Dancing with Myself
Published on 7. October 2014
336 pages
978-1-4516-2852-4 (ISBN)
Description
A Rolling Stone Top 10 Best Music Books of the Year
"That's what I'm talking about…Of all these memoirs, Dancing With Myself was the only one that stimulated my envy?made me want to be Billy Idol for five minutes….He's a genuine romantic, writing in a kind of overheated journalese about his London punk rock roots…and then falling head over heels for America." ?James Parker, The New York Times Book Review
In this highly original memoir?following Billy Idol from his childhood in England to his rise to fame at the height of the punk-pop revolution?the iconic superstar tells the real story behind the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll that he is so fabulously famous for, in his own utterly indelible voice.
An early architect of punk rock's sound, style, and fury, whose lip-curling sneer and fist-pumping persona vaulted him into pop's mainstream as one of MTV's first megastars, Billy Idol remains, to this day, a true rock 'n' roll icon.
Now, in his New York Times bestselling autobiography, Dancing with Myself, Idol delivers an electric, "refreshingly honest" (Daily News, New York) account of his journey to fame?from his early days as front man of the pioneering UK punk band Generation X to the decadent life atop the dance-rock kingdom he ruled?delivered with the same in-your-face attitude and fire his fans have embraced for decades. Beyond adding his uniquely qualified perspective to the story of the evolution of rock, Idol is a brash, lively chronicler of his own career.
A survivor's tale at its heart, this sometimes chilling and always riveting account of one man's creative drive joining forces with unbridled human desire is unmistakably literary in its character and brave in its sheer willingness to tell. With it, Billy Idol is destined to emerge as one of the great writers among his musical peers.
"I am hopelessly divided between the dark and the good, the rebel and the saint, the sex maniac and the monk, the poet and the priest, the demagogue and the populist. Pen to paper, I've put it all down, every bit from the heart. I'm going on out a limb here, so watch my back." ?Billy Idol
"That's what I'm talking about…Of all these memoirs, Dancing With Myself was the only one that stimulated my envy?made me want to be Billy Idol for five minutes….He's a genuine romantic, writing in a kind of overheated journalese about his London punk rock roots…and then falling head over heels for America." ?James Parker, The New York Times Book Review
In this highly original memoir?following Billy Idol from his childhood in England to his rise to fame at the height of the punk-pop revolution?the iconic superstar tells the real story behind the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll that he is so fabulously famous for, in his own utterly indelible voice.
An early architect of punk rock's sound, style, and fury, whose lip-curling sneer and fist-pumping persona vaulted him into pop's mainstream as one of MTV's first megastars, Billy Idol remains, to this day, a true rock 'n' roll icon.
Now, in his New York Times bestselling autobiography, Dancing with Myself, Idol delivers an electric, "refreshingly honest" (Daily News, New York) account of his journey to fame?from his early days as front man of the pioneering UK punk band Generation X to the decadent life atop the dance-rock kingdom he ruled?delivered with the same in-your-face attitude and fire his fans have embraced for decades. Beyond adding his uniquely qualified perspective to the story of the evolution of rock, Idol is a brash, lively chronicler of his own career.
A survivor's tale at its heart, this sometimes chilling and always riveting account of one man's creative drive joining forces with unbridled human desire is unmistakably literary in its character and brave in its sheer willingness to tell. With it, Billy Idol is destined to emerge as one of the great writers among his musical peers.
"I am hopelessly divided between the dark and the good, the rebel and the saint, the sex maniac and the monk, the poet and the priest, the demagogue and the populist. Pen to paper, I've put it all down, every bit from the heart. I'm going on out a limb here, so watch my back." ?Billy Idol
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Billy Idol
Dancing with Myself
Book
10/2014
Touchstone Books
€45.94
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Person
Born William Michael Albert Broad, Billy Idol is a multiplatinum recording artist and two-time Grammy nominee. Known for successfully merging his signature punk attitude with an appealing blend of pop hooks, dance beats, and gritty metallic crunch, Idol created some of rock's most indelible anthems, including ?Rebel Yell,? ?White Wedding,? and ?Cradle of Love.? Idol's latest release, his first studio album in nearly a decade, is titled Kings & Queens of the Underground. He lives in Los Angeles.
Content
- Intro
- Dedication
- Prologue: They Say If You Hear the Bang, You're Still Alive
- Part I: London
- One: I Let Out My First Rebel Yell
- Two: England Swings Like a Pendulum Do
- Three: Rock 'N' Roll High School: Long Hair, Flares, and Hash Tobacco Cigarettes
- Four: Sucking in the '70s
- Five: And Then There Was Punk
- Six: In a Revolution, One Year Equals Five
- Seven: Generation X Marks the Spot: William Broad Becomes Billy Idol
- Eight: A Night at the Roxy
- Nine: Punk Comes of Age When the Two Sevens Clash
- Ten: Youth Youth Youth: Break On Through to the Other Side
- Eleven: White Light, White Heat, White Riots
- Twelve: Not Selling Out, But Buying In
- Thirteen: Bands Across the Ocean
- Fourteen: Ready Steady Go
- Fifteen: And I Guess that I Just Don't Know
- Sixteen: You Better Hang On to Yourself
- Part II: New York City
- Seventeen: A Rock 'N' Roll Conquistador Invades America and Burns His Boats Upon Arrival
- Eighteen: Making Mony Mony: A Left-Coast Fusion of Punk and Disco
- Nineteen: If You Can Make It Here
- Twenty: Hot in the City: The Making of Solo Billy Idol
- Twenty-One: Hollywood Daze and Tequila Nights
- Twenty-Two: I Want My MTV: Video Thrills the Radio Star
- Twenty-Three: Rebel Yell with a Cause
- Twenty-Four: A Change in Pace of Fantasy and Taste
- Twenty-Five: Everybody Must Get Rolling Stoned
- Twenty-Six: The Roar of the Lion and a Nonstop Global Orgy
- Twenty-Seven: Just a Perfect Day
- Twenty-Eight: King Death: An Aborted Film Project Signals the End of an Idol Maker
- Twenty-Nine: Top of the World, Ma
- Thirty: Return to Splendour
- Thirty-One: The Luck of the Irish
- Part III: Los Angeles
- Thirty-Two: We Need a Miracle Joy, We Need a Rock and Roll Boy
- Thirty-Three: La Vie Enchanté
- Thirty-Four: City of Night
- Thirty-Five: Trouble with the Sweet Stuff
- Thirty-Six: Drunken, Stupid, & Naked
- Thirty-Seven: I Bear a Charmed Life, Which Must Not Yield
- Thirty-Eight: Hollywood Promises
- Thirty-Nine: Have a Fuck on Me
- Forty: The Madam and the Preacher
- Forty-One: Mind Fire
- Forty-Two: Bitter Pill
- Forty-Three: My Road Is Long, It Lingers On
- Epilogue
- Photographs
- Acknowledgments
- About Billy Idol
- Index
- Copyright
