Powder to the people!
Most blokes have two childhood dreams. One involves walking out of the tunnel at Wembley wearing an England shirt, the other, being part of a madly successful rock band, with all the attendant buzz of sex, drugs and drink. Powder is the story of just such a dream, charting the rise of The Grams from a group of unknown, penniless Scousers to one of the most successful Indie bands in the kingdom, if not the world.
The book, penned by a former writer for the NME, paints a vivid, and often hilarious picture of what everyone's idea of a true rock and roll lifestyle should be. The band's singer and song writer, Keva McCluskey, is just as angst-ridden and paranoid as one might expect, with a hang up about his advancing age which causes him to wear face packs and pluck his nostril hair. By contrast, the lead guitarist, the self styled James Love, is more bothered about getting laid with random women and high on cocaine, as well as trying to fulfil his disabled girl fetish.
Indeed, the book is at times rather too graphic about the band's antics and those of their C&A sweater- wearing manager, Wheezer. While on tour, the band conquer their boredom by allowing love-lorn groupies to suck them off, while Keva's experiences after taking 'porn weed' in Amsterdam are just too disgusting to mention, even in this newspaper. Suffice to say, "A posh wank would put the world to rights". The lads live it up on drugs as well, Wheezer rampaging around the streets of Ibiza after taking an ecstasy tablet, and James snorting coke so often that his nose ends up constantly dripping fluid.
Sampson manages, however, to inject enough humanity into his characters to prevent them descending into mere stereotypes, and with the possible exception of the self-centred and histrionic James Love, they are mostly genuinely likeable. The author skilfully, and one fears, knowledgeably, paints a very convincing picture of the Grams' rise to fame and their experiences on the way. Sampson does seem to know his stuff, from the dives of Liverpool to the swankiest London society venues, all brought to life in his writing. Similarly, he evokes well the ethos and atmosphere of the music industry, from money-grabbing, worldly wise American record barons to the band's geeky manager, Wheezer; "a music nut, a miser and a relentless masturbator". Overall, if you can stand the rather graphic imagery, and don't mind the endless references to drugs and drunkenness, Powder is a very enjoyable and entertaining novel; hardly Jane Austen, but well worth a read.
5th Oct 2000