I gotta tell you how utterly entertaining of a learning experience it was listening to Johnny Depp, Joe Hurley and Keith Richards read his autobiography Life. You should download it, its out there and it’s well worth the 23 hours of listening time.
Things that changed for me by reading this book:
1. I learned Malaguena on the guitar. I kinda knew it but I went back and really studied up. Keith says its a great way to woo a chick and her family. Two bars of Malaguena and you’re in.
2. Me and Keith like a lot of the same music. In the early chapters where he’s rattling off old bluesmen, I with him for everyone especially Jimmy Reed, Bill Broonzy, Chuck, Muddy and folks like Scotty Moore. I’m one of those guitar nerds who went back and listened to licks that Keith described.
3. I wanna try to stay up for 5 days straight. I don’t think I can do it, I sleep at least 9 hours a day as it is and have only stayed up all night maybe 10 times max. But I know about getting into musical hypnosis / mania / time warps, when I will wake up and work on something and before I know it, I’m having breakfast at 11pm.
4. Tom Waits really comes through with some awesome quotes in a late chapter: “Everybody loves music, what you want is for music to love you” and about good music “I don’t care if it’s gonna sell, to me it’s already has”.
5. All I wanna do is study, play and be surrounded by music and people who love it too.