Rock Reads: Non-Fiction +

Cheap Trick, Charlie Watts, Kid Congo Powers & More

Jan 20, 2023

My infatuation with books started as a teen, around the same time a joined my first serious band™. It was a transformative moment in my life, so rock and reading have gone hand-in-hand for me ever since.

The concept behind RTL’s Rock Reads is to explore how these two worlds intersect. We’ll look at non-fiction music autobiographies/bios, essay collections, 33 1/3 books, and headier stuff in the vein of Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group by Ian F. Svenonius or Roadrunner by Joshua Clover.

We’ll also check out works of fiction that revolve around music, musicians or bands. Classic examples include High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, and more recent books like The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton, Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid and Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell. All that plus occasional author interviews.

Since this is the first Rock Reads post, I’m focusing on four fantastic non-fiction books from the past year. If you have thoughts about these books or want to recommend other rock reads, please visit the comments.

This Band Has No Past: How Cheap Trick Became Cheap Trick

By Brian J. Kramp

I’m fascinated by band origin stories, no matter how big or small the group became. There’s something romantic about how creative people get together to share their passions and build something new. I’m also a sucker for “living-hand-to-mouth” and “us-against-the-world” narratives.

So, as a longtime Cheap Trick fan, Brian J. Kramp’s new book was perfect for me. I’d read enough about the Illinois hard rock/power pop quartet to know they traveled the Midwest club circuit in the mid-‘70s before signing to Epic Records, but had very little knowledge about the specific bed-swapping band configurations and geo-relocations that preceded Cheap Trick’s final formation and blast off.

It’s hard to know how many music fans want these arcane insights, but This Band Has No Past really hit the sweet spot for me. Through extensive interviews and detailed research, Kramp recreates the band’s humble beginnings in minute (and often hilarious) detail. It’s an impressive feat, one that’s sure to impress the kind of Cheap Trick fan who still occasionally reads the band’s album liner notes for fun.

Charlie’s Good Tonight: The Life, the Times, and the Rolling Stones

By Paul Sexton

Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts is a musical hero of mine. In addition to being one of the best rock musicians of all time (and a talented jazz player), Watts was a true character with one of the quirkiest personalities in the history of pop music.

As a Rolling Stone he almost made no sense, more of a smartly-dressed English gentleman than a blues-loving bad boy a la Brian Jones or Keith Richards—but there he was, thank god, gig after gig and album after album for 50+ years, laying down righteous grooves and lending an air of civility to the Stones’ rock & roll circus.

In Charlie’s Good Tonight, Sexton does an amazing job of exposing the vital roles Watts played within the Stones organization, while also detailing the eccentric figure he cut in his personal life. From being a dedicated family man to collecting priceless cars that he couldn’t drive, to acting as an in-house designer for countless world tours that he threatened to sit out, Watts truly was a one-of-a-kind rock star. Great read.

Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records

By Jim Ruland

I grew up listening to punk rock in Southern California, so this book was a must-read for me (Full Disclosure: I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek and honored to provide a blurb). But you didn’t have to live a few miles from the Black Flag church to know how important SST Records was to punk and hardcore in the ‘80s, and how it laid the groundwork for alternative rock in the ‘90s.

Founded by Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn in Hermosa Beach, SST Records released music by everybody from Minutemen, Saccharine Trust and Hüsker Dü to Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and Meat Puppets—among many other seminal acts. But as the label’s influence and reach increased during the ‘80s, so too did their legal troubles and Ginn’s reputation as a confrontational artist and questionable businessman.

Corporate Rock Sucks takes a thoughtful, well-researched approach to SST’s complicated legacy as DIY trailblazers, giving all the relevant details while avoiding the temptation to over-editorialize. It’s a powerful book about an important era in punk rock history and definitely one that any true fan of the genre won’t want to miss.

Some New Kind of Kick: A Memoir

By Kid Congo Powers with Chris Campion

Speaking of legendary LA bands, The Gun Club is definitely an all-time favorite. Guitarist Kid Congo Powers (née Brian Tristan) formed the roots-y punk outfit with lead singer Jeffrey Lee Pierce after connecting outside a Pere Ubu show at the Whisky a-Go-Go, despite the fact that he couldn’t play guitar. An auspicious start to an on-again/off-again creative partnership spanning more than a decade and several albums.

In between periodic stints with The Gun Club, KCP notably recorded and toured with psychobilly legends The Cramps and gothic alt rockers Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. (Has any other guitarist been in three cooler bands? Have any three bands ever shared a cooler guitarist?) Much of that while in the throes of heroin addiction, a habit he finally kicked for good in the late ‘90s.

Short and sharp like the best punk songs, Some New Kind of Kick does an admirable job of hitting the major beats of this remarkable life without getting bogged down in details. From his childhood in the LA suburb of La Puente and discovering punk, to his sexual awakening, intense periods in London and Berlin, and the loss of family and friends along the way, this book covers a lot of ground in relatively few pages.

The storytelling is so good that it left me wanting more, but it never felt like anything was being held back. Some New Kind of Kick is easily one of the best memoirs I’ve read in recent memory. Highly recommended.

Serialized Crime Fiction (Free!)

That’ll Be The Day: A Power Pop Heist by S.W. Lauden

Prior to co-editing the essay collections Go All The Way: Literary Appreciations of Power Pop and the sequel Go Further, I published a handful of crime fiction novels, novellas and short stories.

Two of those novellas—That’ll Be The Day: A Power Pop Heist and Good Girls Don’t: A Second Power Pop Heist—were inspired by the essay collections mentioned above.

“Rock and roll, rare guitars, vintage vinyl and criminal mayhem—what more could a crime fiction and music lover ask for?” — Lisa Brackmann, Rock Paper Tiger and Black Swan Rising

The action revolves around the Sharp brothers, two failed power pop musicians from Oklahoma who have turned to a life of crime. Their specialty is rare rock and roll artifacts stolen from eccentric collectors. It’s dark and violent, but campy.

“Pistol popping power pop pulp fiction. I loved it!” — Paul D. Brazill, Last Year’s Man

I’ll be publishing a new chapter of That’ll Be The Day: A Power Pop Heist for free every Saturday until the whole book is posted.

Let’s get started with the first chapter. Hope you dig it!