I found most of the main story felt like the type of plan-upending petty squabbles any hardly successful band goes through. Having had my own band in Detroit over basically the same time period as his in the greater Flind scene (mine was 1988 - 1992), I can relate much to Ribner's experience. Hearing him say it sent that familiar feeling of white-hot rage surge through my veins. “Nobody cares about your stupid band!” That’s what a family member said when I told him I was writing this book. Here's hoping John finds his way back to it, with new-found wisdom, gained through painful experience. However, he leaves the music scene behind. At the end, the finds himself in a better place, with a loving supportive wife and family. In many ways his experiences mirrored my own in the music business, and I came away with a whole lot of respect for John after reading Wasted Youth. Overall, his stark, even brutal honesty (the word uncompromising keeps coming up), guides the reader through the tale. He swerved between Hardcore Punk to Outlaw Country, and back, and did it without pretense. I have to hand it to him for his bravery in not staying with just one genre of music either. Watching him try to outwit the worst of them, is stark and painful. Still he gives as good as he gets, and you have to root for him all through his struggles, as bad minded jealous people dig pits in his way, trying to undermine his success. Wasted Youth is a hard, critical look at his own motivations, and he spares himself no quarter, recalling his failures as a person in various situations, with band mates, girlfriends and family members. His recollections of gigs and personalities are uncanny, and to be honest, he was pretty tough on himself. So many people shoot themselves in the foot with their music careers but John struggled mightily to stay the course, against some pretty tough odds. Many of the characters in the tale are people I know, and even though many of the names have been changed, some of them I still recognized from John's uncanny descriptions. To be honest, it wasn't a comfortable book to read, and in many ways, I personally related to his story, because John cut his teeth in the music scene of Flint's Capitol Theater, like myself. That proved challenging, as so many musicians in the scene were flaked out, and useless, in spite of his best efforts to keep everything together with his bands. Angry, sometimes violent, and uncompromising, John set on a path to blaze a trail to glory with his music.įirst though, to do that, he had to find like-minded individuals to help him. He chose Flint Michigan's legendary Punk rock scene, as his proving ground. John's dysfunctional childhood, and his parents own failures in life, (which they projected on him) left him with a big chip on his shoulder, and something to prove. So much so that you will find it hard to put down, once you start reading it. John Ribner's "Wasted Youth" is a riveting autobiography.
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