Touched By Magic - Greg Prato

JS-NYC likes themselves some Greg Prato. His oral history of the grunge era and Eric Carr bio have received high marks from our discriminating scribes here. I knew of Tommy Bolin through magazine subscriptions and general obscurist guitar nerdery, but hadn't heard too much of his material and didn't have too much conception of him beyond the fact that he died pretty young and played with Deep Purple. Given my other alternative was a Prato book on the Blind Melon dude, Touched By Magic was an easy choice to make. Prato does his usual excellent job of recounting the Bolin story through the people that were closest to him personally and musically. It's ridiculous to think that he could have played on seminal works by Billy Cobham, The James Gang and Deep Purple and still died at age 25. It's a compelling, albeit tragic story. Pick it up here from Prato.

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The Eric Carr Story by Greg Prato

Kiss Alive II was one of the first albums I got when I was a kid. I got it for Christmas, along with a Cowsills record. Oddly enough I never really took, to it, even after I brought it to my third-grade class and was told never to bring it to school again. That certainly seems odd, but the point of it is that when I did get into Kiss, it was the Animalize record, specifically Heaven's On Fire, that won me over. Nerds can attest to the anomalous nature of that record, as it featured the only recorded appearance of Mark St. John on guitar, as well as the first credited Kiss appearance by Bruce Kulick, who formally replaced St. John after he was stricken with Reiters Syndrome.

Eric Carr was the drummer for Kiss at that time, having replaced the increasingly besotted Peter Criss. His drum solos were one of the highlights of the shows of that time, to the point where the more jealous proprietors of the Kiss franchise excised it outright. Carr died of heart cancer in 1991 and remains one of the best-loved replacement Kiss members. Greg Prato does a great job of telling the Carr story while offering unique insight into life as a hired hand at Kiss Inc. Probably not the most exciting proposition for those that aren't Kiss obsessed, but another great effort from one of this generation's best new rock scribes. Get it from Lulu.com.

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Grunge Is Dead - Greg Prato

I was sort of sold a bill of goods on this one, as someone mentioned on-line that there were lots of Fastbacks anecdotes. I guess it wasn't totally disingenuous, but I wouldn't look as hard as I did for this book for Pearl Jam and Soundgarden anecdotes, I'll tell you. That said, Grunge Is Dead is pretty comprehensive, starting with The Sonics and going through present day.

Some random JS-NYC bile spitting and unnecessary commentary about the players in the Grunge scene: to start, I can't say I really liked Grunge all that much. As re: the players that comprise most of the books content and my blather regarding them, we might as well start with Nirvana. Never really liked them. Truthfully, I never got into them before Nevermind, but will admit that Teen Spirit is one of only two songs I've ever called a radio station to ask about. Once that hit, Nirvana were so oversaturated that the contrarian in me relegated them to the same island I sent Green Day. I think Dave Grohl is totally bad ass, yet never got the Foo Fighters. Talking Soundgarden, I feel the same way about Badmotorfinger. I have a lot of fond (albeit hazy) memories of good times with that record as a soundtrack, but once Black Hole Sun hit, it was goodnight and goodbye. Susan Silver (ex-Soundgarden manager and Cornell wife) figures prominently in the GID proceedings and seems like quite a force. I have begrudging respect for Pearl Jam, but am astounded at how boring I find them. The bass dork in me loves Ament, but for my money Satchel is the best PJ result. Mudhoney have a contender for best song ever with Touch Me, I'm Sick, but have yet to catch on for me. Same with The Melvins. Believe me, I understand the heresy, but I currently have 19 of their records in my I-tunes and have yet to have the epiphany. Green River and Malfunkshun were never on my radar. Like I said before, for me the reason for the season was The Fastbacks stuff. It's not the Hit List retrospective, but the anecdotes are good, as is this book.

If you came up obsessed with Nirvana and the like, this will be pretty mindblowing for you, but it's just as compelling for the average punter. It's done as an oral history, which I have always argued is the best way to cover the subject matter. Grunge Is Dead gets high marks for not being a slavish Albert Goldman-esque Nirvana-fest and seeing the big picture. There are few comprehensive Grunge books out there, but Grunge Is Dead is definitely poised to take its rightful position as the definitive book on the genre. Buy it here from ECW (not the wrestling franchise) Press.

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