Dave Grohl: "Foo Fighters", "Nirvana" and Other Misadventures

As a Foo's fan i thought this book would give some insight into a man who I much admire, and respect what he does. On reading this well in want of a better word -poop- is the only way to discribe this peicing together of a collection of news paper reports and some wee anecdotes that the author has found. In some ways the beano is written better. Sorry in every way the beano is written better than this excuse for an autobiography. This was hum drum and very boring. I have had the good fortune not to buy this as a friend had a copy and he was swiftly kicked in the stones for letting me waste my time with this tiolet material.
Synopsis
AVOID
AVOID
AVOID

A Discography/Timeline little more. (3/3 people found this helpful)

On Christmas day like other readers I was getting ready to enjoy a little stocking filler giving to me by my lovely girlfriend who knows I am a foonut. A few hours later she saw me barking at the moon 7/8ths of the way through the book.

Now I know other people have reviewed this book with more than three stars, but I find it hard to grasp what they were looking for to mark it in such a way.
Agreeing fully with the earlier reviewer, page upon page describe specific songs in personal critical fashion from authors view. Is that what I'm after? Hmmm

Relatively no attention is given to upbringing and pre band life. I know its not an autobiography as such, but it seems to be sold from that direction and this would require a lot more investigation than Internet trawling and bitty word and mouth from music mags. There was effort but this book didn't give me any more information than that was commonly known by a foonut.

I eagerly await Grohl penned auto.

Ever heard of a proof reader? (27/28 people found this helpful)

A promising start leads to the realisation that this is a glorified list of bands, tour dates and singles, with lifted quotes and the author's own comments filling the gaps. A biography of Dave Grohl should be about Dave Grohl. This is a critic trying to showcase his own work. I don't care what he thinks of the music. If I did, I would read a review, NOT a biography.

Never have I read a published piece of work that has made me cringe so often. The grammatical errors are worryingly common - incorrect spellings and lack of punctuation littering every chapter. As a trained journalist I quickly spot unnecessary repetition and clumsy structuring, and this book, supposedly written by a fellow member of the press, is shockingly bad. If I see the word "aforementioned" one more time...

A dissapointing and irritating read (31/33 people found this helpful)

I have been a fan of Dave Grohl since Nirvana, and am, if anything an even bigger fan of Foo Fighters and side projects such as his work with QOTSA. So I was really looking forward to reading Martin James "biography" to find out a bit more of Dave Grohl's history, what drives him etc. I use the word Biography very loosely, as it's basically a discography with bits from interviews thrown in. There is nothing contained in this book that you couldn't find out from existing websites or interviews.

Compounding this is James' extremely irritating style, and what seems to be a complete lack of copyediting. I lost count of the number of typo's about two chapters in, and James frequently spells band names or peoples surnames wrong - I noted a couple of times where he had the correct spelling and a wrong one in the same paragraph! For me this made it almost unreadable.

On top of this, you get lengthy descriptions of the every song Grohl was ever involved in. nothing more than you would get from listening to his albums, (which i would presume the average reader probably would have done a couple of times!), and absolutely NO information on grohls upbringing, his family or his life. I don't want a gossip-laden book, but to simply state in one sentence that Dave had got married, when pages are devoted to describing each song really irritated me. As a girly fan, I wanted pictures of what Dave looked like as a kid, details about what he was like growing up, that kind of thing!

As other reviewers have already stated, the book seemed very hastily put together. The author is fond of pointing out how much Dave Grohl wasn't cashing in on Nirvanas fame (I actually agree with him on this point!), I feel that he is cashing in on Dave's fame without really adding any value to the information that is readily avaliable to anyone who can read a magazine or look up a website.

Dave Grohl: "Foo Fighters", "Nirvana" and Other Misadventure (3/6 people found this helpful)

HMMM. NOT A BAD READ, BUT I DID FIND IT SEEMED HASTILY PUT TOGETHER. MOST OF THE PAGES SEEMED INTERESTED ON TELLING HOW MANY DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF A PARTICULAR SINGLE WERE RELEASED, WHEN THE INFORMATION WAS ALL CONTAINED IN THE DISCOGRAPHY AT THE END OF THE BOOK. A LITTLE LIGHT WEIGHT FOR ME, DIDN'T REALLY TELL YOU MUCH YOU DIDN'T ALREADY KNOW, IT'S DEFINATLEY BEEN DOCTORED TO MISS OUT CERTAIN MORE AKWARD MOMENTS IN HIS LIFE IE... HASSLES WITH LOVE, TAYLORS 'EXHAUSTION' ETC... MAYBE NOT RELEVANT TO HIS LOVE OF MUSIC BUT I THINK IT WOULD HAVE TOLD MORE ABOUT HIS CHARACTER DEEP DOWN, AFTER THIS HIS PERSONALITY COMES OUT A LITTLE WOODEN, BUT HEY ITS ABOUT DAVE AND THE FOO'S, SO IT STILL ROCKS (OH DEAR)

Dave Grohl: "Foo Fighters", "Nirvana" and Other Misadventures

Martin James

Reader Reviews:

Leave writing to the Authors please............................ (0/0 people found this helpful)

A Discography/Timeline little more. (3/3 people found this helpful)

Ever heard of a proof reader? (27/28 people found this helpful)

A dissapointing and irritating read (31/33 people found this helpful)

Dave Grohl: "Foo Fighters", "Nirvana" and Other Misadventure (3/6 people found this helpful)

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