Two Rock and Roll Novels You Must Read

How Soon is Never?, by Marc Spitz: Mention the Smiths, and you're bound to get two passionate, if disparate, reactions. You either loved the Smiths (reaction no. 1) or you hated the Smiths (reaction no. 2). The Smiths lovers fanatically displayed their adoration, with careful, melancholic enthusiasm, to the intricate, innovative guitar work of Johnny Marr, the moody, apocalyptic lyrics of Morrissey, and, to, most importantly, Morrissey himself. The Smiths haters fanatically displayed their displeasure, with careful, melancholic disdain, to the moody, apocalyptic lyrics of Morrissey, and, to, most importantly, Morrissey himself - Smiths haters generally tended to ignore the musical contributions of Marr and the rest of his bandmates). It was Morrissey who was the main source of vitriol and ridicule; the plain honest truth was the Smiths were but a band of their times, indeed seminal, but they were both made and broken by Morrissey. The idol of many a Prozac-needy soul, Morrissey flaunted his adoration for Oscar Wilde, wore his hair like Elvis, and held inflexibly to his leanings towards uber-vegetarianism and celibacy, all of which made him the object of some of the most niggling ridicule ever hurled onto a rock star. And the object of some of the most fervent idolatry ever praised upon a rock star.
Let's face it, Smiths fans, and you know who you are: Yes, Morrissey's lyrics were clever, loaded with caustic wit and soul-searing introspection. Hell, Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now is a constant selection on my Winamp playlist. But he is truly one of the most insufferable rock stars coming out of the inglorious '80's. Insufferable only to Bono, that is until Bono and the rest of U2 learned to laugh at themselves. Bono's still pretty insufferable at times, but when was the last time you saw Morrissey shimmying with belly dancers and glad-hand with Presidents and Prime Ministers and the Pope? Huh?)
Joe Greene, the hero/anti-hero of How Soon is Never?, falls into the Smiths lovers category. Joe Greene is a boozed-up, overtly neurotic, over-30 rock journalist who can barely conceal his abhorrance for the very music he critiques. The trendiest bands of today are too shallow, too naive and too inept to fully understand their attempts at sincerely only smack of unintentional, unwarranted irony. He chastizes the lead singer of another one of these here today, gone tomorrow bands who wears a torn Foreigner t-shirt and thinks he's making a bold statement about proudly displaying his support for a crap late-70's act not worth their press. Joe's personal life is a mess as well; he is deeply infatuated, no, in love with his co-worker Miki (whose boyfriend is a clueless poseur punk who wouldn't know the difference between Iggy Pop and Jiffy Pop). Miki's a proto-bohemian, riot-grrl, post-modern chick with sensibilities towards the Smiths, which fuels Joe's unrequited love towards her even more so. In the midst of his pre-mid-life crisis, the only way Joe can regain the innocence and angst of his Reagan-era youth, is to reunite the Smiths. Only then can everything be right again.
How Soon is Never?, written by Marc Spitz, a senior writer for Spin Magazine and co-author of We Got The Neutron Bomb: The Unwritten Story of L.A. Punk, recaptures in all its' cringe-inducing glory growing up misfit in the 1980's,and growing up misfit and Jewish in Long Island in the 1980's. Joe Greene's slow, funny indoctrination into punk and new wave begins rather innocuously; his father Sid, a born hustler and amateur con man, forever decked out in his now-unfashionable leisure suits, rooms with five like-minded men, one of who introduces Joe to the Clash's London Calling. Later, while visiting his father, now in exile in Lexington, KY after a deal gone bad, Joe stumbles into a record shop (listening to Hall and Oates on his Walkman, mind you) and is "adopted" by Jane, one of the thousands of punk rock girls memorialized by the Dead Milkmen. She introduces him to a punk heaven with bands named X and Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Misfits. In a flash, Joe gives up Phil Collins for Joey Ramone, much to the worry of his separated parents. Susie, Joe's mom, now re-married to a button-down guidance counselor named Dick has no choice but to send Joe to a private school.
Joe's punk rebelliousness doesn't fly well with the rigid hierarchy of private school, that is, until he befriends fellow students/captives that introduce him to a pair of pivotal influences: the legendary Long Island New Wave radio station WLIR (still on the air), and the Smiths. Immediately, from that fateful day Joe's ears first heard This Charming Man blared over the airwaves, the Smiths, and Morrissey, become his very reason for being. The torn t-shirts and combat boots are now traded in for crisp Oxford shirts and a pompadour. His life, however young, finally seems to have found it's foundation, but it all crumbles the day the Smiths announce their breakup. He spirals into addiction and self-loathing before he regroups and abuses himself further as a rock critic and journalist.
Marc Spitz's novel recreates the ideologically pure but ultimately inane youth subculture of the 80's. You were either popular or a geek, and Joe's world carefully and anarchically straddles the boundaries between the two. In one particularly memorable chapter, "Oh John Hughes, Up Yours!", he assails the director of The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink for implying not so delicately that non-comformity is tantamount to criminality. How else could Ally Sheedy win Emilio Estevez's attention near the end of The Breakfast Club if she didn't undergo a makeover and look more like the popular drones marching through the halls in high school?
(Joe Greene's name is also the basis for the best running joke in the novel: since his namesake is the former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker "Mean" Joe Greene, his name proves to be a constant source for irritation since every person he meets - even in rehab - must mention his relationship to the Hall of Famer as if it had never been realized before. Needless to say, it's also an inside joke with Marc Spitz himself.)
Now as a thirty-something, Joe is an ugly mirror image of the rest of those thirty-somethings who gooped up their hair and listened incessantly to Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen and staunchly believed St. Mark's Place in Greenwich Village was (is) the center of the world. His ugly reflection is the heart and soul of Marc Spitz's novel; the heavy-handedness of adoring the gloom und drang of the Smiths is brought to light with a journalist's knack for humor and precision reporting. There's a little bit of Joe Greene, lost and confused and defiantly cocksure, in everyone who can still name MTV's original VJ's. Joe Greene is a hero to some, still waving his misfit flag, albeit shyly and erratically, and a geek to others. And the ones who think Joe Greene is a geek will find a lot to laugh about, because while you took comfort in Phil Collins, you might have discovered the Smiths later on in life and figured the Joe Greenes of this world may have been on to something back then. But you can keep playing your Phil Collins records freely. Yeah, admit it, you listen to Phil Collins. You even air drum the break on In the Air Tonight, don't you? I admit it. There. There's no need to play No Jacket Required in quiet shame and pretend you're carrying street cred with your Mission to Burma or X or Galaxie 500 lp's on your shelves. Come on, say it with me: I like Phil Collins, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.
The truth is this novel deals with a very insidious disease that is creeping itself into the souls of just about every thirty-something weaned on punk or new wave, and that disease is nostalgia. Marc Spitz's terrific little book is a cautionary tale about the misguided excesses of youth and the horrible dread of waxing nostalgic for days gone by. Which is why you should read it and crank up The Queen is Dead.

Never Mind the Pollacks: A Rock and Roll Novel, by Neal Pollack: Neal Pollack is an asshole. No, really. He's a disgusting shithead of a human being, a drug-addled, obnoxious blowhard burning every bridge and wearing out his welcome, whose mere mention of his name elicits disgust from Lou Reed, dread from Iggy Pop and out and out violence from Courtney Love (also known within the book as "She Who Shall Not Be Named For Fear of Lawsuit). Neal Pollack is also the greatest rock critic ever, and his cough syrup fueled excesses elevated him into that rarest of statuses: the critic as rock god (gee, didn't Lester Bangs claim that title once?).
The real Neal Pollack, who's probably more of a nice guy, has fashioned an endlessly funny, extremely readable first novel skewering the myth and legend that is rock music, both praising it and damning it within the same sentence, and attacks with defiant brio and gusto the rock critics who have fallen over themselves proclaiming the "Next Big Thing". Neal Pollack's inspiration for the fiction Neal Pollack is clearly the great Lester Bangs. In fact, the real Lester Bangs makes a appearance in the novel, and their clash of superegos is one of the many highlights of the book. Never Mind the Pollacks reads accurately like an oral history of rock and roll. Pollack has imagined himself as the greatest of all rock critics, and his slovenly, hygenie-deficient hijinks lead him from the streets of Memphis, where his neighbor growing up is a young boy named Elvis Presley, to Greenwich Village and Bob Dylan, to London and the Sex Pistols, and to the Pacific Northwest and a moody, sullen Kurt Cobain.
Never Mind the Pollacks is told from the point of view of Paul St. Pierre, a rock journalist and ersatz friend of Pollack, perhaps the only one who's ever understood Pollack's mad genius. We learn that Pollack, possessor of nive lives, has finally exhausted his last life - Pollack dies from injuries suffered by being run down by a bus driven by a Springsteen fan who'd never forgiven Pollack for dismissing the Boss as "the phony savior from America's bunghole." Pollack (the fictional Pollack), born Norbert Pollackovitz, is lead on in his crusade to spread the rock and roll gospel and destroy rock and roll at the same time by the cryptic messages he hears from a blind, obscure blues musician named Clambone Jefferson. Upon hearing Clambone Jefferson for the first time, Pollack discovers his true calling at the young age of 11 and sets off to become the greatest rock critic ever; Pollack is keenly aware of his limitations as a musician, but that doesn't prevent him from working as a songwriter for Pickwick Records and hiring Lou Reed as another songwriter, or playing bass for the Ramones in their first gig at CBGB's, or disastrously forming his own band, the Neal Pollack Invasion, performing one and only one legendary gig at a dive bar in Queens. His calling is a source of violent irritation for Pollack's father, perhaps the only soul on earth who hates music and won't stand to listen to it. Nonetheless, and despite the beatings he suffers from his father otherwise, Pollack's rise from obscurity to near-godhood is swift, but not without its' consequences.
There is a wealth of laugh-out-loud moments in this book. Pollack early on introduces his next door neighbor Elvis to Sam Phillips (also a friend), and through gentle, if persistent prodding (Pollack has quite the hunch about this Elvis character), encourages Elvis to record with Sun Records. In perhaps the funniest moment of the novel, Elvis accidentally runs over Pollack's father and kills him. The future King promises to help take care of young Norbert Pollackovitz and his mother financially, and, of course, once Elvis makes it to the top, the money just keeps rolling in for Pollack.
While on the road with the Velvet Underground (much to the consternation of Lou Reed and John Cale, who both fear and despite him), Pollack finds himself uncermoneously booted off the tour and into a seedy bar where he hears a truly atrocious band. But there's something about the drummer, who withstands a torrent of tossed beer bottles and bar stools, that sparks Pollack into believing he's discovered the "Next Big Thing" (don't all rock critics think that at one time or another?). The drummer is a skinny trailer park dweller named Jimmy Osterburg, whom Pollack quickly rechristens Iggy Pop. Thus begins another of Pollack's important, if parasitic, relationships with some of rock's royalty. He falls in love with Joan Baez (and quickly dismisses her - he calls her album Joan Baez Live at the Apollo "essential listening for those who hate music."), crashes with Patti Smith, is received by Elvis at Graceland, and fosters the DIY spirit that bands like Black Flag and the Minutemen take invariably to heart. Oh, and he's suffered many attempts on his life, both self-inflicted and inflicted by those he's managed to piss off; St. Pierre even throws Pollack out of his fourth-floor window after he catches Pollack screwing his wife.
His rock and roll credentials aren't worth the stamp of approval on his press passes, however; Pollack's combative nature cause him to be fired from Rolling Stone magazine on his first day, Lester Bangs refuses to hire him to write for Creem, and even the normally antagonistic British rock mag New Musical Express finds him too antagonistic, even fascistic. Pollack is forced to either self-publish his own rock mags or write for utlra-underground mags with clever names like Testicle.
No matter: Despite his repellent personality and his inability to bathe frequently or keep any clothes, Pollack proves to be the seer of all seers, displaying an uncanny, eerie knack for predicting without fail that detestable of notions, the "Next Big Thing". It goes without saying that Pollack the writer harbors a deep disdain for rock journalists, he being one. Well, disdain's too harsh a word, perhaps, but his depiction of critics falling over themselves in proclaiming the future of rock and roll, all the while using absurdly long words to describe the future, is dead-on accurate in its savagery. There's a little bit of the fictional Neal Pollack in every rock critic before and since. And the real Pollack knows this and has called the critics out. Somehow, in the early nineties, Pollack prophetically quotes, "You can take your Misfits T-shirts and stick 'em in a drawer, and run over your Soundgarden lunchbox with a pickup truck, because the future of music will come from Beck, the Fugees, Moby, and OutKast. I also predict the rise of a white hip-hop artist who stupid critics like Paul St. Pierre will compare to Elvis." Both the real and fake Pollack are especially nasty to the critical mass who annoint every Johnny Come Lately as the new God and take their critical positions way too seriously, as if their existence is the backbone of rock music.
(Another instance of Pollack the Fictional's prophecizing: he scribbles "Blink-182 Sucks on the back of a magazine, dated well before that crap band ever formed.)
The Lester Bangs and the Robert Christgaus and the Stanley Booths of the world take it in the chin (and the ass, too, if you insist), and because of that, Never Mind the Pollacks is a rollickingly fun read, as both rock history and criticism of rock criticism. Oh, and check out the Selected Discography that follows the novel. This is some of the funniest stuff you'll ever read as well.