Under a Rock: A Memoir Hardcover – Import, 11 June 2024

It became boring as the novel progressed. Same story with different backgrounds often repeated

Chris Stein wrote a fascinating memoir where he seems eager to share his very eventful life.Along the way, he peppers his stories with humorous asides, movie recommendations, musical influences, etc. The stories are also quite candid. There is not much he shies away from.Chris Stein excels at evoking time and place. His description of Haight-Ashbury, for instance, struck me in that he captured its macabre undertone without ever mentioning Manson.Also, his description of recording an album makes it seem like hard work and decidedly non-glamorous…what recording artists often say. But, with Chris Stein, I get it better than I have from other rock memoirs.Chris Stein himself comes across as genuine and self-effacing. He drops the names of the people that populate his life…famous and not famous.Ultimately, this reads as though I inadvertently sat next to Chris Stein at a bar when he was in a mood to talk. His stories are mostly hits, some misses, but the overall impact is a great night out, or…in this case..a great read.This is an easy recommendation for rock fans, especially those of punk, 70’s/early 80’s and, of course, Blondie.I enjoyed it. Thank you, Chris Stein, on behalf of your many fans who practically begged you to write your life story.Two thumbs up 👍👍

Bought for my husband on request for Christmas. Looks good.

Guitarist, photographer and co-founder of Blondie, Chris Stein has always been an intelligent, insightful and interesting subject (the 3 "I's"!) Because of the Blondie association, you might expect this book to be all about his 14 year romantic relationship with Debbie Harry, but it's HIS autobiography, so all that stuff is sort of sidelined. We get little glimpses, but mostly Stein focuses on events that happened to him and Blondie, rather than the subjective interior experience of how it all felt. So we find out where he's traveled and what he's seen, who he's met and what happened for him and his band Blondie, but we never get the pleasure of a true vicarious experience. (I also found this to be the case with Debbie's autobiography "Face It"). There's not much info about his romantic breakup with Debbie in 1987, but then you sort of have to respect that he keeps some things in his life private. And his wry, droll sense of humor makes up for some of what this memoir lacks in intimacy. His judgement on the whole seems fair and balanced, and--like Debbie-he had a Forest Gump-like knack for being i all the right places at the right times for Pop Culture History in the last century. So even if Blondie isn't your favorite, you would still find this book interesting for descriptions of New York City in the seventies and eighties, his connection to people like Andy Warhol & Basquiat, Giorgio Moroder, the Ramones (and all the CGBGs denizens circa 1974-1978), William S. Burroughs, HR Giger, and more. He even met with David Lynch to discuss the possibility of scoring "Eraserhead"! I was hoping there would be a more extensive picture section, especially given that Stein was such a prolific shutterbug, but that's a minor quibble. Intelligent and compelling reading. If you're the least bit curious, you should probably get it.

This is an interesting read that documents the life of one of Blondie's creative forces, and in some ways presents a different take than others of a band story well told. Perhaps more vivid is the intertwined story of a life in New York City through more than half a century of change, one so well described that you feel you are living through it with him. Definitely recommended for fans of the band, though the later years are rushed through and later albums covered at such breakneck speed as to barely feature at all.Stein seems to favour a succession of short sentences and flits from one topic to the next freely - it's almost a collection of anecdotes or recollections in parts, a stream of consciousness rather than a complex narrative - and I have read another review that said it was unusual for a rock biography in that it leaves you wanting more. That, in essence, is what you get. It's well worth it to find out about his life, and his take on being in one of the greatest bands of all time... you just wish he had more he wanted to say.