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Average customer rating:

A great read . . . and more
a trip down memory lane
wow what a read

Travels With My Amp
Greg Godovitz
Manufacturer: Abbeyfield Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1894584066

Customer Reviews:

A great read . . . and more.......2005-07-16

Travels With My Amp is a very skillful, fast paced and fun read. It gives a great insight
in the early years of one of Canada's great rock bands and the man that made them that
way. For the mothers with daughters in the 70's and 80's, your fears of her hanging
around a rock band were well founded once your read this book.
Greg has a wonderful way of expressing himself throughout the book. One can almost
smell the stall smoke, feel the sticky beer stained floors and feel the sweat spraying off
the rockers as they perform in a beer joint, or feel the excitement as they rock to 10,000
fans. This book is a must read to anyone interested in rock, and the music industry in
Canada.
Not to burst anyone's bubble about the wild man himself, I would just like to say that at
one time Greg's son was on the same 'T' Ball team as my son. The coach of that team
was none other the Greg himself. If I may say so, he was truly a wonderful person to meet
and was great with the kids - an all round nice and real human being.

a trip down memory lane.......2004-01-25

The author is my cousin, and i looked forward very much to the publication of this book (and, given that i live in Africa, could only get it via amazon.com). Greg did not let me down: Travels with my Amp is a real trip down memory lane for all those who grew up during the flower power and heavy metal eras of the 1960 and 70s (the book covers a twenty year period between 1964-83 or so). TWMP is a wry, insider's look at life in the rock music fast lane. centred mostly on canada's music scene, it's written with wit, wisdom, humour, anger and frustration. While the writing drags at times (hey... the guy's a musician, not a writer), the book's contents - his takes and reminiscences on style, culture, place, people, events - more than make up for the slow bits. Given its focus, however, TWMA is unavoidably parochial: it therefore will appeal most to Canadians who grew up during this time period. Yet, for readers far and wide there is still much to recommend here. For example, had he structured the narrative more like a novel (like, for example, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) instead of a sort of helter-skelter diary, then broader themes - e.g. hopes and dreams, highs and lows, struggles with adversity, squandering good fortune, the way coincidence and accident influence the course of our lives - could have been more clearly developed in this largely linear narrative (though he does also use flashbacks and flashforwards and includes observations from others who were there at the time). Nevertheless, these are universal themes and readers will rise high and low with our 'protagonist' in this saga of the transformation of a suburban dweeb into a mildly famous (sorry Greg!) 'pretty bad boy' of rock. Also here are many wonderful snippets of Greg's various brushes with fortune and greatness... there were so many times when i thought, 'if only he had done this...' Well, sometimes he did and sometimes he didn't. The reviews among those members of his family who have read the book generally fall along predictable lines: those of his parents' age dismiss it; those closer to greg's age and younger mostly like it. But isn't this the way rock 'n roll (and its attendants, sex and drugs) has always been: a quintessential marker of the 'generation gap' - between crew cuts and long hair (though the former now defines youth, and the latter, perhaps, aging boomer parents), stasis and change, fitting in and dropping out? i'm really happy greg wrote this book and that i read it: it's a real trip, in more ways than one.

wow what a read.......2003-08-16

i couldn't put this down, simply the best book ever on touring, rock and roll in general. i thought i was a fan befor, thanks greg

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