Never the Same Again: A Rock 'n' Roll Gothic

by Jesse Sublett

On a hot August night in Texas, 22-year-old Jesse Sublett was onstage experiencing what he thought was the realization of a long-held his first big gig with a rock band. The next day, however, as he returned home, he found a nightmare His longtime girlfriend, Dianne Roberts, had been savagely murdered in their bed. Jesse became the police’s prime suspect. While in custody he figured out how a close friend brought the serial killer into their home. Jesse solved the crime and, though he couldn’t undo the damage, he moved on. Jesse and pals Fazz Eddie Muños, Jon Dee Graham, and Billy Blackmon created the Skunks―a new wave rock ’n’ roll band that was instrumental in establishing Austin, Texas, as the live music capital of the world. In his star-studded memoir you’ll find cameo appearances from Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Elvis Costello, Carla Olson, Rolling Stones, Go-Go’s and more. In the late 1990s Jesse was diagnosed with stage IV throat cancer, with less than 99 per cent chance of survival. He came to understand that the cancer was somehow connected with his past, with the hardscrabble life he endured growing up in the Texas Hill Country, his girlfriend’s murder, and the self-absorbed life of his years on tour with the band. Never The Same Again is a road trip through a landscape of rock and roll dreams, murder and disease―a true story, mostly, about a tall, rugged Texan facing long odds and running out of time.

Genres: Music

296 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Jesse Sublett is an Austin, Texas musician, painter and author of 13 books, including crime fiction, true crime and history.

Reviews

[Michael Jandrok · Rating 4 out of 5]

It reads like a scene from a detective novel. A young musician returns home from a road trip only to discover the body of his girlfriend, strangled and abused. Taken into custody by the police and promptly named as suspect number one, he helps the police solve the crime. His life shattered, he picks up the pieces and moves on. But this isn't a scene from a fictional novel, it's the beginning of the one of the most intense and inspiring memoirs that I've ever read. “Never The Same Again” is not your standard celebrity bio. This isn’t an expose of backstage excess or ego-stroking recap of past glories. It’s a harrowing trip into the psyche of a man who lost his mind….twice….and somehow managed to come out on the other side, scarred but alive.

Author Jesse Sublett is one of the seminal figures in the Austin, Texas punk rock landscape. His most famous band, The Skunks, was one of the original scenemakers back in the late 1970s, throwing a power-pop-metal groove onto the three-chord substructure that defined the early genre. Jesse would later branch off from the Skunks, playing with several other bands over the course of his career. He also took up a career as an author of hard-boiled noir. This book covers a lot of those adventures, and they make for colorful and fascinating reading. Jesse is at best a local celebrity. Most folks outside of the region won’t know who he is or the influence that he had on a town where genuine punk rock often took a back seat to the cosmic cowboys and indie bands that put Austin on the map as The Live Music Capital of the World.

The REAL insight of Jesse's story, however, is found when he chronicles the two major life-changing events of his lifetime. First, he has to confront the savage murder of his girlfriend, Dianne Roberts. This tragic event literally displaces Jesse from everything that was familiar to him at the time. In the middle of the terrible grief of the situation, Jesse has to also deal with the plodding and sometimes dysfunctional reality of the police investigation into the crime. Suffice it to say that the Texas Law Enforcement Good-Ole Boy (™) network didn’t make things easy for Jesse, even when it becomes clear that he is no longer a suspect.

Later in life, as Jesse has seemingly moved on to build a new life for himself and his family, he is once again struck by tragedy, this time in the form of advanced neck cancer. Over time, Jesse is able to mentally connect the two events. By doing so, he is eventually able to make peace with both his disease and his awful memories of finding Dianne's body. As a cancer patient myself, the sections of the book dealing with Jesse’s diagnosis and treatment rang very true. Deciding to fight when one is given virtually no realistic chance to beat the disease is a hard reckoning indeed. I was struck by Jesse’s tenacity and will to go on even through treatments that would have seemed torturous to the average person.

This is an incredible story of survival against the odds, through two different events that would have shattered most other people. Sublett writes with passion and flair, his descriptive passages hitting all of the right notes. It was hard to put this book down at times, but there were other times when I had to put it aside and think about it a little, to reflect on the words and events. It did what a good book should do, it resonated with me.

Side note coda: There is a ton of good information on The Skunks out on the wider internet. Sublett and his band were actually well-known nationally and played CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City in New York. They opened for a ton of more famous punk and new wave bands. Along with The Dicks and The Big Boys, The Skunks were one of the unholy trinity of legitimate punk rock bands that came out of Austin in the late '70s and early '80s. Jesse Sublett has a lot of credibility and respect within the wider punk scene, and I hope that he eventually gets the credit that he deserves for bringing Texas hardcore to the masses.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best rock-n-roll memoirs I've read. I'm probably partial to it because most of it is set in Austin, Texas. Regardless of the setting, Never The Same Again is a well-written portrayal of how one man's encounters with tragedy and adversity.

[Toby Galloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sure, I was biased because it’s the memoir of Austin punk/rock and roller/mystery novelist Jesse Sublett. But I loved this. Raw, unflinching, and honest, this must have been cathartic and yet very difficult to write.

[Herzog · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of appeal for me since I live in Austin and am a big fan of Jon Dee Graham. As seems so often to be the case, Jesse has gone through a lot of travails including the murder of a girlfriend and being treated for late diagnosed throat cancer. As a rock and roll fan, I enjoyed the book, but it didn't reach the heights of some of the best music biographies I've read.

[Judy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I felt bad that I couldn't finish this book. To be honest, I could barely start it. I think it fell victim to the holidays; I knew I had such better books available to read that I couldn't give this one a fair shake. The writing seemed solid; I just couldn't do it. Perhaps at some other time....

[Sandra Spicher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This harrowing true-life story of pain and loss is peppered with fascinating details of the music and writing scenes in Austin, New York, and LA from the late 1970s through the first decade of the twenty-first century.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

University of Texas/Austin punk scene re-visited.