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Big Rock Beat
Tom Doherty Associates, New York, 1998
dedication:
This novel is dedicated to Brian Jones, as much as anybody
The blurb on the back:
It's 1967, the summer of love, ten years after legendary B-movie director Landis Woodley's cult horror classic, Cadaver. Now Woodley is shooting a rock and roll movie, complete with beach bunnies, hot rods, monsters, and rock bands.
In which the film-making team from Horror Show make a re-appearance ten years older and not a day wiser, as they take on the task of making a rock & roll movie. And it’s not at all bad. In fact there are bits where it’s really terrific. Early on, for example, Beau Young, the guitarist for no-hope San Francisco band the Stone Savages, is wandering around backstage at the Moterey Festival when he (literally) bumps into Brian Jones, who stops to share some thoughts:
I do like that kind of thing. I mean, he’s wrong, of course – the Stones got much better once they’d rid themselves of the dead hand of white boy blues – but since when has truth been allowed to mess with rock & roll mythology? So Beau is suitably inspired and drifts into making music for a trashy b-movie being made by washed-up horror director, Landis Woodley, and all sorts of wild adventures ensue, involving shysters and gangsters, musicians and mystics, icons and has-beens, and then it’s all tied together and not everyone lives happily ever after. It’s a neat little book and not dissimilar to Kihn’s music: it may not be the best in its field, may even be described as inconsequential, but it’s entertaining and snappy and will keep you amused whilst reading. Just don’t expect a masterpiece, and you won’t be disappointed.
ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: 4/5 HIPNESS QUOTIENT: 2/5
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