Give me back my $13.87: reading Rock Talk, The Great Rock And Roll Quote Book
It's not as bad as the laddish The Wit & Wisdom of Music , another music quotes book I waded through a few years ago, but it's still ... pretty bad. I'm talking about Rock Talk, The Great Rock And Roll Quote Book (edited by Joe Kohut and John J Kohut). It's one of those "stocking filler"-style quasi-books, a shallow little thing I ill-advisedly picked up a few days ago and ripped my way through in a near-constant sense of derision in a few spare moments this week. It supposedly has around 600 quotes from musicians (and a few adjacent people such as managers and critics), which is pretty staggering, really, because I reckon the book contains all of eight half-decent quotes. And here they are: "The kids want misery and death. They want threatening noises because that shakes you out of your apathy" - John Lydon "Funk is its own reward" - George Clinton "A song is three chords and a grudge" - Dee Dee Ramone, as cited by Tin...
