Rock stars stole my life!

Eleri brought this book back from the local Library the other day. Mark Ellen is not a name I knew although he has been a rock journalist on radio, TV and in magazines all my life. Clearly a gifted writer he guides us, very self-effacingly, through his life so far involved in NME, Smash Hits (which I thought I could remember pre-1978 but that must have been a ting called Disco-45), Q, Mojo, OGWT, Live Aid, etc, etc. Going from the Beatles via his time in a band with Tony Blair through to Lady Gaga and Rihana, he mentions any number of bands and songs, the majority of which I had heard of but many I had not. Inevitably you look out for favourites (Beatles, Kinks, T Rex, ELO, Thin Lizzy, Free, Sade). It is disappointing when you come to the only (passing) reference to Focus and see a proofing error (prog-rockers rather than prog-makers surely?). Lots of bands not mentioned, of course (Monkees, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Horslips, Enya, Ron Sexsmith). He makes some interesting observations as we go along. The most interesting thing about the book is probably the title - Rock stars stole my life! It's meant to be ironic, I guess, but reading the book, there's more than a grain of truth here I would guess. Be warned.