The Mammoth Book of Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll

by Jim Driver (Editor), Stewart Home (contributor), Mick Farren (contributor)

The western world was turned upside down by the rock ‘n' roll revolution and here's the real lowdown on the rock stars who made it happen — and what it did to their lives.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, Essays, History, Anthologies, Rock N Roll

640 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Victoria Garcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many typos! The last fifty pages are the best part of this whole book.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Mammoth Book of Sex, Drugs & Rock 'N' Roll edited by Jim Driver (Carroll & Graf Publishers 2001) (782.421). I liked this book a bunch! The editors delivered a collection of muck equal to the titillating title. Parts of it drove me crazy though. The editing was inconsistent. The reprinted materials were fine. However, the final seventy-five pages of the book may be original material. It's a catalog of famous deaths, overdoses, and flame-outs. It sorely needed the hand of a human editor. Simply running a spell-check program would have resolved most of the problems. A tip of the cap is due the editors for their research for this volume. They presented some stories here that I had never heard. This is one I'll place in my personal library of material on the Sixties. My rating: 7.5/10, finished 2/4/15.

[Abdul Qadir · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's not to like with a title like that?

[Crystal Cramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised how interesting it turned out to be. I never before heard any of the stories of a lot of musicans I'm a fan of.

[Ann Baxter · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was ok but personally I wasn’t interested in some of the artists written about

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book could also have been called The Bumper Book Of Musicians Behaving Badly. It takes a broad sweep through rock 'n' roll, punk, rock and some indie and metal and it covers the doings of a lot of famous and infamous faces (and their other body parts). It features some great writers (Mick Farren, Charles Shaar Murray and Jenny Fabian to name just three) and it's worth buying even if you decide to skip the odd section about a musician or band you're not interested in. I read it from cover to cover. It's a good dip into and out of book.

[Emma Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this book into the new year.. it's a light read and i thoroughly enjoyed it. All of the rock and roll legends have been written about in this book, and I felt i got to know the likes of Joey Ramone and Jim Morrison even more after reading this book! I read this alongside another fiction book, and it fitted in perfectly because it was a nice break from a heavy crime thriller! Brilliant, GO READ IT!!

[Jacques Siebrits · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was a bit of a slog - maybe I have just done too many rock music related books in the last year or two. There were some really good bits though, like Diary of a Rock'n'Roll Star by Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople fame, and the Dead End Street section at the end of the book. And Nick Coleman's description of Keith Richards laugh was fanbloodytastic.
Oh, and I found the many typos distracting. Whoever was responsible deserves a public flogging.

[Magnolia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't even get halfway through it; I guess that's why they call it mammoth. Some stories are interesting, most are not. This is a book that you can skip chapters without missing a beat, but it just isn't interesting to me.

[Colin Murtagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting not so little book. I found myself caught up in many of the stories, even of the band's I had no real interest in. Whilst well researched some of the stories may come as no surprise to those well versed in the music scene, however an interesting and fun read

[Tankboy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty decent. A number of the essays are a little painful but I actually enjoyed the face some of them were about bands popular at the time but pretty unknown now. Cool view on how music writing has progressed over the years.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting summary of lives and deaths of some of rock n' rolls greatest characters!

[Isobel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Entertaining at first but I quickly got bored.