Richard Lloyd - Everything is Combustible

 Richard Lloyd is, of course, best known for his guitar work in the groundbreaking band, Television, which brought the new wave of punk bands to CBGB's (the stage of which was literally partially built by Lloyd) and beyond. Lloyd went on to plenty of other work and plenty of other addictions'n'incarcerations and seems to be a somewhat unhinged or at least unearthly individual.

While he begins the book by saying how bored he gets with other autobiographies (this, he says, is a memoir, the difference being that these are his memories of events that he is not attempting to validate in any way) by their history lessons, so he gives a brief overview of his parents and then begins talking about his early life. He claims to have memories of highly intellectual'n'esoteric thoughts when he was as young as one, with a certainty that he had been somewhere before this earthly life, and claimed that he could leave his body, control his breathing and perform other rather extraordinary feats that he would stop only when he would fear that he could not control them any longer.

The story is not very linear, for instance he jumps from being a small child trying his first cigarette with a friend to junior high/high school, where he has already tried a number of drugs including heroin without any background into these experiments. His mind obviously bounces around continuously, from reminiscing about making explosives (he still has scars) to playing drums, then guitar, to drugs to sex and to his innumerable other interests.

As a teen he finagled his way into plenty of music shows and saw'n'met innumerable legends, including Buddy Guy and Jimi Hendrix, as you could in the 60's and the 70's! He drifts around the country, returns to NYC and simply by happenstance, comes across Terry Ork, Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine and changes the course of history! Besides music, he is an accomplished alcoholic and drug abuser by this time and makes plenty of excuses for this behavior.

What always amazes me about the early punk bands is that, although they were a rebellion against the excesses of the early 70's rock scene, the record companies were still in that mind-set and practically threw money at the groups that they signed - plenty of tour support, travel expenses, recording budgets and so much more that most bands can't even conceive of these days. Television did well initially, but I'm sure that Elektra did not recoup its investment, and the group broke up shortly after its second album.

Lloyd certainly had more opportunities than any one person should be allotted, and he cheated death numerous times, did more drugs and took more chances, was flown around the world to record and perform, received album offers, toured with up'n'coming and happening artists and much more. As I mentioned, he has non-musical interests that he recounts, as well, and he goes into detail about many different subjects as his mind wanders throughout the book.

Certainly a captivating read of a fascinatingly bizarre'n'talented individual. Sometimes I wonder if stories of abuse and near-death (multiple times) like this one serves as a warning or makes others want to emulate the lifestyle since he still survived only on rock'n'roll. I guess that is for the reader to decide!