A vibrantly self-aware rock memoir buzzing with music, drugs, sisterhood, and blissful redemption.
The former bassist for the Go-Go’s chronicles her life before and after stardom.
In this surprisingly revealing memoir, Valentine recalls her childhood in Austin, Texas, raised by a single English expat mother who treated her like one of her druggy pals. She was an early experimenter with drugs and sex, and at age 12, she had to travel to California to have an abortion. A televised 1973 performance by Suzi Quatro inspired Valentine to dream of creating “a kickass band with a gang of like-minded girls and claim the life I wanted for myself.” In 1980, after gigs with several smaller bands and a few years playing guitar, Valentine met Charlotte Caffey, who founded the Go-Go’s in 1978, and she soon became the band’s replacement bassist. Fueled by a heady combination of cocaine and steely determination, Valentine jumped right in to play a series of sold-out early shows. The author draws from impeccably archived personal journals, band itineraries, and Filofax calendars to recall her time with the band from its inception to peak popularity. Her whirlwind path to fame was also littered with dysfunction, especially her drinking and rampant drug use, which coincided with skyrocketing record sales. A crushing band breakup in 1985—fueled by a “deep disconnect between the way we saw ourselves and the way we were presented to the public”—was as brutally humbling as her time in recovery. Valentine doesn’t skimp on the details of both the raucous partying and the many mistakes and failings that chastened her as a woman and a musician. Her candid narration is confident and consistently infused with personality, and a generous section of photographs illustrates her chronology. Despite the Go-Go’s’ rough edges and ups and downs, Valentine, now 61, acknowledges their unique all-female presence in rock history, and she concludes with updates on reunion tours and hope for the future. One of Kirkus and Rolling Stone’s Best Music Books of 2020.
A vibrantly self-aware rock memoir buzzing with music, drugs, sisterhood, and blissful redemption.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4773-1233-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Univ. of Texas
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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