one of the most idiotic music book reviews I've ever read, even for the Village Voice...

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Who is this guy, and what editor would let a reviewer start a reviewer with "When I was in the 8th grade..."? I can't believe this guy read the same book I did, I found it really entertaining like The Dirt was entertaining. What a total priss, even for the Voice...and please spare your OTMs unless you've read the book.

L.A. Story: Shoplifters of the World, Grab Your Bongs and Bongos
Brendan Mullen's Whores: An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction

by Nick Catucci

In eighth grade, when it counted, I had no effing clue what Jane's Addiction or that polyamorass Perry Farrell were all about. Wasn't sure how those guys dressed, so how could I tell? "Been Caught Stealing" I got—shoplifting is cool. (It's as simple as that.) Turns out these were renaissance boys, and I'm not just referring to their antiquated attitudes regarding women: They drank, dropped acid, did coke, shot heroin, admired metal, punk, tribal . . . things, and the Dead. PF dressed like a graver before there were even ravers. They, all upper- or middle-class, hit bongs and bongos. The band was hippie-dippy and meatheaded and, most of all, L.A. And in the same way that they were cool jerks, Whores is an oral fixation in which every cigar is just a cigar no matter what you wished, hoped, or understood it to be.
This being a collection of interviews somewhat carelessly spliced into conversations, we're mostly spared the critical summations that couldn't do this glorious mess justice. Jane's Addiction shared their "scene" with Fishbone and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, people. This was not a movement, unless you wanna talk bowels. And nothing is shocking or sacred taken in context. Dave Navarro's mother, we find, was murdered by her boyfriend when Dave was 15, which we are told led to his rock-and-roll junkie lifestyle, which in turn, we realize, led to his reality show. Xiola Blue, one corner in a Perry Farrell love triangle, overdoses and dies in June 1987. Perry remembers: "To love two women at the same time is a pretty amazing moment in any personal history." This feels wrong. And it should. Jane's Addiction jumped on something adrift, and there we were, watching it float away.

― shookout (shookout), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:25 (twenty-one years ago)

what is your problem with it exactly?

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, kind of not getting a sense of why you're outraged here.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:30 (twenty-one years ago)

A surprising number of VV reviews start with someone being in 8th grade.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:30 (twenty-one years ago)

gettin' jiggy wit' the neologisms!

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Shookout, is there any chance you could refer to the page in Elements of Style where starting off a sentence w/ "In eight grade" is considered verboten? Or where a writer expressing an opinion diametrically opposed to yours is immediately wrong?

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:32 (twenty-one years ago)

(fucking hell I need to think faster)

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:32 (twenty-one years ago)

also since the guy found it entertaining in the same way the dirt was entertaining i'm wondering what makes you suspect he read a different book.

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:33 (twenty-one years ago)

When I was in middle school, this new kid came to school, and he had just moved from Seattle, and he started every sentence with the phrase "Back in Seattle..." so we mocked him and never accepted him into our social group. I didn't invite him to my birthday party until my mom made me. Is this kind of like that?

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:34 (twenty-one years ago)

spare your OTMs, people. just spare them.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:35 (twenty-one years ago)

s1ocki OTM

― steve hise, Friday, 13 May 2005 19:36 (twenty-one years ago)

don't try it.

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:36 (twenty-one years ago)

i presume steve has read the book, then.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.ravenfamily.org/andyg/images/index_title.gif

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, who cares what the reviewer though of Jane's Addiction when he was in the 8th grade? And it's obvious that the reviewer looks down his nose at LA music of that era anyway, so he's not going to like a book about JA on principal. And the bit about Navarro's drug use being spruned on by the murder of his mother is just one theory offered by Navarro's cousin.

The entire tone of it is just tremendously condescending, is full of value judgements, and it's clear the reviewer approached the book with many prejudices already firmly in place.

― shookout (shookout), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:40 (twenty-one years ago)

you presume incorrectly. i presumed you agreed with n/a so much you expected a chorus of OTMs. i hope all this lack of clarity isn't bothering shookout any

― steve hise, Friday, 13 May 2005 19:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I mean don't say the review is OTM if you haven't read the book.

― shookout (shookout), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:42 (twenty-one years ago)

can we say it's OPP?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't think of a single thing anyone could do to or for me that would lead me to even consider holding this book in my hands.

― john'n'chicago, Friday, 13 May 2005 19:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Mullen's done two other good books, We Got the Neurtron Bomb and a Darby Crash bio.

― shookout (shookout), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:44 (twenty-one years ago)

i like the floating away thing at the end of the review. can i presume you've read the book, shookout?

― steve hise, Friday, 13 May 2005 19:45 (twenty-one years ago)

The entire tone of it is just tremendously condescending, is full of value judgements, and it's clear the reviewer approached the book with many prejudices already firmly in place.

He's got a point. Jane's Addiction and the others in their "scene" have not aged very well. This point sort of underlines a book about them. I think it's his duty to mention the way he feels about the subject in a review.

― mcd (mcd), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:46 (twenty-one years ago)

The sneering about Fishbone and RHCP is stupid but I feel like I've got a good sense of what the book is about and I'd like to read it (also the part that seems to be most objectionable to the reviewer isn't so much the subject matter as much as it is the book isn't really edited together well; he alternates back and forth between denigrating JA and lionizing their entire ethos, so the conflict with the band itself seems to be less important than the simple statement that the book is a haphazard mess that seems to dispell myths that the reviewer liked and pumps up myths the reviewer disliked).

JA, Fishbone and certain eras of RHCP have stood the test of time very well for me.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:47 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, it's not haphazard, I thought it flowed pretty well.

― shookout (shookout), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:49 (twenty-one years ago)

dan, i don't like your review of the review. you mispelled "dispel." and you, shookout, "neurtron"? editing is a dead art

― steve hise, Friday, 13 May 2005 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

but typos will always win in the end.

― shookout (shookout), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Dan, also I really hated the tone of your review of my post. Are you prejudiced or something?

― mcd (mcd), Friday, 13 May 2005 19:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I am overjoyed that someone would criticize a review as being "full of value judgments."

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 13 May 2005 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

The only thing I got out of the review was that the book does well by avoiding summations that aren't going to work well, the tone is very much of a certain time, and that the reviewer thinks that the scene of that time wasn't that great.

I mean, it doesn't criticize the book as much as it does the subject matter of the book, but it sounds like it could be pretty decent if you like Jane's Addiction.

― mike h. (mike h.), Friday, 13 May 2005 20:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Change that first "it" in my last sentence to "the review" and the last part should refer to the book being decent.

― mike h. (mike h.), Friday, 13 May 2005 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

the review was fun to read! it wasn't about the book at all really, but then if it's what he sez it is, you'll read it if you like JA, and not if you don't anyway.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 13 May 2005 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

"This was not a movement, unless you wanna talk bowels"

i thought that was pretty funny, actually.

― latebloomer: the rebel sound of grits and bacon (latebloomer), Friday, 13 May 2005 20:09 (twenty-one years ago)

(OMG THEY FIGURED OUT THAT I DON'T LIKE UZBEKISTANIS)

― The Ghost of Dan Perry's Prejudiced Inner Monologue (Dan Perry), Friday, 13 May 2005 20:09 (twenty-one years ago)

You foment rebellion in the name of hate.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 13 May 2005 20:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Dan's evil work:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41143000/jpg/_41143457_ap_burning203.jpg

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 13 May 2005 20:15 (twenty-one years ago)

There's only one sentence in the whole review that's explictly about the book, and it's a wash: on the one hand, careless/messy format; on the other, at least not endless editorial summary. (The "glorious mess" seems to refer slightly more to the history than to the book, and even if it didn't, it'd be another wash.) So it doesn't seem quite right to read this as negative.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 13 May 2005 20:17 (twenty-one years ago)

please spare your OTMs unless you've read the book

I've read the book. OTM.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 13 May 2005 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

"This being a collection of interviews somewhat carelessly spliced into conversations, we're mostly spared critical summations that couldn't do this glorious mess justice." That would make me want to read it, if anything could. (I already read something like it in Spin, and that was enough). Then he describes how there is a sense of narrative, with one thing leading or following and/or chewing another. So the book is appropriately tightly loose or loosely tight, to borrow a phrase or two from Professor Jimmy Page.( Shookout,last time I checked, Nick was still the online editorand has also reviewed CDs, games, and maybe other stuff for the Voice.)

― don, Friday, 13 May 2005 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

the magazine version is acres better than the book, which is sloppy as fuck

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 13 May 2005 21:46 (twenty-one years ago)

How so? I'm a big fan of the genre, the big sprawling oral history. Usually unruly as can be and the authors don't take a lot of responsibility (and it also allows for a lot of unattributed hearsay, see Please Kill Me)

― shookout (shookout), Friday, 13 May 2005 22:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I am too, but this one's pretty tedious going. The mag got all the good stuff, and this is the good stuff padded out; it's very repetitive. Early on they've got some weird charisma going on but as they get older they're basically garden-variety spoiled jerks.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 13 May 2005 22:21 (twenty-one years ago)

the key with these things is editing; this dribbles and rambles; the pacing is slack. that's not something I'd say about The Dirt.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 13 May 2005 22:22 (twenty-one years ago)

i like nick catucci's writing, he's very funny sometimes.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Friday, 13 May 2005 22:28 (twenty-one years ago)

haha, yeah, nick is a priss. you obviously never read his PORN column. nick rulz, and i am only slightly jealous that he is smarter and prettier than i am.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 14 May 2005 00:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Taking Sides: "effing" versus "polyamorass"

― Joe (Joe), Saturday, 14 May 2005 00:39 (twenty-one years ago)

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