Customer Reviews

Gentlemanly Repose: Confessions Of A Debauched Rock 'n' Roller

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
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The rock and roll memoir will never be the same. Michael Ruffino writes like JP Dunleavy on methedrine--or an even more badly behaved Hunter Thompson. In fact neither comparison does him justice. Not just another chronicle of back-stage (and on stage ) debauchery, Gentlemanly Repose contains some of the most well-crafted, incendiary and original prose I've read in a long, long time. Right up there with the very best of Lester Bangs. In fact, better and strangely wiser. A great book.

Dood, this book is sick. The bass player from the Unband who put out a disc called "Retarder" wrote the story of their tour around the US and Europe in 1999. There is this great scene where Joe Eliot laughs at them while they drunkenly stumble through "mental health" onstage. They hire a beer drinking chimp and get arrested for playing naked. This book is as crazy as "The Dirt" but more funny. I would totally recommend it and I have gone back to read parts of it already. Its like "Fear and Loathing" on drugs.

First a quote from the book: "It seems so simple: here's some money, here's a tour bus, go play. It's not. It's not simple at all." Gentlemanly Repose is the story of a band on tour in the US and Europe with the likes of Dio and Def Lepp. It's also a mad collection of booze soaked adventures loosely (and I mean loosely) centered around the rise and fall of the Unband - an AC/DC influenced train wreck whose anthem was "We like to Drink, We like to Rock." The anecdotes from the road read like something out of Mad Magazine, but apparently it's all true. If you have ever been on the road or know someone who has you will immediately recognize the ridiculous situations and tensions leading to the band's demise.
What's cool about it is that it is actually written by a band member and is not some unauthorized bio written second hand by some fanzine reporter. Goes right up there with the great party books like Fear and Loathing and Up and Down with the Rolling Stones.

Great book! I also checked out the Unband's classic album "Retarder". A must-listen!

If you like rock and roll. If you can read. Buy this book! You need it. Michael Ruffino is a stone solid genius. And his sense of the ironic in EVERYTHING is just plain brilliant.

I actually found this book a bit hard to read, but I put the blame on me, as it's not that often that a rocker writes so advanced and funny. Michael Raffino would probably be a successfull professor for all I know, but I'm happy he wrote this book and played his rock. I like people writing about being drunk and play rock music (in that order). Check out the Unband movie: we like to drink, we like to play rock and roll. You'll find it through the Gringa Productions website.

i don't know what else to say.

unbelievably funny and well written.

i hope the author writes many more books as he has a unique and special talent.

metal!

In fact, it's the greatest work of art in human history. If you haven't read it yet, I hate and envy you.

This treatise is Febreze on cigarette smoke on old sweat. A dented tin of butter cookies not from Switzerland. This is B flat maj; you know, the lone debutante (raven-haired, beautiful) struggling eloquently against the tide of cloned white dresses. Rock always looked like this to a select few--everything seen through a broken 110 camera--the shutter goes ping and everything falls out of the frame, down the stairs, and on its feet. You want to know what it's like on and off the "tour" "bus"? Here.