Lillian H. Smith Blog

If you read and enjoyed Keith Richards' Life, you might also want to check out Nick Kent's Apathy for the devil.    
Kent has been described as the British Lester Bangs, and this memoir covers his days working as a music journalist at New Musical Express in the 1970s.  NME is now published online, but back then it was a weekly print magazine devoted to popular music, which, in 1970s London, meant that its writers covered the transition from rock to glam to punk.

    Kent is a bit of a know-it-all, but what music critic isn't?  He certainly was around to witness many seminal moments in pop music history (in fact, he claims that he and Malcolm McLaren were responsible for coining the term "punk rock").  His acquaintances read like a who's who of the musical era: Keith Richards, David Bowie, Jimmy Page, Iggy Pop, Chrissie Hynde, Marc Bolan, Bryan Ferry . . . he was even a member of the Sex Pistols for two whole days!

    I liked learning about some of the lesser-known bands of the time (Hawkwind, Can), as well as the stories behind tours, albums, and how bands formed and broke up.  This memoir is a follow-up to Kent's earlier book, The Dark Stuff, which included many of his feature-length interviews with the likes of Syd Barrett and Brian Wilson.  The Independent rated it one of their top-ten rock biographies of all time.   Apathy probably isn't quite as good: lots of drug-induced lows, plenty of name-dropping, and hints of the quality writing Kent was capable of 40 years ago.