Turn Down the Music and Read: Dancing With Myself

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Turn Down the Music and Read: Dancing With Myself

Billy Idol, born William Broad, is the poster child for artists who made the transition from measured success in the pre MTV era to MTV-fueled superstardom. In his new autobiography Dancing With Myself (Touchstone/Simon&Schuster, 2014) Idol sets out a vivid, fast-moving account of a young punk rocker from Bromley, England whose sneer, leather pants, and bleached hair found a HNL* of fame once he was catapulted into the visual medium.

My friend Barry insists that Idol’s original band, Generation X, was one of the best punk bands ever. I hadn’t known that Idol and his mates actually opened a club in London in the late ’70s called the Roxy, so that Generation X and other punk bands who were being turned away from established venues would have a place to play. Idol clearly remembers the DIY punk era with great fondness, though where he is clearly thinking “romantic” when he describes club walls splattered with blood from syringes, spit, and semen, I tend to think “infectious disease.”

Idol’s MTV-era stuff always felt a little calculated to me, watered-down “punk” designed to appeal to the masses. No one can argue, though, about whether it worked. As I read about the process and inspiration behind each of Idol’s hit songs, I could hum every tune and never once had to look up a video to remember what he was talking about. In retrospect, his approach was incredibly effective at tapping into what people wanted to hear. Who can’t sing at least a few bars of “Eyes Without a Face?” or “Cradle of Love”?

It’s a wonder Idol had time to write songs as prolifically as he did, given the level of attention he received from “birds” wherever he went. You get the sense it was hard for him to even fetch the mail without some underage girl throwing herself at him. You also get the sense that he worked not very hard at all to fend off advances, despite long-time girlfriend Perri Lister (you’ll remember her as the bride in the “White Wedding” video.) He expresses all kinds of remorse about his wandering eye, during proud and Penthouse-worthy recaps of what exactly he had to be remorseful about. Definitely not a book to share with the kids.

But every story needs a good villain and by the middle third of Dancing With Myself, we have it: drug addiction and Idol’s denial that he has a problem. These sections read like a cautionary tale, proving that heroin and crack can make even talented sex god rock n’ rollers act like idiots. Between the time Idol was holed up alone in his NYC apartment, naked, unable to even find his black t-shirt on his black rug because he didn’t want to crack open his red velvet drapes, and the time he was passed out in a Bangkok elevator with the door opening and closing on him and a scandalized Mel Gibson – I repeat, a scandalized Mel Gibson – scurried his family away, Idol was one of the saddest literary bastards I’ve read this year. Had he not gotten the help he needed to get clean and stop snorting truckloads of coke – and the book is uncharacteristically light on details about how this transpired – his follow up single could have been “Face Without a Nose.”

To his credit, Idol has no trouble apologizing for the mistakes he’s made, the relationships he ruined, and the opportunities he missed because of his drug use. He apologizes for sinking a rented Jet Ski in Thailand – a Thai family’s livelihood – for good measure. But he doesn’t dwell, and you probably shouldn’t either. He’s Billy Idol, man. He has the best intentions, a huge appetite for life and love, and he’s been on a wild journey. In this book, we all get to come along on the ride.

Idol’s also just announced a World Tour in support of his latest album – check it out.

*HNL=Hole Nutha Level

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Thanks to the kind folks at Touchstone/Simon&Schuster, I get to give away a copy of Dancing With Myself. Want to win? Just come out to the next Midlife Mixtape “I Have to Work Tomorrow Early Bird ‘80s Dance Party” on Thursday, Nov 7 at 7 pm, at the Cat Club in San Francisco. I’ll pick one lucky winner that night and hand over the book on the spot…at which point my guess is that DJ Damon will throw this song on the wheels of steel. Hope to see you there!