Customer Reviews

Cheetah Chrome: A Dead Boy's Tale: From the Front Lines of Punk Rock

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Much has been said here about who Cheetah Chrome is so I will skip that. What's important to know is that this is not some ghost written rock autobio churned out for the advance. This is more a like a diary / story. Cheetah emerges as an intelligent and insightful man not afraid to expose himself while capturing exactly what it was like to be in Cleveland in the 70's. And thus what it was like to be a kid in America living anywhere outside of Hollywood and the upper east side. When he talks about the music that was played and the "dazed and confused" life you will relate to every bit of it. I flashed on my youth as he provided the soundtrack. From Alice Cooper's "Eighteen" that every kid had to learn whether in Cle or as sex pistol in london to the various substances ingested to teenage sex there is no book that better takes you into those uncomfortable moments riding in the adolescence of punk. Cheetah emerges from this as one of the most intelligent voices of the period contrary to his image. A good companion read is Mike Hudson's equally brilliant Kerouac like tomb, Diary of a Punk.

If you ever saw the Dead Boys at their peak (before the breakup and the countless reunion tours), you probably remember it as one of the greatest rock 'n' roll shows you've ever seen. I know I do, and at age sixty, I've seen a lot of shows! When I heard Cheetah was writing his story, I looked forward to reading it, but didn't know quite what to expect. The book was all I had hoped for, and then some. Of course there's an ample supply of stories of the various excesses of a life spent on the road with Stiv Bators and company, and these won't disappoint. Nor will the many tales of his encounters with rock 'n' roll royalty such as Keith Richards and Iggy Pop. However, what I wasn't expecting was the very sensitive and articulate evaluation of a life that, while having some incredible highs, also reached depths that were indeed gut-wrenching. Cheetah's not afraid to lay his soul bare here, nor is he afraid to admit his failings. His story is a fascinating one, and in the end, an inspirational one as well. If you're a Dead Boys fan, or just a rock 'n' roll fan, this book is a must-read.

Disclosure #1: I was about 6 years old when Cheetah Chrome and the rest of the Dead Boys were terrorizing the NYC music scene.

Disclosure #2: After reading Chrome's autobiography I feel as if I was there in the front row of their punk rock roller coaster ride.

This book takes readers from Chrome's days as an awkward youth in Cleveland trying to find that perfect mix between talent and passion. It also details his role in the extremely underrated Cleveland glam/punk rock band Rocket From the Tomb. What made the book for me, though, were the stories of Chrome's days with the short-lived and combustible Dead Boys. You can practically feel the bond between Chrome and frontman Stiv Bators.

Readers will be pleasantly surprised by Chrome's writing chops. He blends humor, self-deprecation, and a vividly painted 70s and 80s set piece to bring the Cleveland and NYC punk scene to life. This is a must-read book from one of the great guitarists of our time and an unheralded legend from the days when rock had teeth.

Great autobiography by an icon of the punk rock era. To my surprise, I actually liked the stories about Cheetah's childhood more than the later chapters on punk rock excess. They document the anatomy of a true musician. He paints a portrait of Cleveland and New York that is priceless, and of course all of the stories of debauchery are entertaining. But overall this book is about an interesting guy, a smart guy, who survived and you should never underestimate.

Cheetah Chrome's memoirs are made of the kind of material that memoirs should be made of. He just tells stories. He's also simple and to the point, leaving the reader to determine the emotional weight of what he went through. In other words, you're not going to get a load of crap here. It's raw and blunt, much like his approach to the guitar.
What stands out is one of the more poignant portraits of a mother-son relationship you may ever read. Sure there's a lot of funny and disturbing tales with the Dead Boys and countless others, but the overall theme here is one of a poverty stricken, fatherless Clevelander who gets a chance because his very loving mother went to great sacrifices to put that six string in his hands.

Cheetah has written a cogent, personal and evocative book; I'm amazed at how good it is - brings the times to life very well. One skims thru checking for stuff missed, even tho "we were in the same place at the same time." I was actually very close to Stiv and took a lot of photos of the band, so I'm happy Cheetah has followed his instinct to write "unvarnished" memories. He comes across as very honest - of course a lot of drugs, but hey, it's rock n' roll! Carbona not glue! Enjoy...

This book is one of the best rock bios I've read recently. Great to read about the history of the Dead Boys and how they lived in the NYC days and details about the CBGB scene. Really well written and detailed and the book itself is nice, with a hard cover and great photos. Highly recommended!!!! Check out Cheetah's band with Sylvain Sylvain called Batusis!!!

The Dead Boys always stood out among the original punk rock bands in large part because they were one of the original punk rock bands. First there were the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and MC5, who begat the New York Dolls, Rocket from the Tombs/Dead Boys, the Ramones, and Television, who in turn begat the British punks, like the Sex Pistols and the Damned. But another aspect of the Dead Boys that made them stand apart was the incendiary and innovative guitar work of Cheetah Chrome, the band's witty, bombastic lead guitar player. You might say to yourself, 'Too bad guitar players are illiterate booger-eating morons because I bet this guy has one hell of a story to tell.'

Well, it turns out Mr. Chrome can write, and he does indeed have one hell of a story to tell. This kid from the projects in Cleveland has seen it all, from giving an up and coming Iggy Pop downers in a bathroom just before a Stooges show in Cleveland (with disastrous results) to nearly dying from drug abuse himself decades later. Most importantly, he witnessed (and participated in) the creation of punk rock and provides a first-person vantage point unlike any other available.

The book is funny, too. In his foreword, Legs McNeil comments on Chrome's humor and wit, and that humor and wit are present throughout the book. The story is great, but its Chrome's entertaining and engaging writing style that makes this book one of the best rock-and-roll memoirs published in many, many years.

I'm not even going to attempt to review this book: I read the whole thing eagerly,
cover to cover, over the past three days, and although I find Mr. Chrome's
terrifying/hilarious account quite bracing and a classic rock read,
I must deduct at least two stars for the fact that nobody at Voyageur
Press seemingly proofread, copy-edited, and/or edited the book, since this
tome is bereft of any of the above: it can be directly demonstrated
that it was never prooofread, not copy-edited, and the text could
have used some basic editing and tightening-up, which sadly, it
never received. This seems to be a trend in publishing and
specifically, music/rock and roll publishing these days, which
is disturbing since book prices and media prices in general just
keep going up. I've seen better proofreading and editing
in some CD liner notes of late, which is even more disturbing.
Attention publishers: mind your quality! Just because most
of the public is totally illiterate and non-discriminating doesn't
mean you just throw your editorial standards out the window,
and the advent of Internet/e-books are no excuse to relax them, either.
I'd be just as annoyed at having paid $25 for an e-book as
having purchased a shoddily-produced actual hardcover.
And here's the text of my letter to Voyageur Press,
for anybody that might also actually still care about
quality publishing these days....

To all at Voyageur Press,
This is more a commentary directed at the
editorial department/personnel, but I felt
compelled, as a professional author/editor/nonfiction
writer myself, to let you all know that I was sorely
disappointed by the Cheetah Chrome book Cheetah Chrome:
A Dead Boys' Tale, which I found enjoyable to say the least,
but to also be essentially full of massive typographical errors,
and with a total dearth of any editorial criteria being brought to bear.
For a major publisher with such a solid professional
reputation as Voyageur, I find it horrifying that
a $24.00 hardcover book, aimed at the mass market
(or indeed, any) could be released with no attention
whatsoever paid to proofreading, editing, quality
control, etc. I understand that Chrome decided to
write the book "from the hip" as it were, but I found
that his colloquial style had nothing to do with the
fact that the book itself was seemingly simply not
proofread and copy-edited. The evidence bears
this out, since if you read the book cover to cover
as I did over the past several days, there's difference
in the lack of quality control over every single
chapter. The only uncompromised part of the book's
production seems to be its graphics and layout/
binding, which I found overall to be quite excellent.
I was hoping to bring this to the attention
of the editorial/publishing staff, since I feel it needs
to be acknowledged that a better job needs to be done
next time, if Voyageur is to be recognized as an actual
professional publisher, competing in a world media/
publishing market. I'm finding that this lack of
editorial quality is becoming an unfortunate and
creeping trend in publishing of late, but particularly
of books on rock and roll and other popular music.
I enjoyed reading Chrome's book and was highly
gratified that he chose to relate his story, but
I also felt substantially disappointed, almost cheated,
as it were, by the shoddy quality of the text. I feel
that it's important that publishing maintains a
high standard of excellence, and doesn't end
up going the way of the Internet, with seemingly
no quality control or attention paid to the editorial
integrity of its content. I also noticed a similar
lack of editorial quality in another recent book
on rock music, namely Ritchie Unterberger's
book The Velvet Underground: Day By Day,
published last year by Jawbone Press UK: the book
was written adequately but was also filled
with egregious typos and shoddy editing,
and lack of editorial consistency in terms
of the book's basic style and formatting.
As someone who has been a publishing
professional and editor for over twenty
years, I believe I can profess to have some
measure of authority in these areas. I hope
that Voyageur Press takes better care
with their next rock music release,
and sees to it that a good proofreader/
copy-editor goes over the book
carefully, to ensure that a truly
high quality product results.

Sincerely,
Scott David Briggs