The 3 Best Rock Memoirs and an Honorable Mention
As I get ready to read Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna
My grandmother used to read biographies all the time. Any tell-all about Grace Kelly, Natalie Wood, Frank Sinatra, or Nancy Reagan would grab her attention especially when they were sold in the check out aisles of the Shop-Rite in paperback form. I can remember sneaking these books on sleepovers when I should have been sleeping and flipping through the thick pages of photographs and wondering what made these people so special that there were multiple books written about them. I don't remember any one of them being an autobiography, and memoir was a word not in my vocabulary at that time. As I grew older, I found myself gravitating to David Sedaris and Frank McCourt and their stories of real life and the craftsmanship of their writing changed my expectations of personal narrative.
It wasn't until I read Alice Walker's In Search of Our Mother's Gardens that I actively sought out female voices and found that the poetically acute experiences resonated with me in a way I hadn't thought possible. I tended to stay away from books like Eat, Pray Love, and The Glass Castle, although wonderful memoirs, they just didn't speak to me in the same way that Walker's work did. That is, until I read Just Kids by Patti Smith, which led me down the rabbit hole to the following books I recommend to you. Maybe I am just a rock chick at heart. Maybe I am my grandmother's daughter always trying to look through windows from the outside. Maybe I am just trying to find my own voice and their artistry makes it easier to be a seeker.
1. Just Kids, Patti Smith
This National Book Award winner is an obvious selection, I know. But it will continue to amaze me all these years later as a triumph of kismet and moxie. Patti Smith has long been an icon, but she is also a muse to so many current artists as well as women who refuse to stay inside the boxes others keep trying to stuff us in. With a clear and prescient voice reminiscent of her growling alto, Patti reminds us that those who can capture us clearly and with naked vulnerability have great power over our memories and our lives. The most powerful lines in the memoir reveal her ability to live between the lines of concentric circles: "We used to laugh at our small selves, saying that I was a bad girl trying to be good and that he was a good boy trying to be bad. Through the years these roles would reverse, then reverse again, until we came to accept our dual natures. We contained opposing principles, light and dark.” M Train is a beautiful follow up and the tribute to Fred Smith leaves you in a ghostly dreamlike trance as you travel with them on their artistic and loving journey to self. Patti Smith is a goddess.
2. Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl, Carrie Brownstein
Maybe it's because I recently moved back to the Pacific Northwest after many years in New York and Boston. Maybe it's because like everyone else, Portlandia makes me laugh. Maybe it's because Sleater-Kinney informed much of my grrrlness. Maybe it's because I too grew up in the suburbs as an artist. Maybe it's because I am and have always been an unabashed feminist. Maybe it's because nostalgia is a fascinating combination of shame and shamelessness. Maybe it's because I like dogs. Maybe it's because Brownstein's voice was a rare one in the 90's, but her vibe wasn't so rare. Maybe it's because now that we are women and not girls we wondered what it would have been like to grow up on stage. Maybe it's because anxiety and illness are spoken of with such depth and dexterity. Maybe it's because Brownstein leads us down a path that is at once foreign and familiar. Maybe it's because of lines like these: "I sank into the couch, which only made me feel smaller and even less capable. Elizabeth talked a little about Stefanie and the day of the funeral. It was odd to be privy to what I considered a private matter, or a public one that I'd only read about in the papers--the death of a friend, a bandmate. I felt grown-up to be considered a temporary confidante but immature in the way I couldn't wait to tell my friends." Maybe I don't need a reason, Carrie Brownstein led me back to me.
3. Girl in a Band, Kim Gordon
I have always wanted to be Kim Gordon when I grew up. When I first saw Sonic Youth in Detroit, I was nineteen and this person wailing and rocking onstage in a mini skirt and crop top, immediately meant something to me. I wasn't sure what she meant, but I knew I would follow her down whatever pathways she wanted to discover. I bought X-girl clothing, I too was in love with Iggy Pop and wanted to be an artist. Whatever she was into, I was in. In this stunning and raw memoir, coming off the heels of her divorce from another '90's icon, Thurston Moore, her female voice emerged trembling but clear, vulnerable and real, I found I was still in. The more I learned about her influences and her story, the more I wanted to learn. It's that never ending journey an artist takes you on, when she says, here, look here. And you look and then that artist says, here, look here, and you look. After I finished Girl in a Band, I immediately read Arthur Lubow's nearly perfect biography of Diane Arbus because Kim made me want to. That is what she did for all us girls who came of age in the '90's. She said, I am here. You can be too: “Overcome by my own hypersensitivity, I had no choice but to turn fearless.” She is still fearless making art, making music, making feminism, making motherhood, making Instagram feeds that tell us it's okay to age. It's okay to love your daughter fiercely, it's okay to celebrate each other, it's okay to be private and it's okay to tell your story the way you want it to be told.
Honorable Mention: Boys in the Trees, Carly Simon
Hard to classify Carly Simon as a rock star, but this book was so well-written, Simon's Simon and Schuster connection is not hard to miss. I think there is so much good stuff in here, from her poetic sentences and dreamy recollections to her loving but real portrayal of James Taylor that even my grandmother's biography addiction would have been satisfied. My favorite part of the book is this gorgeous photograph of Simon in profile where one can truly see her resemblance to both Janis of the Muppets and her former lover, Mick Jagger, whose vanity in choosing her to seduce was an obviously narcissistic venture. Pick this one up, for sure.
Oh yeah, I didn't specify that this group of books was entirely female. Shame on you if you care.
I don't know if it's a "rock memoir" but Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" is an excellent read and an even better listen, read by the Boss himself. Unlike so many other memoirs, it at least gives the impression that it wasn't ghostwritten—and even if it was, the self-reflection of a true artisan and craftsman is evident throughout its pages.