Big Rock Beat

Rating:
Summary: AS MUCH FUN AS HORROR SHOW!!!!
Review: I ACTUALLY EXPECTED NOT TO BE AS HAPPY WITH THIS ONE AS I LOVED 'HORROR SHOW'. MR. KIHN DID NOT DISAPPOINT ME! THIS ONE IS GREAT TOO! CAN'T WAIT TO FIND OUT WHAT LANDIS IS DOING IN THE 70'S!!!

Rating:
Summary: Great Story
Review: I read Greg Kihn's "Big Rock Beat," a few weeks after completing "Mojo Hand," and I got to say I really enjoy his style of writing. The story keeps calling you back to the book to see what the hell is going to happen next. His depictions of the hippie scene during the Haight-Ashbury days are dead-on accurate. He documents the use of drugs at this point of time without advocating their exercise. I loved the characters and developed an interest in their development over the course of the story. I found the "James Dean's Death Car," angle clever. But . . .

(...) I'm a stickler for detail. The story was going along pretty good until I got to the part where Landis Woodley acquires what will be Beau Young's new guitar, a 1958 Gibson Flying V. This guitar plays a vital role in the book and I won't divulge any of the details. What concerned me is that the story takes place in 1967, and when reading a period story you expect to be in the moment of that time. So anything that happens that isn't of that era is suspect. Catch my drift? Although I'm sure it's not a steadfast rule, you just can't drop something that is today into a story that takes place over thirty years ago.

I'm referring to the amount paid for the 58 Gibson Flying V itself. I realize today an original Flying V is worth a whole bunch of cash, but in 1967 it was still only a nine year old guitar. The price of $10,000 the Japanese collector claims to have paid for it is staggering. I've talked to a friend who is in the business of buying and selling vintage guitars and equipment and he informs me a guitar like this would probably have cost about a couple of hundred bucks at the time. A far cry from the amount paid in this story. Vintage guitars just wasn't appreciated yet . . .they were just old guitars. Hell, I remember paying less than $300.00 for an old ES 335 at a pawn shop in 1974. Try to buy one for that price today.

So what's the big deal? I love being taken on a 'wild and imaginative romp' as much as the next guy, but you just can't start messing with facts in the course of the story. Unless of course that's the point, but I don't think Greg was making any point. I think he just assumed those of us reading would actually believe that an nine year old guitar could be worth an enormous amount of money in 1967, simply because it is now. Greg Kihn is a musician first and an author second. Whatever reason he had for trying to slip in such a glaring inaccuracy is beyond me. I could think of several scenarios for Beau to get his beloved Flying V, that would fit into the time frame perfectly.

Still, this is a great story and well worth the time spent reading it. I hope Greg has some more stories about the music scene that he'll share with us.

Rating:
Summary: Kihntinously getting better!
Review: This is Greg's 3rd book. I've been reading them back-to-back, and he simply keeps getting better with every one of them!

After a completely different cast in his second book, he returns to the characters from "Horrow Show" and transports them from 1957 to 1967, from the Golden Era of horror schlock to the Summer of Love. Rock and Roll is the flavor of the day, and horror fimmaker Landis Woodley continues to ply his trade while trying to jump on the bandwagon.

The result is, once again, a delightful mix of misfits. This book does best when drawing characters in a way that is comical, over-the-top, hip and plain weird. The plot focuses, once again, mostly on drawing exciting scenarios without any great message or moral to the story. Rather than a symphony, we get delightful little riffs--and that's what fluffy entertainment is all about. I loved it!