Keef Richards - "Life"

Here's my review of the Keith Richards auto-bio "Life". It's taken awhile to bother reading it since I wasn't going to fucking pay for it, and I had to wait until all of the Rolling Stones' fans who were too cheap to spend the cay-ish were done and I could get it from my library.

The following is the short review:

Fuck you Keith Richards and stick the 550 pages of this up your ass; where I hope it backs up your bowels and causes your entire body to explode like Mr. Creosote in "The Meaning Of Life".

BECAUSE- You're the coolest multi-billionaire muthafucka out there and I... Am... Very... Jealous.

I wanna hang out with Keef. Of course, trying to impress him, I'd end up acting like an asshole and being a douchebag. 

On the other hand, I'm a nice guy... aren't I? WHY WOULDN'T Keefy wanna hang with me? 

Hey Keef- call me... I'm listed.

Oh yeah, can I call you "Keef"?

Keef at the Beggars Banquet

The longer synopsis:
In which a hatchet faced, former pop icon, who has been trading on past glories since 1973 ( don't confuse this with Patti Smith's new book as I didn't say 1978), writes of his addictions and foibles. He rips on "Sir Mick" (newsflash- Keefy is not exactly a fan of "Sir Mick" - but when yer married for the money, you gotta put up with it), and tells stories of fun times with Gram and Brian and Bobby Keyes, etc. There's some references to drug problems too. Keef was into drugs???? Who knew? Next thing yer gonna tell me is that Glenn Danzig used ta be in da Misfits!

The auto-bio for those with short attention spans: 
I was legit, I worshiped Chuck Berry and Jimmy Reed. I put in my time. I hated wealthy people, I was from the wrong side of the tracks. I was cooler than shit. Ya know, back in 1965, I wrote really good stuff. Than a few more cool songs, until I was led by the vein for the past 40 years by my banker. I'm taken out every few years for a billion dollar tour, where I play several chords and mug for the camera. I've fucked alot of hot chicks, taken alot of drugs and gotten into all sorts of hijinks. And I still hate rich people! And, open G tuning is the answer to everything. And... "Jumping Jack Flash" is the same riff as "Satisfaction"... backwards! Oh yeah... I owe everything to Chuck Berry... and Chuck Berry's a dick!

Mr. Butinski responds:  

All with-out doing a single thing of musical interest since "Some Girls"... and you can probably back that up to "Exile" anway, since Keefy was probably too wasted to even remember his very first disco sell out elpee.That's what I wanted more of... some apologies for squandering what was one of the world's greatest r n r band's legacy.

On the other hand:
Muthafucker is rock n roll incarnate (for good or bad- I never saw the rulebook that sez r n r has to be altruistic). He can sit on his pile of money, shooting up and pissing down on everything single one of us if he wants... ps- Jerry Fucking Garcia never gave away his $$$$ either... and wasn't even a good enough junkie to survive. Although, I think the chocolate donuts killed him, not the China White.

Keef did it "his way" (as long as Sir Mick and the moneychangers said it was O-Tay).  And the book is pretty savage and open and (I assume) honest.

Who ever transcribed Keef's 'umblings into this lively and highly entertaining book should be knighted. Or something. At least given access to Keefy's private stash.

The dude gets major props for killing Brian Jones and screwing Anita Pallenberg and Patti Hansen. I used to have a Patti Hansen poster. Eventually, it was able to stay to the wall without the benefit of tacks or any other "unnatural" substance. Just a little epoxy from the young Nazz's gonads. Get it- another pun!!!!!!!
Remember having posters on yer walls? I had the Farrah one too.

I spent alot of time in my bedroom. Than, I put up a fucking Jethro Tull poster. Ian Anderson, in some sort of "Men Without Dicks" Safety Dance jester's outfit. Or something. Playing a flute. I HAD A POSTER OF A GROWN MAN PLAYING A FLUTE ON MY WALL! Why my dad didn't come in and beat the shit out of me on a nightly basis until I removed that poster is something I will never understand. Let me tell you, if MY KID puts up a fucking Thom Yorke poster, I'll knock his fucking teeth out. I don't care if it's a Thom Yorke poster showing him drinking the blood out of George Bush's skull with a straw made from Nancy Reagan's windpipe... I'll still beat the crap outta him.

Keef got to bang these chicks when they were hot. 
Keef wins.

Summation: Great book.  Could have done with more drug and sex tales. Maybe a mud shark or two. Hope the sequal is a 500 page transciption of Cocksucker Blues. Though Keef doesn't really remember any of that era. Perhaps a diagram on how to main-line. Only other book that comes to mind that was more drug oriented was "Please Kill Me". And that book doesn't make the life of excess sound as much fun as Keef does.

Like I said, Keef- call me! 

The Heroin Diaries

“I had not taken a bath in a year nor changed my clothes or removed them except to stick a needle every hour in the fibrous grey

wooden flesh of heroin addiction. . .

I did absolutely nothing.”

...William Burroughs

The book du jour at the residence is Nikki Sixx's "The Heroin Diaries". First off, I never liked Motley Crue very much. As a punk, I hated hair metal. And while I was always in favor of sex, drugs and rock n roll, I absolutely despised the attempt at "singing" that Vince Neil screeched. The Crue had some righteous riffs, but why would you have a giant pussy like Vince Neil lead your band? According to The Heroin Diaries (and Tommy Lee's book as well), the rest of the band thought he was an asshole as well. Plus, Vince Neil murdered Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle and paralyzed another person in a 1984 car crash.

However, Nikki Sixx seems to have been a guy I coulda gotten along with. Well, aside from the Heroin of course. He professes to have been influenced by all the "right" bands... Iggy, Sex Pistols, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, etc.

It's nicely packaged, with Ralph Steadman style nightmarish art on virtually every page (lots of black and red)

The book itself reproduces his diaries from 1986 through 1988, at the height of The Crue's stardom and the depth's of Sixx's addiction. According to the book, he grew up pretty much unloved and abandoned. He's not exactly blaming his addictions on his childhood, but it certainly seems to be a factor. But Sixx takes all the credit for becoming a junkie and does not blame it on the r n r lifestyle. Escapades with former Prince anti-ingenue Vanity and various seedy denizens of the L.A. rock underground provide lotsa laughs (not!) and it's a miracle that Sixx was capable of keeping a diary, much less playing bass and writing the material for the band.

A cautionary tale to be sure and one that I would recommend to any teenagers. Hey kids, hard drugs are bad, mmmkay? There is absolutely no glamour or bragging in the book. It's simply a harrowing and sad tale of a guy who had it all, and almost blew it all.

Toonage:
Replacements - Hold My Life (live 7-27-87 NYC)
Velvet Underground - Heroin (demo)
Neil Young - The Needle And The Damage Done (live London 2-27-71)
Rancid - Junkie Man
Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - Too Much Junkie Business (live)
Keith Richards - Before They Make Me Run (live 1993)
Rolling Stones - Sister Morphine (1969 outtake)