Life on Planet Rock: From Guns N' Roses to NIRVana, a Backstage Journey Through Rock's Most Debauched Decade

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Lonn Friend was born on a planet that looks a lot like Earth but was one on which the music was heavier, the hair was longer, and the drugs, booze, and groupies were everywhere. After five years of helping Larry Flynt put out Hustler, Friend was handed the reins to RIP, the fledgling rock magazine in the pornographer's kingdom. Thus began one of the great runs in music writing, rivaling the best work of Lester Bangs and Cameron Crowe.

For the generation coming of age in the years from 1987 to 1994, RIP magazine was every bit as crucial as Rolling Stone. Life on Planet Rock describes how Friend became the Zelig-like chronicler of the biggest musical moments of that time--from introducing Guns N' Roses (in nothing but a top hat, underwear, and cowboy boots) to sitting in during the making of Metallica's Black Album.

Life on Planet Rock provides revealing portraits of artists as varied as Kurt Cobain, Gene Simmons, Alice Cooper, Axl Rose, James Hetfield, Steven Tyler, and many more. Part oral history, part candid and humorous memoir, it is a wormhole back to a fast-moving time in music that saw tastes flash from new wave to hair metal to grunge, told as only someone who was there through it all could tell it.

"In this nomadic, at times humbling memoir, former RIP magazine editor Friend recalls a quarter-century spent as a ringleader in the music industry circus. From the early 1980s to the late '90s, Friend enjoyed an insiders' perch for some of rock's greatest moments — he worked as a DJ, a rock journalist, editor of heavy metal's most popular magazine and had a segment on MTV. In energetic prose he invites readers along on bonding experiences like golf dates with Alice Cooper and riding in private jets with Kiss, as well as exposing moments of professional soul-searching at the hands of Metallica's Lars Ulrich and Pearl Jam. Remarkably, Friend's narrative maintains an even keel, whether he's being ignored by Kurt Cobain or wooed by Gene Simmons, and he candidly portrays the compromised, often confusing role of the rock journalist, constantly teetering between friend and patsy. The most enlightening part of the book is Friend's brief, failed stint as an A&R man, when the journalist who made a career on megabands staked his A&R career on the Bogmen, a quirky but brilliant New York outfit, and even made a run at Eels. Through success, excess and failure, music fans will enjoy Friend's anecdotes and his clear-eyed, hardly jaded view of the industry. (July)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

This autobiography describes how Friend, the editor of "RIP," became the Zelig-like chronicler of the biggest musical moments of the late 1980s to early 1990s. Part oral history, part candid and humorous memoir, it is a wormhole back to a fast-moving time in music that saw tastes flash from new wave to hair metal to grunge, told as only someone who was there through it all could tell it.

For the generation coming of age in the years from 1987 to 1994, RIP magazine was every bit as crucial as Rolling Stone. Life on Planet Rock describes how Lonn Friend, the editor of RIP, became the Zelig-like chronicler of the biggest musical moments of that timefrom introducing Guns N Roses (in nothing but a top hat, underwear, and cowboy boots) to sitting in during the making of Metallicas Black Album. Life on Planet Rock provides revealing portraits of artists as varied as Kurt Cobain, Gene Simmons, Alice Cooper, Axl Rose, James Hetfield, Steven Tyler, and many more. Part oral history, part candid and humorous memoir, it is a wormhole back to a fast-moving time in music that saw tastes flash from new wave to hair metal to grunge, told as only someone who was there through it all could tell it.

LONN FRIEND was born in 1956, the year Elvis brought rock n roll to the mainstream. He has been around musicas a DJ, writer, reviewer, developer of talent, and editorever since. He has had a regular spot on MTVs Headbangers Ball, and he lives in Los Angeles.