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February 15, 2005
Fargo Rock City - Chuck Klosterman
Teri gave me Fargo Rock City buy Chuck Klosterman for Christmas this year. I'm a huge fan of the memoir as cultural criticism genre, so I'm not sure how I missed this one. Or perhaps, if I had read the jacket blurb, I may not have even picked it up.
That would have a been a huge loss. The jacket name checks Motley Crue, Poison and Lita Ford - all bands that I disliked back in the day (I might even say HATED).
This book is incredibly funny. It really is. If it was only funny, it would still have been worth the read. But it's also incredibly insightful into what it means to be a music fan. He slices and dices Heavy Metal (Glam? Hair?) in way that weaves the cultural significance of a perceived insignificant art form.
It's really the only music of it's kind - it grew up despite of and because of MTV, which launched at the start of the 80's, launching thousands of Metal bands into the limelight. MTV lead, shaped and created Metal, as much as Metal shaped MTV.
The book is part memoir, starting with a fifth grader in North Dakota introduced to Motley Crue. he immediately becomes enamored, and loves the musics, reading about the lifestyle, and eschewing everything else that conflicts with the lifestyle or represents those things that Metal is against.
The beauty of this book is that he makes compelling (and funny) arguments that Metal is relevant, all the while pointing out that Some Metal was irrelevant (in a very funny passage discussiing why two of the Genres players - Yngwie malmsteen and Ted Nugent - both sucked for different reasons - and the only thing they had in common was that they sucked).
He builds through the 80's using personal milestones mixed with Metal milestones to mark the passage of time (Participating in a debate competition and Vince Neil killing folks in a car accident, for example). he writes reviews of his picks for his favorite records (he refuses to create a desert island list, instead rating records by how much you would have to pay him to never listen to them again - a genius concept).
I immediately related to this book because I am a music fan - not of metal, but of man other equally laudable or loathable genres. I also worked in a record store in 1989 to 1992 - years in which the Metal circus was winding down, and simultaneously at it's peak - with several self-proclaimed metal heads. In a way this book was like reading about me and having coffee (or a lukewarm can of Coors) with those guys I haven't seen for over ten years.
I've said similar things about High Fidelity by Nick Hornsby, but in some ways this book is for more relevant (and funny) to me. High Fidelity hit on all the working at the record store memes in my life and mildly embarrassed me w/r/t the KollectorSkum factor, but Klosterman hit on the qualities of being a music fan, acknowledging the shallow aspects, but focusing on the love of the music.
Highly recommended - even if you HATE Metal.
[As an aside, check out this hillarious article in the NYPost. It starts with this: "I HAVE FOUND the metaphor for everything vile in my generation, and its name is Chuck Klosterman."]
Posted by tdotjay at February 15, 2005 05:13 PM
Comments
thought i'd look you up as i was feeling sentimental about our road trip back in the mid-90s, back when i puked in the bar the now dead guy once frequented. a sad loss.
you should read klosterman's second book, it's better. "sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs".
Posted by: brenda at February 22, 2005 05:00 AM
