Travels With My Amp

Rating:
Summary: wow what a read
Review: i couldn't put this down, simply the best book ever on touring, rock and roll in general. i thought i was a fan befor, thanks greg

Rating:
Summary: a trip down memory lane
Review: The author is my cousin, and i looked forward very much to the publication of this book (and, given that i live in Africa, could only get it via amazon.com). Greg did not let me down: Travels with my Amp is a real trip down memory lane for all those who grew up during the flower power and heavy metal eras of the 1960 and 70s (the book covers a twenty year period between 1964-83 or so). TWMP is a wry, insider's look at life in the rock music fast lane. centred mostly on canada's music scene, it's written with wit, wisdom, humour, anger and frustration. While the writing drags at times (hey... the guy's a musician, not a writer), the book's contents - his takes and reminiscences on style, culture, place, people, events - more than make up for the slow bits. Given its focus, however, TWMA is unavoidably parochial: it therefore will appeal most to Canadians who grew up during this time period. Yet, for readers far and wide there is still much to recommend here. For example, had he structured the narrative more like a novel (like, for example, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) instead of a sort of helter-skelter diary, then broader themes - e.g. hopes and dreams, highs and lows, struggles with adversity, squandering good fortune, the way coincidence and accident influence the course of our lives - could have been more clearly developed in this largely linear narrative (though he does also use flashbacks and flashforwards and includes observations from others who were there at the time). Nevertheless, these are universal themes and readers will rise high and low with our 'protagonist' in this saga of the transformation of a suburban dweeb into a mildly famous (sorry Greg!) 'pretty bad boy' of rock. Also here are many wonderful snippets of Greg's various brushes with fortune and greatness... there were so many times when i thought, 'if only he had done this...' Well, sometimes he did and sometimes he didn't. The reviews among those members of his family who have read the book generally fall along predictable lines: those of his parents' age dismiss it; those closer to greg's age and younger mostly like it. But isn't this the way rock 'n roll (and its attendants, sex and drugs) has always been: a quintessential marker of the 'generation gap' - between crew cuts and long hair (though the former now defines youth, and the latter, perhaps, aging boomer parents), stasis and change, fitting in and dropping out? i'm really happy greg wrote this book and that i read it: it's a real trip, in more ways than one.