This is the best book ever written by a musician.
Forget "Repossessed / Head On" by the genius that is Julian Cope. Forget "45" by Bill Drummond. Forget that Marilyn Manson book. Forget even "The Dirt" by Motley Crue. "Fucked By Rock" is one of the best books ever written.
If you want tour dates, facts, or anything about the music then don't bother reading this. If you want tales of depravity and betrayal then this is the book for you. This is a determindedly stomach churning read. It makes Motley Crue look like the amateurs and lightweights they are.
Zodiac Mindwarp took everything ridiculous, stupid, and laughable out of 80's metal, and made it their own. They magnified everything by 100 times, turned langauge inside out, look amazing, and sounded like the best, most pofaced joke ever told. They were the Gun N Roses you laughed with and not at. And in the shape of "Prime Mover" they single handedly wrote the book every metal act copied for years after - the art of dumb macho rock played to illogical extremes for maximum effect and maximum laughs.
Their videos started where most films ended - with Zodiac drove a tank through a plate glass window of a church and used voodoo laser-shooting guitars to turn sleeping Nuns into leather clad rock vixens whilst surrounded by Black Leather Rock Stormtroopers. Fed on a diet of Comics, bad war films, and junk food they were nothing more - and nothing less - that the best rock band in the world for a few short minutes because they know that music is simultaneously the highest, and lowest, form of art
And whilst a lot of the book may seem to be little more than a juvenile wank and sexfest, Zodiac Mindwarp exposes the heart of all musicians dreams - to remain the permanent adolesecent spoilt brat, surrounded by women, drugs, and alcohol, - and reveals the indulgent selfish beast that lives in all of us.
Anyway, the book is alternately and simultaneously a thrill ride through the high and low points of life in a not-very-big depraved rock band touring the toilets of the world, and a scatalogical list of sexual depravity, foreign porno emporiums, groupies, and a little miniscule amount of Rock in as well.
It starts at this unsophisicated level and rapidly descends into the Dirt, where recriminations, stupidity, and record company backbiting see them playing to 50 people in the middle of nowhere on a long stale comeback trail and end up splitting up in a cloud of acrimony, fear and loathing as the band are well are truly Fucked By Rock.
Unmissable. And the free CD with some copies contain some of the finest recordings Zod has ever committed to silver - the awesome "Fucked By Rock", the Elvis-Gone-Metal "The King of Love Ain't Dead" and the pornographic comedy of "20,000 Women" which ses Zod trapped petpetually in some kind of afterlife orgy.
All Hail!
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10Mark Reed's Score