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List Price: $13.95 | | Publisher: St Martins Pr
Salesrank: 1843387
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| Our Price: $11.95 |
| Used Price: $0.65 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
This is a tumultuous tale of misfits who began a band as a joke and exploded to fame--a story of heroin addiction, break-ups, break-downs, disillusionment, death and high expectations of a band that dares to both say and show it all. color photos.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers Reviews:
Alexs review 
2004-05-26 - alrigh i read this book and i enjoyed it. i found some parts extremely boring though. i felt that the book focused more on the era the chili peppers were in and what was going on with music at that time than the actual peppers themselves. umm i felt it was really random and would jump around alot. it would go from talking about the chili peppers on one page and than the next page it would talk about the parental advisory stickers on CD's. although this book did have alot of information on the chili peppers that i had never known before. it was a good book but i have read better
(Behind The Sun
James Slovak)
thats it
Mistakes, wrong assumptions, bad info 
2004-05-24 - Basically the musical context of the 70's and 80's, and how it influenced a lot the young soon-to-become RHCP founding members, is well described, as well as some facts and anecdotes from their youth, but otherwise the author made a lot of not so forgiveable mistakes, advancing relatively contestable interpretations, and sometimes just inventing things because he didn't have the right information. Recurrent mistakes with dates (only a half of all the dates he's quoting in the book are totally correct), confusing album names (at one point he's quoting Mother's Milk as their "imminent album" in 1991, instead of Blood Sugar Sex Magik), mispelling proper names (unable to spell Miles Davis' song "Jean-Pierre", Fishbone's bassist Norwood Fisher that he calls Norwood Fishbone, Keith Levine instead of Levene, and so on...).
The "almost positive" point for that book would be the band's discography at the end, which is quite complete and accurate, except for the "appearances elsewhere" which contains again a few mistakes that would easily have been avoided by getting the records and looking at them for the exact info...
If you want to learn about the basic story of the band, it's ok, but don't believe everything you're gonna read in there. If you want to know the detailed truth, i suggest you to wait for Anthony Kiedis' upcoming book.
Very Informative 
2000-03-30 - i found that this book did an extreemy good job of what i hoped it would, and that is tell me everything i wanted to know about my favorite band, but it does more then that, the book shows what was happening in music and what different influences they had. it follows them from the very begining and ends around the time they are looking at dave navarro to replace the vacuncey that john left. A MUST FOR EVERY TRUE FAN
Good band, poorly written book. 
2000-01-07 - I read this book wanting to know more about my idols, and got alot of info I wasn't looking for. The story jumped from RHCP to stuff that I totally wasn't interested in, having nothing to do with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, sometimes going on and on about other bands. Anthony Kiedis(lead singer) even said once in an interview that he's atleast looked at basically every book that's come out on the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and most of it's a bunch of lies to make them look good and interesting (though they are, but that's beside the point), writen without permission. I recommend this for any collector and fan, but just don't expect Hemingway quality reading. The book's included pictures are neat, though, showing most of the band members in their highschool days... You make the decision.
Good book for the uninitiated, but.... 
1999-12-08 - This is a good book if you have just come upon the chili peppers and want to get an understanding of where they come from, but if you are a rabid fan, you won't be interested in this book because the author creates a distance with himself and the chili peppers, which makes them out to be these "famous people", without getting into who they are, and what they are about. Its basically like watching their behind the music story, with a few more trade secrets. Not worth it if you are a diehard Chilis fan, but good if you are just getting into them.
