Youth Gone Wild?
Sebastian Bach - 18 And Life On Skid Row 3/5
First off, I want to say how disappointed I am in the poster that came with the book. I was expecting the bloated, puffy, Sebastian Back circa 2017, but what I got was Sebastian Bach circa 1991. Isn't that false advertising? Why even include a poster on the back of a slip cover anyway? Secondly, did we even need this book? Skid Row's first two albums were perfect hard rock and metal, and then they just disappeared because they started to suck. Of course we may have the answer we've all wanted for twenty years. Why did they fire this guy? Wasn't he after all the voice of Skid Row? I dunno, but when I saw the price of the hardcover vs the cost of the paperback I figured I should check it out. I was once a fan of Skid Row, and then there was that whole Vh1 show called Supergroups.
So, the first mistake here is allowing Bach to write his own biography. The guy is all over the place and guess what? For a life story, it's quite lacking. We hear about his first wife Maria, and then we see that she's pregnant, and guess what? Nothing else is mentioned until he hooks up with Christina Applegate and he declares how much he loves his wife. A wife he have yet to meet, or even hear about. What we do get is the wild crazy Bachinator. A guy who parties hard, and we get to read about it a lot. I mean, the entire book is really about his drinking and taking drugs. The facts of his life are very few and far between. Back comes off immature, and not very likable. We don't get to know him a whole lot which is kind of the point of these damn books.
I learned exactly why a ghost writer is important, and if Bach had one, this would have been a far better book. We would have had his entire history instead of just snippets that Bach throws in randomly. Let's also face the fact that Bach loves to drop names. It's almost as if he wants us to think he's a lot cooler than he really is. So, if you're not a fan, or even if you are a fan, you can skip this book, or wait until it hit it hits your local bargain bin. You won't learn anything here unless it's how to consume blow, and alcohol and pretty much be a douche. That's the extent of the book. Bach wrote about his parties, not his life. Yeah, seriously.
Okay, so I did give it three stars because it was a bit entertaining in an odd sort of way. Bach is immature and clearly has a hard time focusing, but that's what makes the book less of a train wreck than it appears. I may not have learned a lot about Back as a person, but man does he have some funny stories, and oddly, the book comes alive when he talks about his time on Broadway, and the loss of his father. That's near the end of the book folks. Until that point you have stories, but nothing about Bach's personal life, or the woman he married twenty years ago. The facts don't matter, but man, the guy can really tell a good story.
First off, I want to say how disappointed I am in the poster that came with the book. I was expecting the bloated, puffy, Sebastian Back circa 2017, but what I got was Sebastian Bach circa 1991. Isn't that false advertising? Why even include a poster on the back of a slip cover anyway? Secondly, did we even need this book? Skid Row's first two albums were perfect hard rock and metal, and then they just disappeared because they started to suck. Of course we may have the answer we've all wanted for twenty years. Why did they fire this guy? Wasn't he after all the voice of Skid Row? I dunno, but when I saw the price of the hardcover vs the cost of the paperback I figured I should check it out. I was once a fan of Skid Row, and then there was that whole Vh1 show called Supergroups.
So, the first mistake here is allowing Bach to write his own biography. The guy is all over the place and guess what? For a life story, it's quite lacking. We hear about his first wife Maria, and then we see that she's pregnant, and guess what? Nothing else is mentioned until he hooks up with Christina Applegate and he declares how much he loves his wife. A wife he have yet to meet, or even hear about. What we do get is the wild crazy Bachinator. A guy who parties hard, and we get to read about it a lot. I mean, the entire book is really about his drinking and taking drugs. The facts of his life are very few and far between. Back comes off immature, and not very likable. We don't get to know him a whole lot which is kind of the point of these damn books.
I learned exactly why a ghost writer is important, and if Bach had one, this would have been a far better book. We would have had his entire history instead of just snippets that Bach throws in randomly. Let's also face the fact that Bach loves to drop names. It's almost as if he wants us to think he's a lot cooler than he really is. So, if you're not a fan, or even if you are a fan, you can skip this book, or wait until it hit it hits your local bargain bin. You won't learn anything here unless it's how to consume blow, and alcohol and pretty much be a douche. That's the extent of the book. Bach wrote about his parties, not his life. Yeah, seriously.
Okay, so I did give it three stars because it was a bit entertaining in an odd sort of way. Bach is immature and clearly has a hard time focusing, but that's what makes the book less of a train wreck than it appears. I may not have learned a lot about Back as a person, but man does he have some funny stories, and oddly, the book comes alive when he talks about his time on Broadway, and the loss of his father. That's near the end of the book folks. Until that point you have stories, but nothing about Bach's personal life, or the woman he married twenty years ago. The facts don't matter, but man, the guy can really tell a good story.
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