Dave Grohl

I wonder how many people would be surprised to know I like the Foo Fighters. I wasn't really into to Nirvana but they were part of the landscape of my youth and I remember when Kurt died. Even though their music wasn't my thing it was part of my life.
Dave Grohl is good storyteller. He write with compassion and tenderness that I'm not sure I was expecting. A lot of the F word but I think that's to be expected. However, even with that caveat his stories have an arch and he ties the moments together really well. It is like reading the journal of a rock music fan's dreams coming true. While you are in awe of the people he's met and worked with as he seems to be even more shocked by the events that have taken him to these places. He never strays from that humility and wonder of a fan and lover of music and the moments in his life brought together by music. I think that is what I enjoyed most is that I never felt that he even realizes that while he speaks of the legends and masters he's encountered that he is also a legend and master in his own right. It's because of that you can ride along with him in his story and feel like a passenger experiencing it with him rather than being talked down to or at.… (more)

To be honest, I didn't know who David Grohl was when I added this memoir to my To Read list. I knew he was a musician, but I had to look him up to see he rose to fame as Nirvana's drummer before fronting Foo Fighters. Ah, that explained it. Grunge never had much of a place in my musical pantheon, and both bands were on the periphery of my awareness.

But his memoir frequently cropped up on 'best,' lists and I do like memoirs so I gave it a shot.

It is indeed marvelously well written and he IS a marvelous storteller. As a stream-of-consciousness, run-on writer myself, I love his style. Unfortunately, as I've aged my attention-challenged brain has an increasingly hard time following stories with lots of side quests.

Mostly though, I can't fully appreciate Grohl's stories once he rolls out of his 70's childhood and into the world of 90's Alternative Music. My Alternative Music years were defined by GSU's album-88 and the early years of New Wave. I very rarely recognized names or other references made.

So, I suspect people just a tad younger or a great deal hipper would really appreciate this. As for me, my favorite 'rocker memoirs,' remain those by Steven Tyler and Alice Cooper!… (more)