What books about music ARE worth the paper they're printed on?

A surprising number of the 33 1/3 books are worth the paper they're printed on. There's a thread about them here somewhere. I can recommend the ones on Murmur, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, Low, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. There are another half dozen or so I want to read.

i think most books are worth the paper their printed on! paper isn't that expensive! (but i steal all my paper from work so whadda i know)

There's an interesting thing about that 1976 version of the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll. It includes an essay on Neil Young, written by Dave Marsh, that is not too laudatory and highly critical of Young's output at times. Unlike most (maybe all, I'm not sure) of the essays in that edition, Marsh's essay has been dropped from updated versions for a more positive Young piece from another writer. I don't agree with Marsh's assessment of Young, but it is worth a read. Also note the year: 1976, before Young's ascension to "60's vets who still matter" status with Rust Never Sleeps, et.al. You definitely get a timely perspective on Young not beholden to critical deification. (Though, as I said, I don't agree much with Marsh's conclusions).

I read the True Adventures of the Stones book when I was like 15, right after I'd read No One Here Gets Out Alive and Hammer of the Gods. I remember thinking at the time how different it was, that it seemed more like a piece of literature than the trashy bios I'd been reading -- which bummed me out at the time!

i can't really front on hammer of the gods though! that book is a hoot! i read it as if it were the bible of rock as a lad.

Crazy From The Heat by David Lee Roth

xpost: good antidote for the Kinski autobio, I think.

Rollins ghost-edited Crazy From The Heat, not ghost-wrote. But yeah it's ace, like The Dirt if they weren't morons.

oh and i just read "the dirt," that motley crue thing. pretty disgustingly funny.

next read Fucked By Rock: The Unspeakable Confessions Of Zodiac Mindwarp!