Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing and at times infuriating, 30 Dec 2003
I am a great fan of Dave Grohl's. I regard the records he's been involved with as some of my favourites of all time. Knowing this, my girlfriend bought 'Dave Grohl: Foo Fighters, Nirvana & Other Misadventures' for me this Christmas. Author Martin James has a clear knowledge of his subject. But it doesn't feel like he's dedicated much more time to it than a weekend spent typing 'Dave Grohl' into Google. The book offers very little insight to who Dave Grohl is, what inspires him, how he came to be what and where he is today but quite simply tallies up all the bands he's been in and their discographies. It does briefly cover his relationships with band mates such as the Stahl brothers, Taylor Hawkins, Pat Smear and, inevitably, Kurt and Krist of Nirvana. To a fan of Foo Fighters and Nirvana, there is plenty of information about his lesser known works, collaborators, contempories and inspirations, giving you dozens of records to add to your 'to buy' list. But to somebody who has followed Grohl's career there is very little in here that will surprise or enlighten you. Which is really disappointing given the book's promise to be "comprehensive" and "insightful" in it's telling of the Dave Grohl story. As if to rub salt in the wound, the book is quite poorly put together; the glaring errors both factual and grammatical littering many of the pages suggest that the book was rushed from a collection of research to the 'completed' piece you just spent thirteen quid on quite quickly (the book, released in October 2003, includes, in one of it's early chapters quotes from a magazine interview conducted the previous August). Many sentences are repetitive or confusing and some are just plain irrelevant. The book appears to have not been edited or even proof read, it is a very scrappy collection of facts put together in a way vaguely resembling a finished biography. Ultimately, it is readable and it does succeed at chronicling the working life of Dave Grohl, however it's flaws are too great to really forgive or ignore. Tragically, 'Dave Grohl: Foo Fighters, Nirvana & Other Misadventures' makes for a disappointing and at times infuriating read. The colour picture of the lovely new Mrs. Jordan Grohl is a genuine treat, though. 1 out of 5.
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Ever heard of a proof reader?, 2 Jan 2005
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...
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36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A dissapointing and irritating read, 27 Feb 2004
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.
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