Quite literally Johnson have time-lined his life in cars. There’s plenty of highs and lows. From lights randomly popping out of his Lotus to the abject misery of owning anything made by British Leyland. There’s the odd insight into life on the road. Whether it’s bunking on the tour bus or being chauffeured around Europe in an executive limo in style. His band mates don’t make it out unscathed either and there’s plenty of falling in love on the road. Only with British convertibles and not slutty groupies.

It’s full of short, funny (some very funny) and punchy anecdotes. Via cars, he manages to leave no part of his life unscathed and that’s what’s truly miraculous and perhaps why Johnson decided to go this route for his biography – and it does work. There’s a sense that as a standard biography it would be too tight lipped and laconic. No question he has no problem opening up over some put banter about his cars though. But sadly it kind of lacks substance. Honestly I read this book cover to cover in three days. A decent reader could easily do it in a night. Not to Johnson’s detriment. This is a fantastic read. If only it could be longer.

One of rock’s true greats has passed. For those of you who came in late, Bo Never filled stadiums, that wasn’t his job. Instead he inspired virtually all the stadium fillers! Being a repressed drummer, he invented his own rhythmic guitar style, loosely based on the ham bone military sqwuark that soldiers march to. This in essence doesn’t sound like much but that beat became the foundation of early rock and roll that inspired the likes of the Rolling Stones. Together with John Lee Hooker and Chuck Berry, you have the fore fathers of rock and roll.

Although he died at a right old age of 79, he still seemed in his prime. In the last few years, he’d toured Australia and been on breakfast radio with JJJ’s J and the Doctor. It was amazing to hear one of rock’s greats, larking about talking about how his rectangle shaped guitar came from an experience where he knackered himself on stage once, jumping around with his standard Gibson! If it seems a bit unlikely, watch this video of Bo Diddley in action. In the same interview, he asked for radio station t-shirts to give to his grand kids at home. What a top bloke!

For all his years, he was still touring around the world, perhaps not by choice. Like many rock players of the time, he never got the publishing rights to his tunes that would’ve made him a millionaire many times over. Nevertheless he was every bit the vital performer for his age. I for one would love to have that energy in my seventies. And that alone deserves huge amounts of respect.

On top of all that, Bo was a true nice gent and never undermined his character or work. He wasn’t known to swear or carry on about drugs, booze and loose women (at least in his later years). He just wrote fantastic riffs that could even be danced to. If you don’t believe me, just ask the Rolling Stones. They owe a huge debt of gratitude to Bo for their sound – as do many legendary rockers.

So with heavy hearts we say goodbye to yet another rock legend. R.I.P. Bo Diddley.

P.S. Is anyone able to confirm whether Bo made a cameo appearance as the pawn shop owner in the Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places of the 80s? I’m sure that was Bo Diddley!

This book can be summarised in a few quick points: Axl Rose is a twat and never let a junkie tell you about his heroin habit. Don’t get me wrong. The Gunners truly the were the soundtrack to my adolescence and I think Slash rocks. Only I had no idea how big a smacker the guy with the top hat was/is.

It breaks down like this. The book is roughly 30% his (and other band mates) self pitying bullshit to do with heroin, 10% about Axl’s prima donna, delusional bullshit, 20% his youth, 45% about the Gunners getting together. The remaining 5% the kind of anecdotal cool stuff about other bands and rockers you actually want to hear about. Of that 5%, he talks about other bands like Faster Pussycat, Sebastian Bach, Motley Crue, Alice Cooper and a bit about Ronny Wood from the Rolling Stones.

Unlike Lemmy’s biography White Line Fever, where he only remembers operational and managerial aspects of his band (put it down to the masses of speed he takes), Slash somehow only remembers all the self pitying dope stuff. It gets a bit hard to read after a while. It would be cheaper to buy a hippie a drink (no doubt they wont offer you one). Don’t get me wrong, it’s punctuated with some interesting glam rock anecdotes, but there’s nowhere near enough.

One of the chuckles you get out of the book is that there’s the odd reference to David Lee Roth as some kind litmus test for glam rockers. For example, he talks about being concerned about AIDS in ‘85, then mentions that since David Lee Roth didn’t get it, he kept fooling around! Without ruining too much, at another point he says “so I did the only thing that made sense: I hung out with David Lee Roth all night”. So it’s not completely cut and dry.

On the subject of Axl, it would be good to hear his reprisal, but clearly he is a twat. No one takes ten years to get an album out, while sacking everyone in his original band, which makes everything said about him by Slash quite plausible, and he’s quite diplomatic about the whole thing. Surely, Axl’s bio would be encyclapedic. Who needs it.

Anyway on a more positive note, the first few chapters about his childhood are quite interesting, as his mum Ola went out with Bowie and worked with a bunch of musos. His dad also designed album covers, his mum stage costumes. So he was well and truly born into the biz. He was even more of a kleptomaniac than Steve Jones! There’s also a bit about getting Velvet Revolver together.

Closing up, I’m not quite sure if I can completely recommend this book. It’s all about how much damage you can do to yourself rather than drinking stories or on tour debauchery. Not really my think. 2 out of 5.