Review by  Ken Shimamoto Originally for  I-94 Bar

First, an admission: Mick Farren is one of my idols for his ability (like Deniz Tek) to integrate a productive career doing Other Stuff with one as a rock 'n' roller. Self-educated, an aficionado of U.S. garbage culture, what I once referred to as a rock 'n' roll Renaissance man. Part apocalyptic visionary in the manner of Bill Burroughs or amphetamine Dylan, part social critic, Mick Farren is definitely the most ROCK ' N' ROLL scribe working in the genres of science fiction and more recently, Gothic horror (18 novels at this writing, including the shamefully out-of-print DNA Cowboys trilogy and three volumes of the excellent Renquist Quartette). He's also written nonfiction, from agitprop rants for the seminal Brit sixties underground rag International Times, to prescient critiques of punk while it was happening for the New Musical Express, to books about paranoid conspiracy theories, the black leather jacket, and Elvis Himself. Oh yeah, and he's released 19 (so far) albums of twisted rock'n'roll insanity, usually under the Deviants rubric; a series of appearances are planned for L.A. and the U.K. this fall. These are his memoirs of sixties and seventies excess and abandon. We've had tantalizing tastes of this in Ugly Things and Ptolemaic Terrascope, but this is the full monty, and it doesn't disappoint. For such a tireless self-promoter, Farren's voice here is pretty matter-of-fact and unsensational, with a good bit of self-depracating humour. (I see a similar shift in his recent fiction, the relatively unornamented prose of the vampire novels contrasting with the more fantastic style which seemed to be wearing thin in "Jim Morrison's Adventures in the Afterlife.")  This is far from the confessional autobiography one might have expected; no childhood familial traumas here (although he briefly alludes to his father's having been shot down on a bombing raid over Germany during World War II and an adolescence spent feuding with an "evil stepfather"). This is the narrative of a witness to momentous events, and Farren was present for more than a few: the bank holiday Mod-Rocker riots in Brighton, Dylan's epochal '65 and '66 Royal Albert Hall appearances, working the door at the UFO Club (early hub of the London underground), the "14-Hour Technicolour Dream" (early watershed of same), the IT and "Nasty Tales" obscenity trials, the Phun City and Isle of Wight festivals (arguably the last hurrah), not to mention a kaleidoscope of gigs and riots (and getting head onstage at the Roundhouse). Besides the obvious cultural touchstones (Dylan, Hendrix, the Sex Pistols), he profiles such underground movers-and-shakers as "Bomb Culture" author Jeff Nuttall, IT founder John "Hoppy Hopkins, UFO impresario Joe Boyd, Indica Books don Miles, academic/feminist/groupie Germaine Greer, the various Deviants and backstage mainstays Boss Goodman and "H" (whom I remembered from his appearances as a talking head in "A Film About Jimi Hendrix"). Farren's definitely a minority taste, but the curious who try this out will be rewarded by his keen observer's eye and surprisingly good memory for detail. This gives the lie to whoever it was that said, "If you can remember the sixties, you weren't there." Farren was there; he remembers and provides some fascinating glimpses. A worthwhile read that culminates with his departure for the States at the ass-end of the seventies. Could there be a sequel in the offing? We'll wait and see. Three McGarretts