'Tale' traces descent into rock 'n' roll
hell
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - So you want to be a rock 'n'
roll star? Well, as the Byrds once instructed, first you get a
guitar and learn to play it, at least a little. Then you get the
right haircut, the right clothes. Then you go see the agent
downtown. After that it's cake; though, to assure maximum fame, it
helps to get an embarrassing video on the Internet, marry
fabulously, get hooked up to a drug habit and -- rock gesture of
all rock gestures -- to die young.
Jen Trynin didn't commit all of these star turns, but she worked
her way through a few. As she recounts in her booze-drenched and
smoke-wreathed memoir, "Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be: A Rock
& Roll Fairy Tale," her career trajectory started off
innocently enough: learning the guitar at age 11, identifying with
Joni Mitchell and other singer-songwriters, releasing a pleasant EP
on an obscure jazz label.
But then, in the whirl of the early-'90s Boston scene, Trynin
decided that she was really a rocker and formed a band. Here her
book takes off, and it's a whirlwind. At first, naturally, her
geography is all uphill, from the indignity of landing a slot three
dozen down the list at an open-mike night to the hard work of
flogging a self-released debut CD, the memorable "Cockamamie." More
than once she threatens to quit the music business, saying of that
particular kitchen, "It's not the heat, it's the stupidity."
