Bat Chain Puller: Rock and Roll in the Age of Celebrity by Kurt LoderMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I want to not like this collection, just because part of me resent my teenage fixation on MTV. (Loder joined MTV in 1987 as the host of their flagship music news program, The Week in Rock. It was later expanded and renamed to MTV News in which he was an anchor and correspondent.) In these essays and interviews, most of which were originally published in Rolling Stone, MTV commentator Loder takes a look at popular culture in the 1980s, focusing on the celebrity industry and how various members of the rock culture have dealt with it. The gamut is those looking back on greater heights: Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, Cynda Lauper, Deborah Harry, and others. What I really like about this is his cogent praises on unsung heroes that deserved fame avoided, including Iggy Pop, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart (hence the collection's title), and more. It's not just music icons here, Loder also covers artist Andy Warhol, actor Sean Connery, performance artist Laurie Anderson and even the fanzines and fans of grade-Z slasher movies. Loder defendes the purity of Bob Dylan and (against Republican co-option) Bruce Springsteen. Tina Turner then coming into mega stardom comes across with a gleam while Don Johnson still seems out of place, despite Loder's efforts. The post-fame medical woes of Ronnie Lane and the culmination of ZZ Top nicely fit in this compendium, which I have now been drawn to read twice.
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