The Storyteller
Tales of Life and Music
Dave Grohl
Having read it
★★★☆☆
It was not a bad read, living up to its title, with the storyteller describing plenty of tales which are full of interesting (and entertaining) moments and people around his early years and a lifetime of rock ’n’ roll (around many a genre) and many a performance sometimes with injury and sometimes for an audience of just a few.
You can’t dispute the man’s approach and attitude to life, family, friends and his livelihood but the writing seemed to get slightly disjointed in places and even felt a little like it was a wannabe self-help book rather than an autobiography.
It started like it might be a five out of five, then might hang in with a four out of five but it didn’t; a bit like he describes himself after one of his tours, it seemed to get a bit exhausted (and figuratively repetitive, even) despite his continuing efforts in telling more recent moments. However, despite the tales and talent, luck, achievements, travails and music performances, it needed a bit of editing to reduce its page count a bit and improve its focus so, it has ended up being a three out of five.
A good passage
‘Okay, we’re gonna play one riff, the same riff, for thirty minutes and you’re not going to do one drumroll,’ he said. Easy, I thought. I sat down behind my kit and he began to play his silky bass line, part reggae, part Motown, and I confidently joined in. It wasn’t forty-five seconds before I felt the urge to do a drumroll, but he shook his head and warned me not to do it, so I continued on with the groove. A minute later, I again felt the insatiable need to do a crazy drumroll, almost like a form of musical Tourette’s or holding back a sneeze, but Skeeter just shook his head. Essentially, Skeeter was breaking the wild pony, training me to respect the simplicity and power of a groove, teaching me to refrain from gratuitous bluster. After thirty minutes, I was an entirely different drummer. This was perhaps the most valuable musical lesson of my entire life, and I am forever indebted to him for that.
A second good passage
Admittedly, I soon found myself trapped in the LEGO section, fawning over the giant selection they had to offer, trying to decide whether I should join in on the challenge or remain a conscientious objector. I have always had a weakness for LEGOs, I confess. Ever since I was a child, they have always been my favourite toy. With their intricate little pieces and the gratifying snap of two tiny blocks fitting perfectly together, I could spend hours upon hours building castles, cars, and other geometric structures, just for the simple reward of knowing that I had done it myself. I was borderline obsessed in my youth, so much so that part of my ‘seeing’ music is seeing individual parts of songs as blocks of LEGOs, a playful form of synesthesia that still to this day helps me memorize arrangements and compositions.