Words On Music

Books, magazines, articles and other writings covering the world of music


Like a Rolling Stone

By Steven Kurutz

New York Times writer Steven Kurutz's first book, Like A Rolling Stone, explores the bizarre world of tribute bands -- groups that specialize in playing a more famous group's songs. He spent a year traveling with a Rolling Stones-aping act called Sticky Fingers, and the journey took him to casinos, roadhouse bars and frat houses. Sticky Fingers' surreal existence has them churning out "Satisfaction" and "StartMe Up" before a half dozen drunks one night, and playing before 11,000 people in the Netherlands soon after (in an arena where Bruce Springsteen played the following night, no less). Kurutz's book is a gas, whether he's listing some of the more quirkily-named tribute bands (AC/DShe, Alcoholica, Bjorn Again, Alanis Moreorless) or ruminating on our culture of celebrity worship. It takes a strange type of personality to seek fame based on someone else's work, and Kurutz has captured this mindset in all its (slightly pathetic) glory.
—Ben Westhoff


Patti Smith: Dream of Life

By Steven Sebring

A disorienting and provocative film, Steven Sebring's directorial debut Patti Smith: Dream of Life is often like a dream. Its frames unwittingly switch between black and white and color. Shots of empty rooms run into cruising landscapes tracked by Smith's alternately lulling and harrowing voice. Dream of Life is refreshingly devoid of typical rockumentary drama (i.e. drug abuse, dysfunctional personal relationships, and devastating character flaws.) What plays instead are delicate and funny and powerful moments - Smith commenting on the whale shape of a cloud, band mate Lenny Kaye dancing puppet-like on the beach, Smith's father pointing out the unexpected growth of a tree – that one might misplace in time but retain in sentiment.
An accompaniment to the film- a book of the same title - showcases select stills and direct quotes from the film, along with some of Smith's Polaroids and compositions. The book acts almost like a map to the film, and with the help of the index, we are able to match names and dates with the places and people that passed across the screen sans introduction. Over four hundred images are compiled in Dream of Life, outlined by Smith's words. As in the film, the words are enmeshed in the visual experience; they do not attempt to explain the images. Instead, they layer Sebring's footage. What results is a display as enigmatic as its subject. And, like a dream, we are given these fragments that may not tell the whole story, but at times seem more real than our own waking life.
—Melissa Toldy


Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon – And The Journey of a Generation

By Sheila Weller

Putting aside for a moment Sheila Weller's almost nose-thumbing preference for her own generation – female 1960s survivors – Girls Like Us is a fascinating and in-depth look at not only the lives of three of the most remarkable women in popular music of the past 40 years, but the history of music and of modern American culture. With a fan's passion for the music, Weller excitedly outlines King's, Mitchell's, and Simon's influences, both personal and professional, from King's CD, West Side Story, to Mitchell's English and Scottish Child ballads and weaves together diligently compiled interviews with the women's friends and exes into a book of history that reads almost like narrative fiction.

Although Weller questionably seems to frame the women's stories with their relationships – all three had high profile, and in some cases infamous, husbands and lovers – the book also pays due attention to their personal achievements. But while both Mitchell and Simon seemed to have been on more of a path of self-discovery, the real star of the book is King, who with her shining talent and stalwart determination contributed to a big shift in the content of popmusic in the 60s. Especially where it dealt with women's issues. During her late teens, King and husband Gerry Goffin wrote songs at night, composing "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" while both held down day jobs and King cared for her infant daughter. The song, about being resigned to losing your virginity without the promise of marriage, was revolutionary, and best makes Weller's overall point about King, Mitchell and Simon, as well as her entire beloved generation of ladies: that they maintained their femininity while strengthening and redefining the role of women in our society.
—Lavinia Jones Wright

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