"All I Ever Wanted" by Kathy Valentine

 
When I heard that Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go's had written a memoir, it immediately went onto my to-read wish list. The Go-Go's were huge during the early 1980s, the years I was at university; I owned and loved their first three albums. They were -- and (almost 40 years later) remain -- the most successful female rock band of all time -- the first and only all-girl rock group to top the American music charts by writing and playing their own songs.  

Valentine is two years older than me (born in 1959), and "All I Ever Wanted: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir" covers the first 31 years of her life (up to 1990). The title is taken from a line of the Go-Go's hit song, "Vacation," which she wrote (with some later collaboration from the others)("Vacation, all I ever wanted..."). 

Her British mother and American father met when he was in England with the U.S. military;  they married and initially settled in Austin, Texas.  They split when Kathy was 3, and she and her mother moved back to Austin, renting housing in rundown neighbourhoods.  Mom was very much a laissez-faire parent, who did drugs with her daughter and slept with one of her teenaged male friends. (Yikes!!) Rules, boundaries and consequences were unknown in the Valentine household. Without few limits on her behaviour, young Kathy graduated from smoking cigarettes to drinking to smoking pot to harder drugs. She had an abortion at age 12 (!). She skipped school frequently, and her house became a hangout for other delinquents. 

While visiting her grandmother in England over Christmas 1973, when she was 14, Kathy saw Suzy Quatro on TV -- clad in a leather jumpsuit, playing a bass guitar and leading a band.  "...this was a female. Doing what I had only seen men do before... She was a fucking earthquake," Kathy writes in Chapter 8: 

I knew women existed in music. They sang in bands, they held acoustic guitars or sat at pianos. Years later I would learn that women had even played electric guitars in rock 'n' roll -- but I had never seen or heard of any of those women. Seeing Suzi Quatro had the same effect as lightning bolgs shooting through my grandma's house, with thunder blasting along. Where do I go, what do I do, who am I? Every question had an answer. All paths and possibilities suddenly pointed in one direction. 

Back in Texas, she started taking guitar lessons at the alternative school where she was a student and hanging out in Austin's many bars, where was encouraged by iconic local musicians such as Jimmie Vaughan (brother of Stevie Ray). On another visit to England a few years later, she briefly joined a fledgling all-girls band which later became known as Girlschool. 

Back in Austin, she and a friend formed a band called The Textones and moved to LA. In December 1980, she ran into Charlotte Caffey of the Go-Go's -- already a well-known local band with punk rock roots -- in the washroom of a bar.  The Go-Go's bass player was sick, and they had four shows booked at the Whisky-a-Go-Go over New Year's Eve.  Did Kathy play bass? She didn't, but lied said yes, went home, borrowed a bass and learned to play it and all the Go-Go's song over the next few days. The band decided to make the arrangement permanent, and the rest is history. 

The book ends in 1990 with the Go-Go's first reunion. (There's a brief epilogue that covers what's happened in the 30+ years since then.) There have been more reunions (and breakups... and reunions) in the years since then -- as Kathy sharply observes, the band members had a tendency to gloss over or ignore small problems until they became too big to ignore. Disputes over songwriting credits & royalties, combined with drug and alcohol abuse, were what initially tore the band apart;  sobriety helped bring them back together again. After one blackout too many, Kathy finally resolved to stop drinking in early 1989, and joined Alcoholics Anonymous. She has remained sober in the 30+ years since then. 

I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads. There are lots of rock & roll memoirs out there, including a recent influx of ones by female rockers (some better than others) -- including Pat Benatar, Chrissie Hynde, Viv Albertine, Kim Gordon, Ann & Nancy Wilson, as well as Go-Go's lead singer Belinda Carlisle.  (Links go to my reviews on this blog -- have I covered them all??  lol) All rock & roll memoirs include the usual/expected elements of sex, drugs and rock & roll, and there's plenty of all three here (along with some great anecdotes where famous names are dropped liberally). What sets this one apart (aside from the female rocker angle) is the quality of the writing, the depth of the introspection, and Kathy's raw honesty and willingness to share her pain as well as joy. Well worth a read, especially if you're a fan of the Go-Go's '80s music &/or rock memoirs generally.  

A new documentary about the Go-Go's was just released on Showtime in the U.S.  I hope I'll eventually be able to see it here in Canada... 

This was Book #27 read to date in 2020 (Book #3 finished in August). I'm currently at 90% of my 2020 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 30 books, and am (for the moment, anyway...!) 9 books ahead of schedule to meet my goal. :) You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2020 tagged as "2020 books."