Book Review: The Grand Delusion: The Unauthorized True Story of Styx by Sterling Whitaker

The Grand Delusion
The Unauthorized True Story of Styx
By Sterling Whitaker
BookSurge, 2007
371 pages

I have a soft spot in my heart for Styx. I was born in Roseland, the neighborhood where Dennis DeYoung formed the band with the Panozzo brothers. My grandmother would bring me newspaper articles about them when I was in junior high. The band played shows in high schools and colleges near my house when I was a kid, as did MS Funk, Tommy Shaw’s band prior to Styx.  And when I studied arts management in college, the class received copies of the band’s 50-page contract rider.

“The Grand Delusion”, Sterling Whitaker’s unauthorized bio of  Styx, is a fascinating read. Now, be forewarned, this isn’t your usual tale of rock ‘n’ roll debauchery.  A sex and drugs bacchanalia this ain’t.  Except for a few brief hints at Tommy Shaw’s womanizing and drug use in the early ‘80s, this book is dirt-free. No, the book is riveting for its look at the soap opera-like rise, fall and revamping of an arena rock band of the 1970s and early 1980s, with a cast of characters that manages to be intriguing even without page after page of scandalous behavior.

“The Grand Delusion” is comprised of interviews with managers, promoters, publicists, fans, friends, radio hosts and journalists who dealt with the guys at various points in the band’s history. The author interviewed Tommy Shaw  in the early 1990s,  but the book lacks new interviews with JY and Dennis. Meticulously researched with information from newspaper and magazine articles and other sources, it gives a fair overview of the band’s situation.  

Dennis DeYoung was portrayed as the bad guy in “Behind the Music”, and he comes off as a narcissist in “Grand Delusion”, too - but I got the sense that he can’t help it. I had to put the book down a few times and say “Was this guy for real?” Despite this, he comes off more as a quirky character than an arrogant bastard.

Tommy and JY weren’t angels, either, but after reading all the details in this book, it seems like they  just cracked after putting up with Dennis’s tantrums for so long. They finally ousted him from the band in 1999  when he couldn't continue their reunion tour due to health problems.

There’s virtually no opinion added by the author; the book is mainly interview transcripts. The foreword by Glen Burtnik, former Styx guitarist, puts it all in perspective - Styx was never cool, but a lot of people bought their records.

“The Grand Delusion” is a great read if you like Styx or have any interest in classic rock music. If you’re fan of “Hit Men” type music books focusing on the old school music business, the interviews with the band’s former managers will give you an insight into how a well-oiled, big money rock ‘n’ roll machine worked.

If you’re not interested in the music business, the book works great as a tale of human psychodrama. You might even get some ideas for a screenplay - the dramatic version of Spinal Tap, perhaps?

Thanks to Sterling Whitaker for a great book about an often neglected band. Reading this book renewed my interest in Styx.  I've even warmed to the current incarnation of Styx, and I usually write off a band after their hit-making line-up ceases to exist.  

Book Review: Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer

This 627 page bio of Clash frontman Joe Strummer seems like a daunting undertaking even for a loyal fan, but it's actually an easy to read  if you have the time. Author Chris Salewicz, a friend of Strummer's, wrote Joe's obituary for The Independent, and spent the next few years writing and researching Redemption Song. The book answers lots of questions about him and humanizes a complex man. Certain punk legends like John Lydon, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith , Joey Ramone, et al, could be encapsulated in a phrase or blurb. One could sum up their personas as combative, ice queen, poet, heroic misfit, and so on. Despite all the information in Redemption Song, Strummer still remains somewhat of an enigma, so it's hard to pinpoint a phrase to describe him even after finishing this hefty book.

We learn that that his father was a diplomat and the family lived in several different countries, including Egypt, and that his brother committed suicide as a teen-ager and Joe found his body. There are lots of anecdotes to pique the memories of older punk fans (Paul Simonon was married to Pearl Harbor of & Explosions fame, for example). There's a pic of a crude drawing of a chord chart Joe used when he first learned to play the guitar, and an account of the first time he saw the Pistols play at the Nashville. (They opened for the 101ers). And there's pesky Clash manager Bernie Rhodes, alternatively guiding the band and undermining them. There's no strategically placed denouncement or rush to christen Strummer with a label. Written by a friend without an agenda, the book is void of pretension.

Redemption Song, along with the Julien Temple documentary The Future Is Unwritten, gives us an incredible amount of material on Strummer's life. Redemption Song draws a picture of a complicated man, neither cartoon or tragic figure, who just happened to be one of the icons of the punk rock era.

(This review first appeared on the Punk Rock Demonstration website in September 2007).

Book Review-Bowie:A Biography by Marc Spitz

Writing an icon’s biography must be a daunting task. You have scads of material to sift through and an adoring public ready to criticize any false turn you may take regarding said idol.

That was evident with the biographies of John Lennon and Michael Jackson. Then some rock star biographies have so many career twists and turns to cover, any controversy is just gravy. Marc Spitz's book Bowie: A Biography is one of those books. Spitz explores David Bowie's chameleon-like personas, from Ziggy Stardust to Aladdin Sane to the Thin White Duke. David Bowie championed reinvention long before Madonna. Rock journalist Marc Spitz, (whose last rock bio was about Green Day), obviously did a lot of research via magazines, other books and original interviews. Tony DeFries, whose management company ran Bowie’s career in the 1970s, and other characters that passed through Bowie's life, are recounted. Spitz reveals long lost, gossipy tidbits from Bowie’s past, among them, a party at a disco in DJ Wolfman Jack’s house.

There’s a dizzying amount of rock ‘n’ roll history here. Bowie publicist and all-around rock chick Cherry Vanilla explains “You had to be on, on,on” Perhaps that’s where all the cocaine came in handy during the mid-'70s.  Spitz covers Bowie's "lost" years in L.A, his friendship (and work) with Iggy Pop, the filming of The Man Who Fell to Earth, and his notoriously erratic (and rumored cocaine-fueled) debut TV appearance on the 1974 Dick Cavett Show.

Many of the events in Bowie’s life merit a full recounting; the Ziggy Stardust/glam rock era is explored in-depth, but there’s not a lot of detail after the mid-'80s. Spitz’s account recaps Bowie’s career but offers little insight into the man and what makes him tick. There’s always a family tragedy in the lives of most rock stars, and Bowie’s story is no different. Spitz details David’s relationship with his older half-brother Terry — who helped inspire David’s musical beginnings — in the first few chapters. Terry committed suicide in 1985. David's wild, open marriage (and bitter divorce from first wife Angie) is the only off-stage scenario that gets much attention, and the obligatory first chapter about his childhood. We get a sense of the journey, but Spitz doesn’t give us a sense of Bowie's off-stage persona or tie together the recollections and make sense of them.

Spitz conducted no new interviews with Bowie himself, but interviewed Bowie cohorts like photographer Leee Black Childers, Cherry Vanilla, ex-wife Angie Bowie, Joey Arias, Peter Frampton, Spider from Mars Woody Woodmansey, and a whole cross-section of Bowie associates. So there’s no shortage of juicy stories and behind the scenes' minutiae.

However, Spitz does relate a few stories of his own life as a Bowie fan. He saw Bowie hailing a cab in NYC, but didn’t approach him. Sidetracks like this in a biography are fine if they’re  short and add to the point. In Bowie: A Biography, they happen a bit too often.

Despite a few shortcomings, Bowie: A Biography packs a lot into its hefty 448 pages. That’s more than enough to jog the memory of any Bowiephile and lead to more memories not extensively covered in the book. Remember Bowie's duet with Cher on her TV show? I know, you’d rather forget.