Mom, Have You Seen My Leather Pants?: The Tale of a Teen Rock Wannabe Who Almost Was

by Craig A. Williams

At the height of the hair-metal craze, when the airwaves were dominated by ear-shredding guitar solos played by men clad in lace gloves, cowboy boots, and tight denim, when Aqua Net was more precious than gold, when MTV actually played music videos and not just shows like Pimp My Locker , a band named Onyxxx (one X wasn’t nearly enough) came close to making it big. What stopped Onyxxx from taking its place beside legendary bands like Poison, Guns N’ Roses, and Mötley Crüe?   Sex, drugs, groupies, . . . and geometry homework.   Craig Williams, Onyxxx’s red-haired, head-banging guitarist, tells his tale of near rock stardom in Mom, Have You Seen My Leather Pants? With a manager who was a dead ringer for Loni Anderson, club owners willing to offer sexual favors and limo rides, and scads of California girls lifting their shirts and screaming their names, Craig knew what it was to be a star—until he realized that Onyxxx wasn’t the second coming of Warrant. They just weren’t that good. And Craig wasn’t having fun anymore.   A music memoir for any child of the 1980s and ’90s, a nostalgic trip down Sunset Strip, and a hilarious tribute to a musical era we can only hope will never have a resurgence, Mom, Have You Seen My Leather Pants? will give you an appetite for destruction.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music, Humor

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2007

Reviews

[Jeff Szpirglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an adolescent during the hair metal years who witnessed the abrupt shift to grunge (and mourned the loss of "Stairway to Heaven" as the last song at the dance), I'm probably the very specific audience this book is aimed at. Williams' memoir is a lively (and often ribald) recount of his teenage years trying to live out rock n' roll dreams, laced with humour and the right dose of nostalgia.

[Nranger7 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saw the title while at the library and decided to check it out since it made me laugh. Had I grown up in CA rather than WI I probably would have been one of this guy's groupies so the nostalgia was fun along with learning what it was like for him to play on The Strip. I imagine that someone completely unfamiliar with the hair bands of the late 80s would not enjoy this book very much. It could get boring especially if the reader didn't know the names he was constantly dropping. I saw another reviewer mention that he'd never heard of butt rock or rump rock. I haven't either so that part of the book was strange. Must have been a CA thing.

The other part that bothered me is the author changed the names. Um... has he not heard of the internet? The 1990 article from the LA Times - which he even quotes in this book - is available online! It includes the real names of the band members/manager that he's trying so hard to hide! lol Googling the real name of the bass player led me to the school where he's (secretly) a cardiology fellow. No secrets on the internet, Mr. Williams. I also found it interesting that there were FIVE band members listed in the article but only four were written about in the book. What's up with that???

I probably should only rate this a 2 but the stroll down memory lane made me kinder in my assessment. I enjoyed the creative chapter titles based on real songs and how he mentioned other (famous) bands that were on The Strip at the same time along with how he felt about them. However, it got incredibly boring when he would go into excruciating detail about the Onyxx video and demo tape.

I also think the story was stunted by how he felt compelled to hide everyone's true identity. I realize he was respecting the wishes of his friend who is now a doctor and that he is a bit ashamed of the debauchery today. However, it should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about 80s hair bands that there was sex and drugs involved. While the author was able to be more honest with the nasty side of their lifestyle, I felt that he wasn't able to properly flesh out the other band members. It was like he was afraid to reveal too much of their true character. That left him only with his self-deprecating humor to fill out the chapters. It could have been better.

And I expect a wannabe rock star to know how to spell Jimmy Page!!!!!

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, whose absurd title I will not type out, is a memoir about then-teenager Craig Williams's tenure in the marginally successful hair metal band Onyxxx. Unlike many books that describe this decadent era, Williams approaches his memories with equal parts nostalgia and retrospective amusement at the excesses and trends of the period.

The narrative is pretty straightforward. Williams starts Onyxxx with some high school friends and after a few disastrous gigs, they develop a following. Both shows and fan reactions improve until the young band is headlining sold-out shows on the (in)famous Sunset Strip. They score with groupies but the band implodes along with the rest of the hair metal scene in the early 90s.

While Williams is consistently amusing and occasionally quite trenchant (his comment that the hair metal craze was actually killed by the economic recession of 1991 several months before "Nevermind" came out is an intriguing counter to the traditional view), his writing often comes off as bloated and gimmicky. Throughout the book, he refers to his desire for rock stardom as a disease, often going off on paragraph-long descriptions of ailments, symptoms, and the lack of a cure. This was tolerable metaphor the first time he used it, but by the fifth time, it's just self-absorbed. Similarly, his insistence on reprinting entire lyrics to songs just to prove their vapidity is also a bit excessive.

If you're going to read one book that overthinks 80s metal, Chuck Klosterman's "Fargo Rock City" is still the gold standard. As it is, this book a fun-but-inessential recounting of a fun-but-inessential era.

[Jane Mackay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Craig A. Williams fantasized about being a rock star. The disease entered his soul at the age of 7, and by the time he turned 17 he and his band Onyxx (originally Onyx, later Onyxxx, for copyright reasons) had headlined a sold-out show at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip, counted a number of actual strippers among their diehard fans, and had been thrown out of a hotel for partying too hard with groupies and fans. And, most memorably for him, he had gently cupped a proffered breast in one hand and signed it with a Sharpie clutched in the other. Not long after that momentous achievement, the band of hair metal wannabes (all still in high school) imploded, at the same time as the scene itself did … and the dream was over.

Williams has never recovered, though, and his memoir of that time, while being in many places laugh-out-loud funny (so-described books rarely make me laugh aloud, but this one did, because that era is so easy to mock. One example from an early chapter: “Literally, the word ‘inspire’ signifies breathing in that which is around you, and by 1988, the music world had been seized by big-haired, leather-clad warriors, having nothing but a good time whilst pouring sugar all over themselves.”), is also poignantly nostalgic for an almost-realized fantasy that can — and will — never be recaptured. Williams will live the rest of his life, all 30 or 50 or 70 years of it, knowing that the one thing, the only thing he ever really wanted to do, to be, to live for and by and through, was almost his reality and never will be again. For a fleeting nine months, he was a rock star. (Albeit a minor one in a small milieu, but that milieu was the epicenter of the rock world.)

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't get the negativity toward this book. I had a good time reading it despite my HATRED toward the genre of music (and clothing) that the author and his band were championing. While I was more into Slayer during that time frame, I did have friends and acquaintances that somehow got swept away in the same wave of garbage that Onyxxxxx did. Its called: Being young and impressionable and living in the LA area to boot. I found this book to be earnest with a good sense of humor. The author's willingness to be honest about his thoughts and hopes at that time in his life coupled with the wisdom of hindsight made for an entertaining read. This is a fun book and is not to be taken too seriously. If the idea of hair bands angers you...maybe skip it. If you'd like a vicarious stroll down memory lane, by all means read it.

[Christine]

Have you ever seen the Decline of Western Civilization Part 2 and asked yourself - whatever happened to these guys? The guys who responded "...but I will" - when asked "What's going to happen if you don't make it?". Well, some of them grow up, go to college, get jobs working for NBC and then write a book about how they almost made it. Craig Williams certainly has fun recounting his teenage years in the LA heavy metal scene with his band Onyx/Onyxx/Onyxxx. He tells the tale of his first instrument, writing his first song, and getting his first STD. He got to autograph breasts, he got to play at the Whiskey and he got to live a pretty sweet life for a short period of time, at an age when it's not so bad to be broke but look great.

[Carol · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no doubt Craig Williams had fun writing about his memories of being a teen-age wannabe rock star. Unfortunately, I guess it's one of the those "you had to be there" experiences, because it's not nearly as much fun to read about.

It's a fast read -- I got halfway through the 200+ pages in about an hour -- and parts of it are laugh-out-loud funny. (Really, making fun of the Hair Metal era is about as easy as shooting BBs at the side of a barn.)

But I think this would have been better as a magazine article than a full-length book. In the immortal words of another '80s phenomenon, "Where's the Beef?"

[Kalliope714 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just by looking at the cover you can tell this book is going to be hilarious. I mean really? This guys is radiating 70s-80s. A young guy in an up coming and plays the gigs he can can get on his desperate search for fame. This is a auto biography ( a very fun one). Now this book can get a lil boring from my point of view. I almost abandoned it but i told my self to push through and it turned out to get better <3 kk

[rebeca · Rating 2 out of 5]

so i read it because someone told me about it, and we knew these people back in middle school. i only laughed towards the end. I'm wondering if I would've finished it had I not been curious about what happened to the bandmembers. i guess i give it two stars because i did laugh here and there. I'm just no one for memoirs, I think their all lies. Fictionalize it and then I'll believe it.

[wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

this was okay but some of the terms this guy uses... maybe it was a west coast thing but i never said (or heard) rump rock, butt rock, etc... it was interesting to read because he saw the same shows i did - only out west.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, a pretty funny look at a teenage hair metal band who almost made it to the big time in the world of Poison, Guns & Roses, and Extreme. It's a story about youthful ambition, dreams, and what happens when reality sets in.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Craig Williams was a sixteen year old rock star and lived to tell the tale. Cheesy cover, but a great story. I wish he had gone into more detail, but that's just my rock star wannabe talking. A fun bookthat I'm glad I read.

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Williams tries a bit too hard to be humorous, but overall an enjoyable read- especially for those of us who are close in age to the author and played in bands during high school and/or college.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you grew up listening to hair band music in the 80s, this is a must read.

[Migul · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanna rock, rock!!!!!!!!! An outstanding rocker who actually makes it through his life. I wanna rock, rock!!!!!!!

[TheSuperKim · Rating 3 out of 5]

read this in a night. instead of reviewing, not worth it.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A funny tale for those whose heart permanently resides in a certain time, and a certain place, surrounded by a cloud of Aqua Net \m/

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this highly entertaining read about a teen rocker from the late 80's early 90's.