Books Reviews

Henry Rollins (1994) – Book Review Author: Henry RollinsPublished: 1994Genre: Memoir / Hardcore Punk / Tour Diaries / Music HistoryRiff Report Rating: 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸 5/5 Forget private jets. Forget five-star hotels. Forget backstage champagne. Forget the glamorous fantasy of rock ’n’ roll touring entirely. Get in the bloody van. Henry Rollins’ Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag...

Ian Winwood (2018) – Book Review Author: Ian WinwoodPublished: 2018Genre: Music History / Punk Rock / Alternative RockRiff Report Rating: 🎸🎸🎸🎸½ – 4.5/5 1994 was completely bloody ridiculous. Green Day released Dookie. The Offspring released Smash. Punk rock — supposedly dead, buried, commercially poisonous and destined to remain hidden in sweaty clubs — suddenly found itself selling millions upon millions...

Charles R. Cross (2001) – Book Review Author: Charles R. CrossPublished: 2001Genre: Biography / Grunge / Alternative Rock / NirvanaRiff Report Rating: 🎸🎸🎸🎸½ – 4.5/5 Few figures in rock history have been mythologised as heavily as Kurt Cobain. The reluctant spokesman. The tortured artist. The punk kid who accidentally became a superstar. The voice of Generation X. The musician who...

Michael Moynihan & Didrik Søderlind (1998) – Book Review Authors: Michael Moynihan & Didrik SøderlindPublished: 1998Genre: Music History / Black Metal / True Crime / Extreme MetalRiff Report Rating: 🎸🎸🎸½ – 3.5/5 Some music books tell you how an album was recorded. Some tell you what happened on tour. And then there’s Lords of Chaos, a book where the music...

Slash with Anthony Bozza (2007) – Book Review Author: Slash with Anthony BozzaPublished: 2007Genre: Autobiography / Hard Rock / Guns N’ Roses / Music MemoirRiff Report Rating: 🎸🎸🎸🎸½ – 4.5/5 Top hat. Les Paul. Cigarette hanging from the mouth. Massive curly hair. And a guitar tone recognisable within about three bloody seconds. There aren’t many guitarists whose silhouette alone could...

Paul Brannigan (2011) – Book Review Author: Paul BranniganPublished: 2011Genre: Rock Biography / Music History / Nirvana / Foo FightersRiff Report Rating: 🎸🎸🎸🎸½ – 4.5/5 There are musicians who have been in one important band. There are musicians lucky enough to have been in two. And then there’s Dave Grohl, who somehow went from battering the absolute living hell out...

Stephen Davis (1985) – Book Review Author: Stephen DavisPublished: 1985Genre: Rock Biography / Music History / Led ZeppelinRiff Report Rating: 🎸🎸🎸🎸 – 4/5 There are rock biographies. There are books about excess. And then there’s Hammer of the Gods — a book that takes the legend of Led Zeppelin, straps it to a Marshall stack, throws it into a hotel...

Kim Gordon (2015) – Book Review Author: Kim GordonPublished: 2015Genre: Autobiography / Alternative Rock / Art / Music MemoirRiff Report Rating: 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸 5/5 There are music autobiographies that arrive kicking the door down, waving an empty whisky bottle and shouting about what happened backstage in 1987. Girl in a Band isn’t one of them. Kim Gordon doesn’t need to shout....

Mötley Crüe with Neil Strauss (2001) – Book Review Authors: Mötley Crüe with Neil StraussPublished: 2001Genre: Autobiography / Hard Rock / Heavy Metal / Music MemoirRiff Report Rating: 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸 5/5 There are rock autobiographies that tell you what happened backstage. Then there’s The Dirt, which kicks the backstage door off its hinges, empties the minibar, destroys the dressing room, makes...

Laura Jane Grace (2016) – Book Review Author: Laura Jane Grace with Dan OzziPublished: 2016Genre: Autobiography / Punk Rock / Music MemoirRiff Report Rating: 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸 5/5 Some rock autobiographies are basically victory laps. We formed a band. We got famous. We drank everything. Someone drove a television through a hotel window. Here’s 300 pages about it. Tranny: Confessions of Punk...

Book Review: Booze, Bass, Bombers & One of Rock ’n’ Roll’s Greatest Characters Author: Lemmy Kilmister with Janiss GarzaPublished: 2002Genre: Music / Autobiography / Rock ’n’ RollRiff Report Rating: 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸 5/5 There are rock autobiographies. There are outrageous rock autobiographies. And then there’s White Line Fever. If you’re expecting Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister to spend several hundred pages thoughtfully contemplating fame...

Five Sonicbond books. Five legendary catalogues. One enormous musical rabbit hole. 🤘📖🔥 There is a dangerous sentence every music obsessive knows: “I’ll just listen to one album.” Absolute bollocks. One album becomes another. Then you start reading about the recording sessions. Then Spotify gets involved. Then you’re investigating a B-side from 1974 at half past midnight while wondering where your...

High voltage, filthy riffs and decades of rock ’n’ roll examined one song at a time 🤘⚡ There are complicated bands. There are mysterious bands. There are bands whose music requires seventeen paragraphs, a university degree and a diagram to explain what the hell is happening. And then there’s AC/DC. Plug guitar in. Turn amplifier up. Play enormous riff. Shake...

The quiet architect behind Genesis finally gets centre stage — and it’s about bloody time When people talk about Genesis, certain images tend to appear immediately. Peter Gabriel dressed as a flower. 🌻 Phil Collins behind the drums — and eventually standing out front. Steve Hackett making guitars sound like they’ve arrived from another dimension. Mike Rutherford quietly holding the...

From ‘Love Me Do’ to ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ — Sonicbond’s On Track series tackles the years when four lads from Liverpool changed absolutely everything There are bands. There are massive bands. There are bands that define generations. And then there are The Beatles. Trying to write about John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in 2026 presents one...