{"id":2146,"date":"2009-05-03T23:02:40","date_gmt":"2009-05-04T03:02:40","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-05-04T11:51:18","modified_gmt":"2009-05-04T11:51:18","slug":"what-are-you-looking-for-most-when-you-r","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/what-are-you-looking-for-most-when-you-r\/","title":{"rendered":"What Are You Looking for Most When You Read a Rock Biography?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fhm7uAL3ieY?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nThe subject line pretty much asks all I want to know: <em>What are you looking for most when you read a rock biography?<\/em> <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is it technical\/musical insight &#8211; what gear the musicians played, how things were mic&#8217;ed, stories about the development of favorite arrangements and performances?<\/li>\n<li>Is it dirt: who slept with <strong>Jackson Browne<\/strong>, who slept with <strong>David Crosby<\/strong>, who could have slept with <strong>Yoko<\/strong> first?<\/li>\n<li>Is it something deeper, like what is the key to a great artist&#8217;s greatness?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You may answer in the present, in your rock bio-reading peak, and all points in between.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nI was discussing this with a founding Townsman and close personal friend tonight, and I had to say, when I was a teenager and young man I thought reading enough rock biographies would unlock the key to the greatness of <strong>John Lennon<\/strong> and whatever other favorite rock artists I could read about in depth. After reading a few bios of any of my favorite artists, I could identify with a number of things any one of them went through. <em>Yeah, my dad left me at a young age&#8230;Yeah, I always felt<\/em> different <em>than everybody else&#8230;Yeah, I&#8217;m left-handed yet play right-handed&#8230;Yeah, I have asthma too!<\/em> While some young musicians were practicing their scales to unlock musical keys, I naively attempted to unlock some kind of psycho-emotional key. I&#8217;m not really proud of admitting this, but I will accept credit from the publishing industry for doing my part to sell a number of rock bios. <\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t get me wrong, when I was young I liked the other stuff too &#8211; the technical\/musical insight and the dirt &#8211; but if I have to pick what I was looking for most when reading a rock biography, it would definitely have been the &#8220;something deeper&#8221; I described. Today, I&#8217;m better in tune with who I am and realize that any coincidental life experiences with favoritea artists answer none of my questions about how to improve as a musician. I don&#8217;t know if I can think of an example of any rock bio that actually analyzed <em>greatness<\/em> in a way that helped explain it. Do you? In recent years I&#8217;ve become more interested in learning the technical\/musical details behind the works of favorite artists, but that can still make for a dry read. <\/p>\n<p>My friend and I agreed that <strong>Geoff Emerick<\/strong>&#8216;s book on his work with The Beatles from a few years back was the best rock bio we&#8217;ve read in recent years. It had a good mix of technical and emotional content. It brought the process of making music to life, and it provided a fresh batch of dirt to The Beatles&#8217; legend.<\/p>\n<p>So how about you? What are you looking for most when your read a rock biography, and what are some rock biographies that live up to your needs?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The subject line pretty much asks all I want to know: What are you looking for most when you read a rock biography? Is it technical\/musical insight &#8211; what gear the musicians played, how things were mic&#8217;ed, stories about the development of favorite arrangements and performances? Is it dirt: who slept with Jackson Browne, who <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/what-are-you-looking-for-most-when-you-r\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[167],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}