Life in Double Time: Confessions of an American Drummer [Hardcover]

Mike Lankford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1997

Anyone who has ever had a set of drumsor tapped out a beat on a tablehas fantasized about joining a band and going on tour. This gritty and hilarious memoir by drummer Mike Lankford takes readers on a wild ride, from the raucous garage band of his teenage years to the bright lights and slick sounds of his professional but small-time road band. Playing some serious blues and rock'n'roll and pushing the broken-down van in between, Mike Lankford shows us the unglamorous side of the music businessand takes us places we never thought we'd go.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A musician's life on the road may not be most people's ideal holiday scenario, but Mike Lankford offers a raucous and poignant perspective of America's Midwest. From the teen club in Oklahoma where at 13 he first saw a live rock-and-roll band and learned to distinguish between two camps of drummers to two years drumming as the "salt" in "Salt & Pepper," a Chicago blues band, Lankford's stories ring true while they entertain.

From Publishers Weekly

Lankford, who was born in Oklahoma in 1951, isn't famous, nor does he know anyone who is. Like legions of teenagers before him, he fell in love with rock and roll and chose to play the drums. He pestered his mother for a kit, practiced in his garage, dealt with kids of disparate ego and ability and eventually toured the country with two weirdly charismatic black musicians from Chicago in a dilapidated truck, playing anything and everything the audience requested. Then he quit for 15 years. He recently returned to pound the bass pedal behind all kind of musicians and to write this memoir, which has an off-kilter kind of charm. The chronology occasionally falters, the prose veers alarmingly from lyrical to workmanlike and Lankford, when he isn't being droll, isn't shy about touching on drug use or terminal boredom. At the end of the book, he deals in a frustratingly truncated manner with his decade and a half of exile?graduate school in Iowa plus years spent "making friends" with Shakespeare, Faulkner et al.?and his sudden return to drumming. Before that Lankford is far more expansive. There are choice moments of panic, fear, elation and abject terror. There are a few stabs at romance along the way, and one memorable night when his crash cymbal took on a life of its own as a burst of gunfire prematurely ended one set.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books; Ex-library edition (January 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811806839
• ISBN-13: 978-0811806831
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #608,325 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why is this book so unknown?, July 5, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Iowa City, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Life in Double Time: Confessions of an American Drummer (Paperback)

Lankford's memoir is the best book ever written about life on the road as a musician. Not the glamorous life of the superstars, but the daily grind of living out of a van and dodging beer cans in a redneck honky-tonk. His story begins like all musicians' stories begin: practice practice practice in somebody's garage and then high school band contests, all in preparation for the big time with groupies and stardom. But Lankford takes us on the road traveled by most musicians: long drives, cold nights, minimum wage pay. His description of the time he spent as the white drummer in a black trio is rendered in prose that is both meta-physically insightful and descriptively physical. Lankford's journey is laced with violence and drugs and sex, but his language is brilliantly funny as well as graphically disturbing. If you know any kid who is beating on a drum or strumming a guitar, this is a MUST gift book. For anybody interested in the real life of a musician, this is also a MUST book. Buy it, read it, tell your friends. Lankford deserves the notice. He also has his email address listed on the cover. Write him and share your own road story.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars bravo!, July 10, 2000

By 

chester (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Life in Double Time: Confessions of an American Drummer (Hardcover)

Finally a book comes along that tells the REAL story of how 99% of the musicians in this world live! Oh joy! This is not another dribbling ode to the "genius" of some stupid adolecent drunk who got famous too fast and couldn't understand that what he was "creating" was making him rich because it was simply a marketable product. How refreshing not to read yet AGAIN about how the "purity" of the music is tainted because someone was (gasp!) making money at it. And, Mr. Lankford, you spared us from the cliche of cliches: "O.k. kid, even though it's NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE, we're gonna let you try it YOUR way. We'll probably all get fired for this, but go for it kid..." Thank you Mr. Lankford for helping the rest of the world see through all the romantic [junk] of the entertainment business and show them for what it is...a business. Those of us who work in the music industry appllaud you for enlightening readers that his is our JOB. We could be pumping gas or working at burger king, but we'd rather do this. And yes, we (gasp!) make money doing it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An absolute must read for anyone who loves a drummer., July 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Life in Double Time: Confessions of an American Drummer (Paperback)

Trying to get a drummer to open up is always difficult, if not impossible. This is a "behind the beat" story about a regular guy who whacks on skins. If you are a musician or If you have ever had a dream about being one, this book will help you appreciate your life as an accountant or police officer - it will also make you wish that you could go on the road with a band. Just once. Read it and chuckle through.