The Book

Praise for "Off the Record"

Review
By Pete McCommons
Flagpole magazine (March 13, 2002)

David Menconi is the music critic for the Raleigh News & Observer, which is the North Carolina equivalent of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Menconi has obviously hung out big-time around the music industry, and he has got it all down just right. His novel “Off The Record” is the story of a hot new band with a crazy, self-destructive genius of a singer-guitarist; the rock critic who writes about them, the club owner who manages them and the promoter who steals them and destroys them by making them stars.

Because Menconi knows his subjects so well, this novel rises above caricature and cartoon to weigh in as both another serious indictment of music-world corruption and an enjoyable read at the same time. Readers familiar with the music scene will no doubt recognize models for the characters — the suicidal rock star, the rapacious promoter, the critic who wants to write the cover story for "Rockslide" Magazine — and all the weird band names sound just like those we see in Flagpole every week. The novel is written from inside the music; a lot of the sense of the book springs from the author's apparent understanding of what makes music music and what makes a band a band.

In “Off The Record,” the Tommy Aguilar Band (TAB) starts out playing at Each (a disgruntled musician busted out the "B" in the sign with a thrown beer bottle, so they just changed the name of the club). Right from the start TAB has something different.

Tommy is the real thing, always pushing himself and his band (Michelle Rubin on bass and Ray Roby on drums) to louder and crazier heights. Classically trained Michelle can keep up with him, and seen-it-all Ray can, too, so TAB quickly shoots beyond all the other wannabes in Raleigh. Bob, the owner of Each, offers to manage them and sends them out on the road to get some exposure.

That trip, in the old Dodge van, will ring uncomfortably true to anybody who has ever been on the road or even heard the war stories. Everybody eventually sells out, most of them to Gus DeGrande, the evil promoter. If the tactics he uses have any relation to those of his real-life counterparts, it's a wonder any band survives.

Menconi must be some kind of superman to write this novel. Usually guys who write about music on deadlines don't have the time or the attention span to write a book. Menconi has done it, and he has done it right. The book is fun to read and is as well-plotted as a Greek tragedy: everybody's desire to make it in the music business leads inevitably to his and her ruin, though a kind of redemption comes to some, too. The ending may be a little too neat, but by that time the reader is willing to suspend disbelief in order to get some satisfaction.

“Off The Record” can be ordered through any bookstore and is available on-line. His neat website, www.offtherecordbook.com, in addition to lots of lore about the book, has links to all the on-line vendors, including amazon.com and bn.com. “Off The Record” will, by the way, make a fine movie, so read it now and start thinking about who should play whom.