, violent altercations between band members and a slew of rape, assault and drug charges ultimately resulting in their partial disintegration. Veteran Rock music biographer Davis’ reveals the many ins and outs of one of music’s nastiest power groups, wisely characterizing the band and its individuals from an unbiased viewpoint leaving their legacy to be determined by the reader.
