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Also... Lips Unsealed by Belinda Carlisle
...I read Belinda Carlisle's memoir Lips Unsealed on my Kindle recently. The first part was fascinating as it had a snapshot of pop culture in a certain time and place (LA in the late 70s and early 80s, especially the punk scene) and how one of the first (and still, sadly, almost only) all-female bands got started.
You know how in school you sit around with your friends and say "We should start a band!" and everyone says "Yes, what a great idea!" and you assign out instruments that nobody knows how to play yet and maybe even attempt to write songs and argue over your band name and design your album covers and hairstyles** and a couple of years later you realize that nobody's bothered to learn to play the instruments they were supposed to and eventually the idea of starting a band just sort of fades away? Well, it didn't for the Go-Gos. Most of them didn't start to learn their instruments until after they got a gig. Ah, if only punk hadn't been fading out in favor of New Wave when I was tossing around the idea of starting a band with my friends.**
It was also fascinating to see that the Go-Gos had conceptualized themselves as punk*** and didn't realize they were being sold as pop until after they heard their first album.
After that, the book is mostly concerned with Carlisle's drug and alcohol addictions and her long, long journey to free herself of them and loses some of its appeal for me, mostly because drug & alcohol addiction memoirs are a dime a dozen while girl-band memoirs aren't. I still finished the book and enjoyed it, just not as much as the parts about the LA punk scene and starting a band.
Pat Benatar's got a new memoir out, too. I just may have to indulge.
Now what was it I said in my previous post about not typing as much?
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* It was the 80s. Hair was important, dammit!
** My instrument was the bass guitar. Which I have never laid hands on. But I wrote two songs! Neither of which, thankfully, survive.
*** It does explain their clothes.
You know how in school you sit around with your friends and say "We should start a band!" and everyone says "Yes, what a great idea!" and you assign out instruments that nobody knows how to play yet and maybe even attempt to write songs and argue over your band name and design your album covers and hairstyles** and a couple of years later you realize that nobody's bothered to learn to play the instruments they were supposed to and eventually the idea of starting a band just sort of fades away? Well, it didn't for the Go-Gos. Most of them didn't start to learn their instruments until after they got a gig. Ah, if only punk hadn't been fading out in favor of New Wave when I was tossing around the idea of starting a band with my friends.**
It was also fascinating to see that the Go-Gos had conceptualized themselves as punk*** and didn't realize they were being sold as pop until after they heard their first album.
After that, the book is mostly concerned with Carlisle's drug and alcohol addictions and her long, long journey to free herself of them and loses some of its appeal for me, mostly because drug & alcohol addiction memoirs are a dime a dozen while girl-band memoirs aren't. I still finished the book and enjoyed it, just not as much as the parts about the LA punk scene and starting a band.
Pat Benatar's got a new memoir out, too. I just may have to indulge.
Now what was it I said in my previous post about not typing as much?
--
* It was the 80s. Hair was important, dammit!
** My instrument was the bass guitar. Which I have never laid hands on. But I wrote two songs! Neither of which, thankfully, survive.
*** It does explain their clothes.
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In an alternate universe, I fangirl you so hard. /digimondoomedmetofangirlbassplayers
I am one of those odd children (with odd friends) who made up a fictional band with my friends using our original characters. Then again, high school was just last year for me. XD
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Then again, it probably has something to do with how much money I had control of at the times the Go-Gos and the Bangles were around for me - middle school vs. high school. :D
ETA: What amazed me when watching the videos of the Go-Gos on stage then and now was seeing them DANCE AROUND in high spike-heeled shoes. No way could I ever have done that, even when my feet worked properly!