Noel Monk book out 13th June

[sadsy]

Anyone seen this ?

https://books.google.co.uk/books/content?id=b2jGDAEACAAJ&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&imgtk=AFLRE71dq2E1Nvs1vHqGoJsxdnX_-0si5WOwQRKhJ964zhKG_ZrTLDoDf2x7tDwBuS3Ma9rvUbU7Oq5UBVLuoUjMbd3-f4w1xH4n49t9tNkDO6BZuErep58k3--iNOcV0s2IBsqdK5ke

[twonabomber]

It's been mentioned here but I can't find the thread.

[FORD]

https://www.amazon.com/Runnin-Devil-Backstage-Behind-Making/dp/0062474103/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494558056&sr=8-1&keywords=noel+monk+van+halen

[Terry]

Hopefully it'll be interesting.

Monk co-authored a book quite a long time ago (probably 25 years, maybe? maybe even the late 1980s) called (I think, if memory serves, since I used to own a copy) 12 Days On The Road: The Sex Pistols Tour America. Which wasn't a bad book far as rock star bios went. If anything, it actually humanized Sid Vicious and painted a picture of him that was a bit more nuanced than the "smacked out punk goon" myth that followed him.

I have no idea if anybody in Van Halen actually talked to Monk or his co-author - I'm assuming not - so I imagine it will be largely based on Monk's recollections. But Monk was actually there backstage and behind the scenes back in the CVH days, so with any luck it'll be something approaching the level of competence that Van Halen Rising was, and serve to flesh out the story from where Van Halen Rising left off in early 1979 to 1985.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

I've got it pre-ordered....

Rock bios, especially those of the '70's/'80's bands, can tend to over-emphasize the sex/drugs/rock n' roll, rather than actual behind the scenes interaction with the band that true fans want to know.

I mean, it's been several years since I've read "The Dirt", but from what I recall, every other paragraph was "Nikki banged this chick on the backstage sofa" or "Vince did a line of coke off this chick's ass".... After a while, even that gets to be a bit much....

[chuckjitsu]

Book's already available at my local library and I've got it reserved! My main hope is that he can shed more light on wtf happened in '85.

[Romeo Delight]

I had an Audible credit to spare. I wonder who will be doing the voice?

[Terry]

Book's already available at my local library and I've got it reserved! My main hope is that he can shed more light on wtf happened in '85.

Indeed.

[Terry]

I've got it pre-ordered....

Rock bios, especially those of the '70's/'80's bands, can tend to over-emphasize the sex/drugs/rock n' roll, rather than actual behind the scenes interaction with the band that true fans want to know.

I mean, it's been several years since I've read "The Dirt", but from what I recall, every other paragraph was "Nikki banged this chick on the backstage sofa" or "Vince did a line of coke off this chick's ass".... After a while, even that gets to be a bit much....

Initially, I wasn't going to bother with "The Dirt" when it first came out. I mean, I liked Crue's first two albums, but by the time the early 2000s rolled around I can't say as I gave much of a shit about them enough to even bother listening to their music, much less reading a book about them.

However, that book generated such a buzz in terms of it supposedly being "one of the all-time best rock bios" that I did pick it up.

I will say that everyone in the band was certainly very candid. Definitely warts and all.

As you say, though, it was just this start-to-finish story that really wasn't anything I hadn't already thought those 4 meatheads were doing prior to reading the book. Sure, there were, like, 8 billion tales of doing blow, fucking groupies and outrageous behavior. In the end, though...like, it was still just Motley Crue, you know?

Like, one could read, say, Aerosmith's Walk This Way bio and through all the excess eventually there was a sense that the band learned something from all of it. With The Dirt, all the coke, booze, pills, babes and such...I got the feeling they learned nothing from any of it, and all The Dirt did was reinforce my own long-held notion that Motley Crue were just 4 lucky, semi-talented idiots who liked to get high and laid. Which is fine as far as it goes, but Aerosmith or Led Zeppelin Motley Crue certainly wasn't.

[Full Bug]

Book Excerpt From 'Runnin With The Devil'

http://www.vhnd.com/2017/06/07/book-excerpt-runnin-with-the-devil/

Don't care for the writing style, but still look forward to reading this....
Some at the news desk are upset Noel said Mike has limited skill, and also made points about Dave losing his hair, lol....

[Terry]

Book Excerpt From 'Runnin With The Devil'

http://www.vhnd.com/2017/06/07/book-excerpt-runnin-with-the-devil/

Don't care for the writing style, but still look forward to reading this....
Some at the news desk are upset Noel said Mike has limited skill, and also made points about Dave losing his hair, lol....

Well, hopefully it will be a step up from that half-assed Everybody Wants Some book that came out in...2006? Or 2007? One of those two years...I think it came out several months before Dave rejoined the band and they released that publicity shot in late 2006/early 2007. Anyway, that EWS book was just so fucking lame. Literally a bunch of previously published interview quotes cobbled together (and oftentimes the quotes were taken out of context used to illustrate a different period of the band's history than the quote was referring to).

What I'm really hoping is for the author of Van Halen Rising (his name escapes me at the moment) to do another book focusing on 1979 through 1984. I think Van Halen Rising knocked it right out of the fucking park.

It must also be said that Noel Monk is pretty old, so my hope is the interviews he gave for this book were based off of some type of diary or records he kept at the time, rather than his memory: what strikes me is that Monk obviously did this book to make some money, which in and of itself isn't unreasonable, but is it a case of Monk just putting his name to whatever his co-author wrote in order to get a check?

Then again, the total truth about what happened back in those days probably won't ever be known unless you had the four band members sit down and give candid interviews with a devil-may-care attitude about letting the chips fall where they may. And I think Roth has certainly talked extensively about the CVH days, and Eddie certainly had his comments about some aspects of the group in the wake of Roth's departure.

At this point, I'll be happy with this upcoming book even if it manages just to tell an entertaining story, if nothing else. I mean, clearly much of Hammer Of The Gods was bullshit, but it was an interesting story.

[twonabomber]

I'm waiting for the VH camp to say Monk has it all wrong.

[Terry]

I'm waiting for the VH camp to say Monk has it all wrong.

Waiting for the Van Halen camp to say anything about anything...we'll all be waiting a long time.

[Von Halen]

Waiting for the Van Halen camp to say anything about anything...we'll all be waiting a long time.

Them saying anything, would require them to remove their heads from the sand.

[Terry]

Them saying anything, would require them to remove their heads from the sand.

Then again, what is there really left to say that's worth hearing from them?

Ed comes off old, tired and resigned. Al agrees with whatever Ed says. Mike is (to me) astonishingly passive about it all, and Dave is plain weird. That's the band in a nutshell.

After 20 years of reading interviews as a substitute for a relative lack of new music coming out, I'm kinda worded out far as reading interviews from these guys. Even the few interviews I've heard Roth give in the last 10 in terms of podcasts or whatever have lost that Diamond Dave luster he used to have when being interviewed.

I kinda enjoyed listening to the interviews they gave on the Downtown Sessions bonus disc for ADKOT. But I watched it once and haven't bothered since.