A hilarious inside look at the real business of popular music by the drummer of Semisonic that does for rock and roll what Jim Boutons Ball Four did for baseball.After years of working day jobs and making music in his basement; Jacob Slichter wondered if his dreams of rock stardom were a vain illusion. Then he was recruited by two of his successful musician friends to form a band that became Semisonic. Who could forget the smash single ldquo;Closing Time;rdquo; a runaway hit in 1998 that thrust Jake and his bandmates into the international spotlight and helped them sell over two million albums worldwide? But along the road to fame and success came bewilderment and personal chaos: How will we ever get a record deal? Which record company is the best? The worst? Do I really have to wear these ridiculous boots? Why isnrsquo;t radio playing our song? What if I have a panic attack right here on stage? What should I write on this fanrsquo;s CD? Am I famous? Why isnrsquo;t the video director getting more shots of me? Did I say the wrong thing during that interview? Help!So You Wanna Be a Rock Roll Star is a telling and witty look at what happens just before and during ones time in the spotlight. Jake takes readers on a step-by-step journey of his evolution from fledgling drummer to globetrotting performer and proves to be the perfect guidemdash;feisty and humbledmdash;to the inner workings of the music industry and instant celebrity. So You Wanna Be a Rock Roll Star speaks to all of us who dream again and again of rock superstardom and shows how one kid can go from picking up a pair of drumsticks to picking up a platinum record.
#480255 in eBooks 2004-06-29 2004-06-29File Name: B000FC1R46
Review
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful. Great Exposition on Politics; Class; Place; and IdentityBy Glen PayneIn this book; Nancy and James Duncan probe deeply into the landscape of the affluent town of Bedford Village; New York to expose its role in the production and "performance" of the townspeoples identity and the attendant social ramifications. The authors assert that class and status are at the heart of a series of struggles for control of Bedford Villages landscape. By insisting upon the retention of a particular aesthetic for the town; enforced through laws; zoning; advisory boards; and social pressure; the people of Bedford Village are for the most part able to successfully cloak class; race; and power struggles in aesthetic terms that are less volatile and seemingly apolitical. By this they manage to create and sustain a place-based identity that isnt always savory; although--and this is an important point--this would surprise the residents of Bedford as much as it would surprise many others who took such a hard look at where and how they live.The Duncans rightly place class at the center of Bedfords issues and; with almost equal force; money. This seems right as it pertains to Bedford; where houses cost up to millions of dollars and yet where there are long-time residents who; while living much more modestly; engage just as strenuously in the pressure to sustain the particular pastoral character of the towns landscape. But maintaining the "look" of the land masks other issues. In Chapter Two the Duncans assert that "[i]n capitalist societies...where identity is linked to possessions; the aesthetic often plays an important role in depoliticizing class relations" (p. 25). The residents of Bedford cling tightly to a vision of their town as a rural; historic; Colonial town and landscape; drawing from it all the symbolic force of the New England Village (cf Meinig) from which they claim to descend and using it as the primary locus and signifier of their identity. They resist at nearly every turn the pressures of development and modernization while taking full advantage of the amenities of the modern world just beyond the borders. To a great extent Bedford Village still looks rural; still has its pastoral charm and its romantic vistas. It even has dirt roads (maintained at great expense). This is (of course/ironically) what makes Bedford the perfect place to live. Its perfection _for a certain category of people_ is confirmed in the language of the real estate ads that amount to coded appeals to Anglo sensibilities; 19th-century English nostalgia; and an invented historicism. In sum; the web of issues that surround the production and sustenance of Bedfords landscape constitutes an aestheticized view of the world and is so powerful and pervasive it seems simply natural; without malice; "uncontestable" (p. ? --sorry).When class relations are centered on aesthetics; other consequences that reach into arenas beyond landscape and beyond the town are hidden even if they are unintended. Residents of Bedford frame the most important issues in terms of protecting the environment; protecting the rural character of the town; or protecting its historic structures; trees; and greenspaces; arguments typically accepted (here; in the U.S.) as benign; even noble. While the Duncans dont go so far as to say that they never are; it is fascinating to follow them as they probe how this framework obscures an inherent hegemony of class and; worse; can lead to a latent racism against "Guatemalans" in Chapter Eight. Bedford was largely built on exploited labor and is increasingly maintained by it; even if both facts are equally inadmissible to the dominant sensibility. Although "popping Bedfords bubble" wasnt the direct aim of the authors; by the end of the book I was convinced that nearly everything about Bedford was artificial in some way; the result of a complex interweaving of class and social forces that go mostly unnoticed. I especially like the authors use of the term "performance" to describe the interplay of these forces and their materialization on and production through the landscape. It seems to strike squarely at how Bedford is more than just a place; it is the resulting effect of many individual "actors" including people; the land; the market; the immigrants; the history; the buildings; class relations; etc. In combination these constitute the thing that is "Bedford." In this way; every place is artificial (i.e.; "denaturalized") if you want to think of it that way.The Duncans write clearly and forcefully and for the most part; jargon-free. They strive (as professional geographers at Cambridge) to retain an objective viewpoint. This book is not meant to tattle or to reduce people to sets of selfish causes. I imagine other places could have served as well; but in this book Bedford Village is taken as a case study upon which to build the theoretical argument that aesthetic claims serve as convenient and effective codes for political and cultural issues.