A tome for the Byrdmaniac
5 stars
I ordered this book from Redeye records in Sydney and when it arrived the staff member was surprised by its bulk. "Wow, it's a TOME!", he said. (tome: A book, especially a large or scholarly one).
So, yes, it is long and detailed, maybe too detailed for some. I love the band enough, and I had the appetite for it. The preface is fantastic. It explains how the author, growing up in the midst of Beatlemania, became a Byrds fanatic, living in a part of London where houses were unchanged since the 1940s, while a few blocks away the Fabs, the Stones and Donovan were grooving at the Speakeasy. By the end, decades later Rogan is close enough to the band to counted as a friend, but he resists entering their social circle to remain an outsider, because this book is like his life's work and he feels it would …
I ordered this book from Redeye records in Sydney and when it arrived the staff member was surprised by its bulk. "Wow, it's a TOME!", he said. (tome: A book, especially a large or scholarly one).
So, yes, it is long and detailed, maybe too detailed for some. I love the band enough, and I had the appetite for it. The preface is fantastic. It explains how the author, growing up in the midst of Beatlemania, became a Byrds fanatic, living in a part of London where houses were unchanged since the 1940s, while a few blocks away the Fabs, the Stones and Donovan were grooving at the Speakeasy. By the end, decades later Rogan is close enough to the band to counted as a friend, but he resists entering their social circle to remain an outsider, because this book is like his life's work and he feels it would be damaged if he crossed that line.
Of course you get a great and detailed account of how a bunch of LA folkies invented folk rock and were at the vanguard of a cultural explosion in the 1960s. And at the end you learn of Crosby's drug hell, Hillman's tea party conservatism, McGuinn's bible-obsessed Christianity. It's a long and weird journey. If it's disturbing or depressing, just put "Younger Than Yesterday" on, turn it up to 11, and it all dissolves in an instant.