Party Like a Rock Star

Shut Up and Give Me the Mic
Dee Snider
Memoir

I feel like I shouldn’t be writing a review for this book. I have never, nor will I probably ever, be into Twisted Sister and that style of music. I mean, I’ve heard We’re Not Gonna Take It (who hasn’t?), but I’m not at all into rock/glam/heavy metal. The only reason I picked this book up was because I read the inside jacket and was intrigued to discover Mr. Snider met his future wife when he was twenty, fell for her right away, he’s never cheated on her, and they have four kids. So I read it for the love story. Not the music.

Which brings me to my problem. Most of the book is about the music. Fair enough, it’s a rock and roll memoir, I knew that going in. So I skimmed. A lot. I was really only interested in his family life. Unfortunately, I think reading Michael Ian Black’s surprisingly romantic book earlier (see post entitled The Real Deal) spoiled me for other memoirs because this one blew my mind. And not in a good way. Mr. Snider meets his future wife, Suzette, when he’s twenty and she’s only fifteen! To up the weirdness factor, turns out she doesn't even like him or feel attracted to him when they meet. He falls head-over-heels. Not her, though. But then it gets weirder. She tries and tries to break up with him over the course of the next few years. He refuses (I thought that only happened on Seinfeld?). Eventually he wears her down and talks her into marriage. How romantic, right? As I was reading this, I just kept thinking, is he for real? It would’ve been nice to get Suzette’s side of the story to make sure he didn’t really force her into marrying him, but that’s pretty much what it sounded like. Good lord.

Then there’s Mr. Snider’s writing. I admire the fact that he wrote this monster tomb all by himself. However, he needs to do away with the footnotes (again with stupid footnotes!) and the italics (again with annoying italics!). The italics bothered me the most because almost all of them were completely unnecessary. Some of them even took away from the jokes he was trying to make.

If you’re a fan of Twisted Sister or Dee Snider, you’ll enjoy this book because it has lots of details on the music business and backstage gossip. Otherwise, don’t bother. A grand lovestory it ain’t.