Turn Down the Music and Read: Daisy Jones & the Six

Ep 50 Listeners’ Advice to Younger Pe... Ep 51 Grown & Flown Co-founder Ma...

Turn Down the Music and Read: Daisy Jones & the Six

I’ll say it up front: I’m a sucker for a good music-themed oral history. Mad World, Meet Me in the Bathroom, VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave…I love when an author can masterfully blend a bunch of competing narratives and timestamps to show us the complexities and he said/she said/they said stories that comprise real life.

So even if my local indie bookseller Kathleen HADN’T greeted my every visit to Great Good Place for Books in Oakland over the past six months with “OH MY GOD NANCY YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE Daisy Jones & The Six SO MUCH, I CAN’T STAND IT” I probably would have bought it as soon as I realized it’s a fake oral history of a fake ‘70s rock band’s rise and fall. I mean. Coincidentally, I had just whipped through author Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, so I know she can tell the hell out of a story.

Daisy Jones & The Six was worth the all-caps hype from my bookseller. We start out meeting The Six, an Eagles-esque rock band fronted by charismatic and definitely sex/drugs/rock n’roll lifestyle-appreciating Billy Dunne. Separately, Daisy Jones (an homage to Stevie Nicks, or Linda Rondstadt?) is on the rise as a singer and songwriter whose own self-destructive tendencies threaten to derail her. When Daisy and the band are finally pushed together through the engineering of their business managers, it’s magic, but fragile magic. The group’s star rises, and so do the personal costs. There is so. much. longing in this book.

It’s very Fleetwood Mac-ian.

Reid’s mastery of the oral history form is terrific – the way the description of a single incident changes completely based on the blind spots and sensitivities of the person telling it, giving you a clearer and clearer understanding of the individual characters. I also loved where the story came through in the omissions. You’re clipping along reading and suddenly you think, wait, did I miss something? Did he really just say, “The next morning?” What happened in between?

And the characters are so strong, especially the female characters. You will not be surprised to hear that the book has already been picked up for development into a series by a certain Hollywood powerhouse whose name rhymes with Schmeese Schmitherspoon. The audio version of the book has Jennifer Beals voicing the Daisy Jones character – brilliant casting.

I had a chance to hear Reid read (hahaha oh god I make myself laugh) last week at Great Good Place and was flabbergasted to hear her say that until she wrote this book, she really didn’t know anything about music. She was being interviewed by Alex Green of the Stereo Embers site and podcast and mentioned a few rather well-known ‘70s bands that she’s since become fond of, saying, “Did you know about them?” Like the universe as represented by Alex had been keeping them a secret from her. Whatever her lack of prior knowledge, she proved a quick study, creating a nuanced, authentic version of the ‘70s music industry, with a ferociously satisfying ending.

You’ll clip through it in no time and wonder when they’re going on a reunion tour.

Speaking of the ‘Mac – here’s Neil Finn playing Landslide with Stevie Nicks on the latest tour

*** Hello Dancers! I’m DJ’ing your favorite Alternative ’80s dance hits again on Saturday, April 13 at the Cat Club in SF, 9 pm – ? This time around we’re going deep with English Beat and Human League, and we’ll be raising $$ for Bay Area Food Banks. Come one come all! Send me your requests!

The post Turn Down the Music and Read: Daisy Jones & the Six appeared first on Midlife Mixtape .