This Was The Worst Idea Since Jerry Finn Signed Sum-41 Up For A Record Deal!
Written: Jul 15 '03
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Cool pictures, some hilarious parts, some informative paragraphs
Cons: Too short, too expensive, not very much info, lack of details
The Bottom Line: -
|
|
|
| JiggyJay's Full Review: Anne Hoppus - Blink-182: Tales from Beneath Your M... |
Introduction
When I was into Blink-182, I bought all the merchandise that my greedy little hands could hold and one of those things was this book, Tales From Beneath Your Mom. This book made a silent splash on the book scene when it was released in 2001 with little or no publicity about it except for some commercials every now and then or an advertisement in a magazine. It was the type of book that you saw in a store and just bought it out of curiosity.
Tales From Beneath Your Mom (showcasing Blink-182’s mad humor) was written by the band itself (Mark Hoppus, Tom Delonge, and Travis Barker) but most of the writing skills were from Mark’s sister, Anne, whom wrote most of the book herself and had the band fill her in on some details and give little interviews. In case you are wondering, Scott Raynor, the band’s previous drummer, is mentioned a lot in the book and finally tells the reason why he left the band in the first place.
My first gripe about the book is its longevity. It’s about 100-some pages and pictures fill up some pages. I like getting my money’s worth, and fifteen bucks is an insane price for a book that can be read in one sitting (Which did happen with me). Why was the book so short? Well, maybe there was the stereotype that young people don’t read much so they didn’t want to make it so long that people would get bored. Something else that I wanted to bring up was the complete lack of detail in some areas on the book. Anne would begin on a topic and go into a lot of detail and then towards the end of her explaining it, she gets lazy and just puts in the rest without caring about detail or imagery.
The pictures that are in Tales From Beneath Your Mom are pretty cool to look at, but the book is misleading. On the back cover or somewhere on the book, it says “Unavailable photos shown here!” and I have to say that that’s a load of crap since I have seen all of the photos that were in the book before and there were only a couple which I had never seen before. But the pictures are still cool to look at and it showcasing what the band looked like before they hit big and became a pop/”punk”/boy band. It shows pictures of Mark with feathery, yucky hair and it shows Tom with a ton of pimples on his face, and when you see this pictures, it will bring a smile to your face to see how much these dudes have grown since the early nineties.
There are some informative paragraphs in the book explaining about how the band got together, how long it took them to record their first CD (Cheshire Cat), and similar items, but other than that, all of the other things are common knowledge. It’s like Anne wrote some major details in things that weren’t important and skipped some important topics and that annoyed me quite a bit. But as I said, it was fun to read how their first album was recorded (I was curious since I have a band myself) and why Scott left and how Travis Barker came to sit behind the drum set permanently in the band.
Something I love about the book and is a definite high are the quotes that are posed throughout the book. There is at least one or two quotes by each band member (Tom and Mark did all the talking while Scott and Travis were on the sidelines for some reason) and they are hysterical especially by Tom Delonge (since I think he’s the funniest person of the group). In these little interviews, they explain in their own words what happened and backs up everything that Anne say. In fact, there’s a lot of humor in the book because of these quotes that the band gives, but as I said before, Travis and Scott barely talked in the book, which makes me believe (my paranoia is talking) that she has favoritism towards Mark (since it’s her brother) and maybe has a little crush on Tom and that maybe that distracted her to write down anything Scott or Travis had to say. Or maybe, she thinks that Tom and Mark are the ones who support the band and that Travis is just there to do the drumming and isn’t really apart of anything.
A majority of the book is Anne and the guys talking about their experiences on early tours and stories about what happened to them. Some parts are funny, but some are just plain boring. One that I enjoyed reading was when Fletcher (the guitarist of Pennywise, one of the coolest bands ever created) played a practical joke on Blink-182 and how they got him back and stuff. It was amusing to read them talk about their favorite bands like NOFX, Bad Religion, Unwritten Law, and Pennywise, but it was sort of “over-talked-about” and I felt like they were sucking up to those bands in a way. I just got that sort of vibe from reading.
Specs
Font: Too big
Page Type: Glossy pages
Media: Paperback
Pages: 106 Pages
Year: 2001
It’s Now Time To Say Goodbye…
In short, this autobiography isn’t necessarily bad, but it could have been a whole lot better. If you consider yourself Blink’s biggest fan then you should buy it because you’ll buy it and not care whatever I’ve said in this review, but if you like a couple of their songs and are tight with money, skip it because it doesn’t offer you anything that you can’t look up on the Internet for. In writing this review, I had to actually read this book again (it took me about 15 minutes) and I have to tell you that it’s amusing to read, but not good enough to buy and/or waste your time reading, but like I said, if you like the band, buy it (or better yet, check it out from the library). I had a bad time reading the book aside from some cool things, but that’s coming from an ex-Blink-182 fan, so don’t believe what I have to say. Just hear what I’m saying and that is that this book isn’t the only Blink-182 biography book in the sea.
Jason
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
JiggyJay
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: Jason Haskins
Location: Portland, Oregon
Reviews written: 653
Trusted by: 308 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.