Friday, March 29, 2013

Off the Record

I picked up the novel Off the Record by David Menconi after reading his book pseudo-biography Ryan Adams: Losering, A Story of Whiskeytown. In the latter book, Menconi makes mention of Off the Record and indicates that he based one of the characters off of Ryan Adams and another musician from the Raleigh, NC area. I wanted to read the book and see how he portrayed a fictional rock band.

I enjoyed Off the Record quite a bit more than Ryan Adams: Losering, A Story of Whiskeytown, for the simple fact that David Menconi is not in the book. Unfortunately, in the Ryan Adams book, Menconi decided to make himself a figure in the history of the band Whiskeytown. Those who read my review of that book may note that I criticized Menconi for his determination to share his opinion, reviews of records, iPod playlists, and other extraneous trivia as though it was part of the band's story.

However, in this novel, he describes the rise and fall of the Tommy Aguilar Band (TAB). The story revolves around the members of the band, as well as a newspaper music critic (surprise, surprise), a bar owner/manager, and a crooked concert promoter. The story does a good job of describing the music business - at least how it looked in the later nineties and early two thousands.

Overall, the book was rather interesting and kept me engaged. The characters were all flawed, which made them believable. I think this book would be of interest to anyone who enjoys rock music, reading about the music business, or just enjoys a good story.

Off the Record

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