Book 20 (of 52) – Daisy Jones & The Six

Daisy Jones & The Six – Taylor Jenkins Reid

Told as an oral history of the band responsible for one of the biggest albums of the 1970s, Daisy Jones & The Six covers the rise and spectacular fall of the collaboration known as Daisy Jones & The Six.  The Six were a traditional rock band, working their way towards success, with one album under their belt and another one on the way.  Daisy Jones was a precocious groupie-turned-singer, looking to make it on her own terms and nobody else’s.  When their shared label suggested they join forces for one song on the second album from The Six, it became the groups biggest hit and a successful tour, with Jones as the opening act.  The suggestion that she join the band leads to a commercial and critical smash hit, but at what cost?

It’s a tale as old as time, or at least as old as rock and roll.  A band rises to the top, egos get bigger and tensions flare, love affairs begin and end, and then *POOF*, just as quickly as it all began, it all comes crashing down.  Choosing to tell this tale as an oral history was a genius move by Taylor Jenkins Reid.  Instead of trying to create life on the road for a 70s rock band, something that would be difficult to do authentically for anyone who wasn’t part of that scene, she instead creates the book equivalent of the group’s Behind The Music episode, something we are all familiar with, and lets the reader fill in the details and the missing pieces in-between the memories of each band member.

Concert Flashback: The Monkees

01monkeesFollowing a resurgence in customer interest after their appearances on VH1’s Behind The Music and the E! True Hollywood Story, Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork decided to regroup (sans Michael Nesmith) and go on their first tour since 1997 as the Monkees.  Their Chicagoland appearance was a Sunday afternoon at the Star Plaza Theatre in beautiful Merrillville, Indiana.

To say this was unlike any other show I had been to would be a bit of an understatement.  For one thing, it was a Sunday afternoon.  Also, the average age of the crowd was about 75, give or take a decade.  Which meant that everyone stayed in their seats for the entire show.  Thirdly, there was no opening act.  Instead, the supporting act, the never heard of before or since group known as Natural, came out in the middle of the show to give the old timers a bit of a break.

According to the Interwebs, the trio hit all of the bands biggest hits, even those originally fronted by Nesmith.  I suppose a good time was had by all in attendance.