Sick On You

June 27, 2016
Matheson’s memoir of the Hollywood Brats, a 1970s British glam band, is an impeccably grubby recollection of trying to change the course of musical history while living in squalor, nourished only by rock-solid self-belief, reused tea bags, and stolen groceries. Brats lead singer and songwriter Matheson accesses his teenage rock-star braggadocio to chart the implosion of the prepunk pioneers he led through hysterical highs and not infrequent lows. The highs include a weekend at Cliff Richard’s country retreat; gigs in the presence of Keith Moon, Jeff Beck, Bryan Ferry, and Rod Stewart; and venues full of sweaty patrons dancing and chanting the band’s moniker. The highest point may be getting a record deal with Immediate Records while living in a rat-infested squat. The lows include getting arrested and then being ridiculed by a cop for having just a few pennies and a lipstick in their collective pockets, and setting the famous Regent Sounds Studio on fire. Matheson is unrepentant, which elevates the memoir from a dusty, forgotten history. Like a two-minute punk song, the Brats were over all too soon—an arresting memory to a handful of true believers but less than a footnote in any music history written by its victors. The raw, well-paced tale is delivered with great humor. Spending a few hours in Matheson’s company is akin to catching up with a shambolic friend from ones university days—readers will be enthralled, in stitches, and horrified.

June 1, 2016
A rueful, funny memoir of a doomed life in rock 'n' roll.Dubbed (mostly posthumously) Britain's answer to the New York Dolls, the Hollywood Brats cooked up a mighty roar now enshrined in one very hard to find LP. The Brats--a name with "a dash of louche decadence to it"--began life as The Queen but were forced to change the moniker when another band with a record contract lay claim to it. No sweat for mastermind and axman Matheson, who is, as the narrative finds him smack in the middle of 1973, desperately seeking a record deal of his own. His representative made the rounds, tape in hand, and the record company executives listened. "They listen," he writes, "their smiles disappear within seconds, they turn him down flat. Old colleagues question his sanity." So it is in the glamorous world of glam-era rock music in swinging London, whose airwaves, as Matheson's spry yarn opens, are dominated by a tune called "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep," which, he rightly growls, "makes you want to drive spikes into your ears and crucify your brain." The author recounts the hard work of putting together a band, especially one with a drummer who can hold a beat and a bass player who doesn't look like he's trying out for Jethro Tull. If we've heard the story before--band squabbles over lack of money, band gets gigs, band squabbles over presence of money--Matheson writes with an easy, loping gait, covering the four years when Hollywood Brats tried to make their mark on the world, only to wind up a cult favorite 40 years on. If he's sometimes a little too breezy--his asides to rock stars of the era, Bryan Ferry and Mick Jagger among them, verge on cloying--it's a minor demerit for a book that's long on laughs and even insight. Read alongside Ray Davies' X-Ray (1995) and Jon Savage's England's Dreaming (1992) for a vivid account of a bygone musical era.

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Starred review from August 1, 2016
Odds are you never heard of them: despite their name, the Hollywood Brats have nothing to do with California. Instead, they were the London-based equivalent of the New York Dolls, and founding member Matheson's memoir is a real winner. When he arrives in London from Ontario in 1971 at age 18, he finds himself in the midst of a musical vacuum. The Beatles are over. Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix are dead. What the world needs, he insists, is a band that would rectify the situation. Wipe the slate clean. Sick on You, which is also the title of the band's best-known song, is a rollicking, hilarious tale of one man's quixotic quest to create the perfect band for the era: a pre-punk, glam band that's ahead of its time. He recalls one disastrous audition after another, and introduces a cast of characters who are quirky and idiosyncratic in a particularly English way. One of the many highlights is Matheson's meeting with future Clash-man Mick Jones and the members of the Sex Pistols (the latter resembling four trainee accountants . . . bug-eyed as lemurs ). Endlessly quotable and ready-made for the cinema. Cameron Crowe, are you listening?(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)