'Singer. Songwriter. Swamp child. Soul man. Tex Perkins is a true rock'n'roll animal. In this loud, uncut, no-holds-barred, laugh-out-loud and take-no-prisoners memoir, the enigmatic king of the Australian music underground lays bare an extraordinary life lived on the road, on the stage and on the edge.
'Raised a bible-thumping Catholic and beaten bloody on the streets of Brisbane for being a "cow-punk", skinny Gregory Perkins flees to Sydney and mutates into "Tex", rogue leader of the Dums Dums, Thug and Salamander Jim before finding a strange kind of success, celebrity, sex symboldom and icon status as Tex Perkins, snake-hipped, honey-voiced, often bloodied frontman of influential Aussie bands the Cruel Sea, Beasts of Bourbon and Tex, Don & Charlie... and inventor of "Zoneball".
'Gigs. Albums. Tours. Fights. Feuds. Arrests. Drugs. High times. Low roads. This is a wild ride of a life written loudly, proudly and full of punk energy.' (Publication summary)
'Memoirs about positive people who jog are not for me. I far prefer a big fat rock memoir with a black cover and razor-wire font. You don’t read these books for redemption or life skills, though, strangely, they sometimes contain them.
'Often a toxic tale, say Scar Tissue by Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, will squeak out some clean memories. Expunged of chemicals and body fluids, like a donor organ. Hence the obligatory ‘‘detox’’ bit at the end of some rock biographies: Sting assuming full lotus position or Elton John hanging another Rembrandt in the loo.' (Introduction)
'Memoirs about positive people who jog are not for me. I far prefer a big fat rock memoir with a black cover and razor-wire font. You don’t read these books for redemption or life skills, though, strangely, they sometimes contain them.
'Often a toxic tale, say Scar Tissue by Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, will squeak out some clean memories. Expunged of chemicals and body fluids, like a donor organ. Hence the obligatory ‘‘detox’’ bit at the end of some rock biographies: Sting assuming full lotus position or Elton John hanging another Rembrandt in the loo.' (Introduction)
