Do you have a story for every record that has touched your life?
If you're the sort of person who enters the home of a new love interest and immediately gravitates towards their record collection to see if it's going to work out; who forgets your best friend's birthday, but remembers what album was spinning that one night back in high school, hanging out in the basement and dreaming about the future; who views every occasion as an excuse to create the perfect playlist... then this book is for you.
Jittery White Guy Music: True Rock & Roll Confessions From a Guy Who Bought the Album is a rock & roll memoir from the vantage point of an ordinary (if admittedly obsessive) rock music fan. Marc Fagel shares the musical moments that shaped his own life: from escaping pre-teen angst with the help of The Who, to spending his teen years buried in the darkest corners of used record stores, gorging on everything from Bowie to The Clash; from carving out his own musical identity in college courtesy of R.E.M. and The Replacements and a shoebox full of Grateful Dead tapes, to still finding room for occasional musical epiphanies as an indie rock-obsessed adult.
Does the book have its own playlist?
Do you even have to ask?
Here's the official Spotify soundtrack, with many of the songs and artists name-checked throughout the book in rough order of appearance.
While we're at it --- You'll see a list of my Top 20 albums in the book's introduction. Here's a playlist of tracks drawn from those records.
As described in the book, I grew up in a rock music-free household back in the late 60s and early 70s. My father was partial to 8-track tapes full of adult contemporary music, film soundtracks, and lounge music. But no need to use your imagination -- here's a sample of what it sounded like in my childhood home before I discovered rock & roll.