What You Want Is in the Limo( On the Road with Led Zeppelin Alice Cooper and the Who in 1973 the Year the Sixties Died and the Modern Rock Star W)[WHAT YOU WANT IS IN THE LIMO N][Hardcover]

by Michael Walker

What You Want Is in the Limo( On the Road with Led Zeppelin Alice Cooper and the Who in 1973 the Year the Sixties Died and the Modern Rock Star W) <> Hardcover <> MichaelWalker <> Spiegel&Grau

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Rock N Roll, Pop Culture, Cultural, Biography

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Michael Walker is a Los Angeles-based screenwriter, author and journalist.

His first book, LAUREL CANYON: THE INSIDE STORY OF ROCK AND ROLL'S LEGENDARY NEIGHBORHOOD (Farrar Straus & Giroux), spent seven months on the Los Angeles Times Book Review nonfiction bestseller list, is in its 16h printing and continues to receive worldwide acclaim. “A winding, inviting...portrait of a bohemian quarter that played a prominent role in the foundation of rock music,” the New York Times wrote in its review.

WHAT YOU WANT IS IN THE LIMO (Spiegel & Grau/Random House, 2013), was praised by Rolling Stone as “a reminder of why the world would eventually need punk rock.” Film rights were purchased by Johnny Depp’s Infinitum Nihil productions.

DELTA LADY, his collaboration Grammy-winning singer and songwriter Rita Coolidge, was published in April 2016 by HarperCollins.

20th Century Fox and Paranormal Activity producer Jason Blum are developing his screenplay, "Anything, Anywhere, Anytime," based on his magazine feature about the world of cargo pilots.

Michael's reporting and writing about pop culture have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, International Herald Tribune, Rolling Stone, Men's Vogue, Esquire, GQ, Billboard, the Hollywood Reporter and many other national and international publications. He has worked as an editor at the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

REPRESENTATION

Daniel Greenberg, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency * 212.337.0934
Marc Von Arx, Nelson Davis LLP * 424-214-4800

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

"No matter how fire-breathing a hit or the thousands of times it blasts from a car radio, there is nothing quite like being front and center when a rock star in full rut shreds the same song at twice the tempo and ten times the volume. As [the late music journalist / critic] Lester Bangs reminds his colleagues clutching their love beads, aghast over the music's tumescent turn in the 70's: 'Rock and roll, at its core, is merely a bunch of raving s***.'" -- introductory paragraph to chapter 6

Despite its somewhat ungainly title, What You Want Is in the Limo was the sort of rock music book that the downbeat and regretful Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock (which I coincidentally read earlier this month) wishes it could have been. Ostensibly shadowing the 1973 summer / autumn tours of a trio of acts - the Who (the weary veterans), Led Zeppelin (the popular draw), and Alice Cooper (the upstart newbies), all criss-crossing North America to support their respectively released blockbuster albums Quadrophenia, Houses of the Holy, and Billion Dollar Babies - author Walker details how the modern rock concert as we commonly regard it more-or-less 'came of age' in that specific year. Baseball parks with substandard sound systems (the Beatles drowned out at Shea in '65, anyone?) and quaint auditoriums at college campuses were now pretty much firmly replaced by larger football stadiums or hockey/basketball arenas as the U.S. venues of choice for the increasingly louder, heavier $$$ earning, and attendance-busting rock and roll groups. However, there is also the dark side (organized groupies becoming the norm . . . leading to venereal disease issues; harder drugs like cocaine and heroin fast replacing old 'safe' standbys such as beer, whiskey and marijuana; safety of concert attendees progressively becoming an factor) and the inevitable in-fighting and simmering friction in said groups as they are stuck together for several months 'on the road' or that some members receive more fan / press attention than others. The narrative clocks in at a succinct 210 pages - I'll argue that it could've been perhaps a little more detailed, since notorious Zeppelin stories alone could likely fill entire books - but the author does an exemplary job with both including particular information AND switching focus on the involved bands.

[M.L. Rio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Everybody has a theory about which was the seminal year for rock and roll--some say '69, some say '71, and now here's Walker making a claim for '73. His thesis--that 1973 was the year peace and love went out of style and were replaced by sex and drugs--is plausible enough but he abandons it after only a few chapters and resorts to telling tired tour anecdotes everyone's already heard (and more than once he gets names or details wrong). The Who also seem out of place here, Townshend's pretentious claptrap being pretty much exactly the opposite of what Zeppelin and the Coop were doing. All in all, it might have been a solid idea but it's too poorly executed to bother with. And lastly, whoever designed this cover should be executed by firing squad.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave up on this book very quickly. I read the introduction and then after just a few pages of the actual book, had to give it up. Walker writes like I wrote in first year university when I was trying to hit a page count but didn't have enough content - never use one word when you can use ten, never use a simple word when you can use a longer one and twist your sentences to fit it. The language was pretentious, and I could tell I was going to hate this book. Too bad, because it looked like it could have been interesting.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wild ride through the year 1973 via the jets, limos, hotels, concert tours and antics of The Who, Led Zeppelin, and Alice Cooper. Walker puts you right there with each band deftly moving from band to band relating incidents, stories, violence, drugs, sex and rock and roll.
Mick Mashbir, added as guitarist for Alice Cooper says "The three words that defined the seventies were 'cash and cum'".
The Who were on the road playing songs from their latest album _Quadrophenia_ and encountering issues with the precision of the various sound effects and tempos to go along with the wake of hotel room destruction mainly done by drummer Keith Moon.
Led Zeppelin was touring and promoting their fifth album _Houses of the Holy_ in their giant Starship plane generally using both violence and the threat of violence by management to get their money while dealing with Bonham's heavy drinking and at one point Jimmy getting his finger caught in a airport fence.
And Alice Cooper, who I knew the least about going into this book, put on their spook show with huge metal frame sets and lights and were the harbinger for other bands to come following in their massive stage show wake. One major story was about Alice and the drummer sharing a 32 ounce glass of vodka in a Florida bar and destroying the place.
But my favorite story was Bonham requesting a pool table in his room and management the next morning going to his room only to find a single cue ball on the floor. Everything else was lowered via the window down to the outside atrium area from the bed to the dresser to the pool table itself. Very clever and funny, but not to the hotel staff.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What You Want is in the Limo: On the road with Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, and The Who in 1973. the year the sixties died and the modern rock star was born by Michael Walker is a Random House publication and is set to be released on July 23rd, 2013.

The author wisely focused on just three top bands in 1973. There were many excellent albums and artist performing at their best in 1973, but these three groups were among the hardest working in that year.

With live shows being booked into larger arenas and the stage shows becoming more elaborate, there was a gap wedged between the fan and the band that wasn't there during the sixties. Groupies that had attached themselves to one group or artist, now latched on to whom ever was there at the time. The audience was more cynical and critical. The bands began to believe in their own hype. Their egos and sense of entitlement grew outrageous.
In the sixties, backstage accoutrements amounted to a few cases of cola and maybe some cookies. Now bands were demanding cases of beer, whiskey, fine foods etc. in EACH dressing room.
Of course all that is common place now and the demand much more ridiculous, but in 1973 this trend was just beginning and set the stage for all future rock stars.

The Who:
This band was already a household name. But, the group was at a crossroads musically. They didn't want to continue to pump out the same old stuff over and over because they were afraid they would fade away in this new decade. Quadrophenia was Pete Townshend's baby all the way. It was a rock opera type album. It was successful on the album charts and Adult or Album oriented FM radio, but the live audiences didn't respond to the new music like Pete felt they should. They still wanted to hear the old stuff. So, out on the road supporting this new album the band came unhinged.

Led Zeppelin:
The critics hated Zeppelin in the beginning. But, the fans LOVED them. They were a great live band. This group didn't have progressive rock stories or huge stage equipment, their entourage were a bit "thuggy" looking, but they always had a following. Their shows were marred by violence at times, severe fatigue and of course too much drinking and drugs.
This band too would lose it's identity after too many tragedies.

Alice Cooper:
What can you say about Alice? The group's name was Alice Cooper. It wasn't until the band broke up that Alice actually changed his name legally, mainly for business reasons. Alice was one of the hardest working guys out there. Billion Dollar Babies was a landmark album.

None of this stuff is really news to fans of these groups or for people that grew up in or around that time frame. In fact, most everyone has heard these bands history rehashed every which way. But, this book was a reminder of how things evolved in the rock world at such a fast pace and was enlightening as well as giving us a little taste of nostalgia, with a big of a longing for the good ole days.
Back then studios were willing to give creative license without sticking someone in a "target audience" hole- never to develop beyond that. They were willing to put thought into album covers and stage shows and promotions giving us some of the best music ever. People bought albums by the millions. Every song was good too.
But, the excesses were their downfall. Drugs, booze, groupies, limos, private jets, and women all made the rock star life seem so glamorous. But, when the author breaks down the money issues for us in simple terms,in the end the band members didn't end up with near as much money as you would think.
We got a glimpse inside the business end of the music business in the early seventies, and an inside look at what really goes on while the bands are on tour. Well, in the seventies at least. These three bands set the standard for the future Peter Frampton mega stardom, the huge arena rock period and the infamous Van Halen demand of removing the brown M&M's.
This is an interesting inside look at how the rock music industry became big business and how rock stars became like royalty. You name it, Michael Walker covered it. No matter what "generation" you grew up in, you will recognize most of the names in here. For some you will be like a flashback, for others like a history lesson. A very insightful book, but also entertaining.
I give this one an A
Thanks to the publisher and edelweiss for the ARC of this book.

[Dachokie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three Monsters Hit the Road in ‘73 …

This book was reviewed as part of Amazon's Vine program which included a free advance copy of the book.

When the hippy-dippy haze of the 1960s American music scene finally dissipated, it was 1973 and from the drying mud of Woodstock and stupor of Altamont emerged the glitz and glam era of the rock megastar. Michael Walker’s WHAT YOU WANT IS IN THE LIMO takes a look back at 1973 and traces three headlining bands (Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper and the Who) that each launched massive American tours in support of newly released albums. While these highly successful tours proved to be ground-breaking for the music industry, they proved to be back-breaking for each of the bands.

I found WHAT YOU WANT IS IN THE LIMO to be an entertaining and nostalgic look back at an era that was profoundly rich with musical talent. Walker’s introductory chapter masterfully illustrates how stout the music scene in 1973; the list of artists and bands releasing albums or touring that year reads like an encyclopedia of rock history. Walker even reminds readers that ’73 was also the year that the Woodstock Festival was unceremoniously usurped by 600,000 fans that showed up to see only three bands performing at Watkins Glen.

The whole thought of seeing a concert today in which a headlining band simply walks on stage, plugs-in, plays and leaves is pretty much unfathomable. But, before Zeppelin, Alice Cooper and the Who hit the road in 1973, that was the typical concert experience. These bands eschewed all previous parameters of success (media approval and gold record sales) and decided to make their own rules and achieve success on levels never seen before. The Who toured to boost the release of its double-album “Quadrophenia”, an ambitious and intellectual rock opera. Led Zeppelin, already basking in the glory delivered by its untitled fourth album (featuring “Stairway to Heaven”), toured not only to support its “Houses of the Holy” album, but to conquer America and tap into its riches. Alice Cooper, fresh off the success of singles “School’s Out” and “I’m Eighteen”, tours to support its shock-themed “Billion Dollar Babies” album and scare the daylights out of anyone coming to his shows.

Walker manages to take readers on all three tours and give us backstage passes; we see it all … and it isn’t pretty. It was Led Zeppelin’s strong-arming that changed the rules by giving the band rights to the gate-money up-front with the promoter only receiving a (smaller) cut. This change leads to a seemingly endless flow wealth that manifests into more lavish needs being met: Zeppelin’s chartering a Boeing jet for itself (the “Starship”) and Alice Cooper’s massive, elaborate stage show. The material success is accompanied by ballooning egos, massive drug and alcohol consumption, huge entourages, uninhibited sex, prima-donna temper-tantrums and chronic hotel room destruction … nothing was off limits for these bands. The common thread among all three tours was the same: total self indulgence and indifference. Walker scoops up plenty of dirt, so none the bands escape unscathed. For Zeppelin fans (such as myself), many of the “road stories” in the book are familiar as they have been covered numerous times in previous publications. But, Walker manages to uncover several details that I wasn’t aware of. On the other hand, the book shed a great deal of light on Alice Cooper, thoroughly supporting his earned place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Of all the tours covered, Cooper’s tour was the most decadent. While his disturbing stage show would hardly turn a single head these days, it was completely off-the-hook back in 1973 … he was THE pioneer in shocking audiences.

As the tours wind down, the excessive living starts taking its toll on all the bands (Alice Cooper’s drinking amounts to two-fifths of Seagram’s VO … each day). WHAT YOU WANT IS IN THE LIMO takes the veneer off the superstar status of all three bands and reveals the uglier aspects of their success-achieving methods … from dubious and thuggish management tactics to drug/alcohol-induced physical deterioration of various band members. Success came at a price and nothing would be the same again for any of the bands following these tours. Unbeknownst to them at the time, 1973 would arguably represent the apex of their careers.

I found WHAT YOU WANT IS IN THE LIMO to be a refreshingly interesting take on 1970s rock star excess. Walker’s reporting offers an immersive and visual reading environment for that fly-on-the-wall effect. I loved the details provided about the chartered planes and the hotel antics. Walker is even-handed and unbiased in his delivery … this book is a great example of good rock journalism.

[Chris Craddock · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Could Play The Wild Mutation as a Rock and Roll Star

Michael Walker was one of the fans in 1973 when 3 bands embark on tours of unprecedented proportions: The Who, Led Zeppelin, and Alice Cooper. The tours support Quadrophenia, Houses of the Holy, and Billion Dollar Babies, respectively. I was at two out of three of these concerts, and I would have been to all three but somehow Alice Cooper skipped our town. I was very curious to know more about what went on behind the scenes, and Michael Walker provided that information and put it all in context.

In the introduction he starts dropping 70's pop cultural references like hot, blue & righteous (The Title of a ZZ Top album released that summer) potatoes. This could get irritating, like disco and leisure suits, if he keeps up this barrage for much longer. Thankfully, it is just an opening salvo intended to get you in the proper frame of mind to appreciate the era of excess that was the early 70's.

I was at The Who concert in San Francisco's Cow Palace where Keith Moon collapsed and Townsend called for a volunteer drummer from the audience to finish the show. No less than 2 drummers who kicked themselves for not getting up were in my entourage. One of them was so into The Who that he had tripped out on too much acid, locked himself in his room listening to Tommy over and over, and refused to come out. His family committed him to Agnews State Hospital, the insane asylum. He recovered enough to be released, but was still a total lunatic. He could play like Keith Moon, though. What if he had gotten up there? I bet he is still asking himself that question.

Anyway, I had a lot of questions about that show. The Who were such a great band, but there was a lot of tension between the members. Townsend seemed very frustrated that he wasn't getting the reaction he wanted from Quadrophenia, giving long unnecessary introductions to the songs instead of just letting the music speak for itself. Walker's book was very enlightening about the dysfunctional family dynamics behind the scenes. Lynard Skynard opened, by the way.

Keith Moon was an incredible drummer, but he had deep problems. It seemed like it was all just a big joke until it wasn't funny anymore. Another drummer with major talent and deep problems was John Bonham. He was a sadistic bully who was protected from any consequences by Peter Grant, the band's manager, and Richard Cole, the road manager, who were also sadistic bullies. Again, another great band, but behind the scenes dysfunctional family dynamics. Very illuminating. I guess I wasn't at the concert where Bonham, Cole, and Grant beat up one of Bill Graham's staff members and were arrested after the show, but I was at the Houses of the Holy concert in 1973 at Keezar Stadium.

I didn't get to see Alice Cooper, and wonder how that didn't happen. I was a big fan of the Bob Ezrin produced albums: Love it To Death, Killer, and Billion Dollar Babies. One of my first girlfriends, the beautiful and fashionable Sylvia Higashi, got me into them. To me it seemed like the band had been together since High School days in Arizona, and under the tutelage of Bob Ezrin they came up with some amazing music. Alice as a solo performer never gelled for me. I think it was the band and the producer, and the singer, that was the magic formula. Why was there so much trouble in paradise?

So, you can see that this book was of enormous interest to me. It covered the business of touring, promotion, recording and performing music, as well as the backstage antics of Rock Stars and what they actually did on the road to relieve the tension and boredom. It covered some very interesting bands that I had been intensely interested in.

[Dan Fuchs · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't have the same kind of encyclopedic knowledge of popular music that some of my good friends possess, so I can't vouch for the central premise of this book -- that the year 1973 was a sort of cultural bridge from the 1960's to the 1970's, as far as rock and roll was concerned. When the author lists the acts that were out on tour the year(Rod Stewart and the Faces, Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, Chicago, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Carole King, Simon and Garfunkel, Steve Miller, Leon Russell, Santana, Yes, Mott the Hoople, Foghat, Slade, Thin Lizzy, Traffic, Three Dog Night, Fleetwood Mac, Johnny Winter, Edgar Winter, Savoy Brown, Mountain, Ted Nugent, King Crimson, Grand Funk, Black Sabbath, the James Gang, Deep Purple, Spooky Tooth, Uriah Heep, Humble Pie, Peter Frampton, REO Speedwagon, Elvin Bishop, Styx, Montrose, the J. Geils Band, Genesis, Bob Marley, Bog Seger, Jethro Tull, Wishbone Ash...), it's clear that this is not the same musical landscape in which we live today.

"It is impossible," Walker says, "to apprehend in today's wan marketplace a culture detonating with such vast and chaotic talent on record and in concert in a single year -- let alone filling arenas every night and moving millions of albums. But that's 1973."

The book walks you through three tours of that year -- Led Zeppelin, flying around in their "Starship," a modified 707 with 70's cheese decor from stem to stern, Alice Cooper elaborately killing blood-filled baby dolls and being ritualistically executed on stage nightly, while maintaining a constant beer and whiskey buzz by day, in order to get through it, and the Who, struggling to stay relevant, while Pete Townshend chides audiences for not "getting" his new opera, "Quadrophenia."

The book takes you inside the infamous shenanigans of these tours in a way that the film "Almost Famous" just couldn't do, mainly because of the way Hollywood tends to create bland, vanilla versions of even the most compelling scenarios in their attempt to maximize the bottom line by playing to some mythical, middle-of-the-road Middle American.

Walker has worked exhaustively to get insider information on what it was like on tour in '73. The photographer Bob Gruen put it this way: "There is a sense of entitlement when you're in a band. You have twenty people traveling and supporting you, and even they feel special. There's a cockiness that goes along with that, and you have a gang to back you up. And because you have this arrogance, you kind of take over. Going through the airport with a band is much more fun than going through by yourself. Every minute is planned, there's people yelling, 'Come this way! Get in this car!' You really don't have a lot of contact with the people around you or even with the ground. You're kind of coming in from the air, you land in the town, you drive everybody crazy, and you're gone before dawn."

For anyone who fits my basic demographic (middle-aged American male) and who has at any point harbored that "rock and roll fantasy," as Cheap Trick put it, this book will ring that rusty cowbell. (You know what I'm talking about.) Being older now, however, there is a new voice that accompanies the bell. When I used to read about Keith Moon driving his Lincoln into a Holiday Inn swimming pool, or John Bonham punching out a publicist for no discernible reason, I was thrilled by their rock and roll nihilism.

Now, my daddy-self recoils, and I find myself thinking, "My, that seems a bit . . . extreme."

Fun book to read. I recommend it. Enjoy.

[Torey · Rating 2 out of 5]

*I received this book for free through GoodReads First Reads.
What You Want is in the Limo by Michael Walker on the cover promises to go “On the Road with Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, and The Who...” However, I was left disappointed with the lack of “on the road” content. I was born in mid 80s but my dad had me listening to the music of the 70s since I can remember. I have always told people I was supposed to have lived during the 60s and 70s. My first concert was Van Morrison at Jones Beach and I have so much Eric Clapton on my iPhone that when I shuffle songs it still plays 2 or more Clapton songs in a row. So needless to say, I was more than excited to get a behind the scenes peek at the life of a 1970s rock star. I was anticipating off-the-wall crazy stories.

The book's introduction had me all fired up to dive into the good stuff. I had YouTube up ready to play every song mentioned. In the first chapter, we are given a background into each band. Break-ups, make-ups, new members, and new names. It was a little tedious but necessary. We are then ushered into the making of each band's iconic album: Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, the Who's Quadrophenia, and Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies. Finally, we are told about the band's managers and how they, in time when music industry wasn't big business, handled their respective band differently.

At last, we are on the road. The tours have begun and I am ready to hear about the dirt. Well, NOTHING. The only stories we get are ones that were in the press at that time and pretty infamous stories in themselves. The one secret that was revealed was that most of the stories about the band and their antics were made up. Now I am disappointed and angry. Bring on the groupies! Again, NOTHING. I wasn't even given any deeper information about Lori Maddox! She was hardly mentioned.

The part of the book I really liked was the description of the bands shows. Michael Walker did a fantastic job of bringing the shows to life in his writing. This book left me feeling like a piece of me was missing because I never attended a live Alice Cooper show or got to see a Pete Townshend meltdown in person.

I give this book 2 out of 5 stars. Like the band's tours, the book lost steam. I keep hoping for more and I was only more disappointed each chapter. I wanted to know about the road life not a family tree for each band. The information provided was good and would be a great resource if writing a paper about one of these bands. Also, Michael Walker should have left the thesaurus at home. Some of the word choices were ridiculous. I would recommend reading this on an e-reader so you can quickly access word definitions. I consider myself a fairly intelligent person and I spent quite a bit of time between this book and a dictionary.

http://thatblondebibliophile.blogspot...

[Mary BookHounds · Rating 4 out of 5]

MY THOUGHTS
LOVED IT

The story covers three major musical groups during their epic tours during 1973. This was the year that changed how bands toured, fans perceived them and the money they made. The Who, elder statesmen, have just released Quadrophenia and plan to put this album on display like they did with Tommy. Led Zeppelin, craves the critical attention that The Who attains and is touring around the United States in their first major press. Alice Cooper champions a true stage presentation of their music with Billion Dollar Babies. Each band has something different to offer the audience but underneath it all, they just want attention. This is the start of rock stardom with all of the excess and lays the foundation for any musical wannabe to attain.

I found this book truly fascinating even though it presents a history of each act and contains a lot of facts about the background of each. There is a lot of analysis. interviews with the people who supported each act and goes into the business behind a major band during this time period. Yes, the drugs and groupies are all mentioned and a lot of the stories I had heard in passing are all present. Led Zeppelin's groupies, Keith Moon's drugs and Alice Cooper's alcohol are given fair play. I have met several people mentioned as supporting characters and found that reading their history put a whole new spin on it for me.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walker's central thesis is that 1973 not only teemed with sloppy rock and roll decadence but was the year the music industry became a machine to be reckoned with, effectively strangling the '60s peace/love era once and for all. Walker examines 1973 through the respective trajectories of three powerhouse bands: Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin and the Who. All three came out with albums in 1973 that either shuttled a band to fame, in the case of Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies, or tossed a band an existential crisis that shook them to their core. While groupie du jour Sable Starr's splayed on the cover, the salaciousness of these bands on the road in the pre-AIDS era is given only backhanded attention here. What makes this book such a pleasure is how Walker recreates the music industry of 1973: Flush with cash and cocaine, the gap between artist and an increasingly drugged out audience is widened and entrenched. For the first time technology and infrastructure scambles to meet the demands of often bloated corporations on wheels. (Walker wittily examines seminal characters like Zeppelin's flashy, imposing manager Peter Grant, giving the book, at times, the sheen of the best fiction.) The artists at the helm radically push the limits of the rock's form and function, exhausting themselves in the process, unaware that punk simmers in the wings about to kick it all in.

[Jj Burch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Haiku Review:
Do you like dad rock?
Some studio, some touring.
Nothing much was learned.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this compelling story, the big budget tours of Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper and The Who are followed. The 60's had given way to a new audience, one less peaceful, more fickle, and younger.

Led Zeppelin's concert movie The Song Remains The Same shows footage of their last concerts during this tour, from Madison Square Garden. Flying in their airplane with LED ZEPPELIN written on it, the group had become the biggest band in the world by this time. Sneered at by the elite music press, they captured fans who yearned for harder rock. Led by their thuggish yet brilliant manager Peter Grant, Zeppelin cut a swath through America, accompanied by groupies, drugs, and general decadence. Author Michael Walker juxtaposes this scene with Woodstock and other earlier rock shows. The audience had changed, and concerts were becoming big money spectacles. The audience itself had become part of the scenery, crammed like sardines in arenas from Tucson to Omaha to Boston.

Alice Cooper and his band were on the ascendancy, and had reached their peak that year. With their Billion Dollar Babies tour, they would never fly higher. Within a year the band had dispersed and Alice would continue with sidemen and a serious problem with alcohol. But in 1973 it was all one big ride. The theatrical nature of the Cooper show was like rock vaudeville, and he set the pace for others like Bowie, Kiss and Elton John who made the show more than four or five guys with jeans and guitars. By this year the Cooper band was holed up in a Gilded Age Connecticut mansion, ready to take America by storm. Rock & roll decadence indeed.

Lastly, the book covers The Who's tour. Pete Townshend's ambitious Quadrophenia album/rock opera would be the focal point. Although the band gave full effort to replicating the album on stage, songs about English mods and rockers and teenage alienation in seaside Britain didn't quite capture middle American teens. They wanted the hits, "My Generation" "Pinball Wizard" etc. Townshend would often hector the audiences to listen to the new songs, as he and Roger Daltrey would narrate preambles to several numbers. Meanwhile Keith Moon would rampage hotel rooms and continue on a course of self-destruction. After Moon collapsed on his drum kit in San Francisco, a 19 year old audience member sat in on the last three songs, holding his own with the mighty Who. By 1980 both Moon and his Led Zeppelin counterpart John Bonham were dead. Alice Cooper barely made it out alive himself.

But is the book any good? I enjoyed it immensely. A bit too much name-dropping at times but otherwise it was great. Reading about these legends of rock though is quite illuminating. I was a few years too young for the 1973 tours, but some of my concert experiences in the late 70's early 80's compare to what it was like. The chilling epilogue which mentions the Cincinnati deaths at a Who concert remind me of the crushed lineups I was in. It was criminal the way crowd control was so negligent. The first two chapters captured me right away though, Walker is a writer who lived through those times, and his account is authentic.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, so I am never going to finish it. It's just not worth it. If you love these bands, this would be worth your time. It is not, however, worth reading on its own merits. Finished 60% before realizing I was wasting my time.
I guess "love" really means love - I like these bands and have at times loved Led Zeppelin... but I guess my love has its limits.

[Sebastian Bach · Rating 2 out of 5]

No new information in this book. Stories that have been told many times before

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

In Michael Walker's What You Want is in the Limo, he targets a single year (1973) and three bands (The Who, Led Zeppelin, and Alice Cooper) to provide support to what he considers a watershed year in rock and roll history.

In the author's view, rock stars morphed from grass-roots accessibility and sincerity to isolation and over-indulgence. Cynicism and greed took over and artists lost sight of the role the audience plays. It took punk rock to re-discover this fundamental truth shortly after this book's thematic year, but not before a niche had been discovered in rock that isn't unlike any other form of "art." Once something gets co-opted by corporations and diluted by money and mass marketing, it essentially sells its soul and panders, using safe, market-tested, lowest common denominators to sell a product. None of this is new, but it is unique in that Walker sees such a clear delineation between the end of one era and the start of another.

Walker borrows heavily from a lot of sources, a not uncommon tactic in this genre, but given his specific proposition, this book would've benefitted greatly from interviews the author conducted with his subjects. Instead, he relies on out of context quotes to support disconnected arguments. Additionally, he meanders too much to compensate for the thin thesis. His argument would have been better served had he provided more evidence gathered from the huge and dynamic range of artists making music in 1973 rather than relying solely on the exploits of three. Alas, we are subjected to scores of pages about every player in this three team game, from record executives on down to groupies, and Walker gets off course by relating lurid, tired tabloid fodder about sex, drugs, and hotel destruction. Furthermore, Walker isn't short on bad writing fraught with hyperbole and bad metaphors, which is unfortunate given a very smart and engaging introduction. In essence, this would've been more effective if it had been a magazine piece.

Mildly recommended for fans of rock history.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you aren't a massive fan of all three of these bands, then you are bound hear some stories you've never heard before.

I'm an Alice Cooper fan, so a lot of what was in this book was familiar to me, but it was still enjoyable. Most of the stories about The Who and Led Zeppelin, though, were new to me. I'm not a big Who fan, so I wasn't exactly dying to read those sections, but the book was put together well, so you were never with one band long enough for them to overstay their welcome. In the end, it turns out I didn't mind The Who sections as much as I thought I would, which I guess says something about them. Or the author. Or both!

The first third of the book is mostly background information about how each band formed and what led them to 1973. From there it gets into each tour, the band dynamics, management, crazy stories, and the aftermath. It's a good read and one I'd recommend to anyone who doesn't have a deep knowledge of these bands and might be curious about their peaks.

My one small quibble with the book is it's title and cover! I've seen this book around for quite some time and have always been interested because of the Alice Cooper angle. But, I only ever picked it up to read the cover and back of the book. The title of the book, the one line of synopsis on the front, and the book's cover photo all lead me to believe that this was going to be a book more about groupies, then it was about the bands. Adding to that, I'd also been seeing Pamela Des Barres book, "I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie" (which is about a groupie!) right in the same section and I figured this was another book along those lines. Turning the book over to the back won't help you either! On the other side are just a bunch of quotes about Michael Walker's OTHER book, "Laurel Canyon." So, for months and months I let this one languish without doing any extra research on it or cracking it open sooner to find out more. Had I known what it was really all about, I would have dove in a lot sooner.

[SmokingMirror · Rating 4 out of 5]

Giveaway winner.

It's about time I wrote about this book, which is well worth reading even though it repeats information, both from within the text and stuff the reader probably knows about if they like the bands and music from this period. My problem was that every time the tale turned to Alice Cooper, I got restless and had to skip. In fact, I started in the middle of the book and then backtracked and skipped forward until I found that I was rereading material, so then I stopped. (This is not an unusual reading pattern for me.) Since I felt obligated to write a review, I then had to trudge back to the AC parts. Oddly, AC come off as the least jerky of the three bands, but likely by not much, and likely not in comparison to their fans or other punters. The Who and Led Zeppelin, so much more "genuine" rock stars, were pretty monstrous, the Who to each other mostly, and Led Zeppelin to their fans, probably especially female fans. Still, I love the music. I even love "School's Out" though otherwise nothing else by AC matches my adoration of The Who's and Led Zep's albums.

The book includes a photo section and it was great to have a hard copy of the triumphant Led Zep posing in front of their (rented) plane. Pamela DesBarres from the cover is not featured a lot in the book, though she does drop in with her familiar comments as chief trophy groupie.

[Kathy Broyles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows the careers of the Who, Led Zeppelin and Alice Cooper before and after and during the 1973 tours where is was a new city every night and a new hotel to destroy. I really enjoyed reading this one. I even got interested enough in the band members to do some further reading on some of them and found several surprises. I recommend this to anyone who enjoyed and lived the 70's rock scene.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the author's claim that the 1973 tours of Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin and The Who transformed the music industry and set the mold for theatrical arena rock, this book seems more like a random selection of sex-drugs-and-excess anecdotes that simply happen to take place in the same year. Entertaining, to be sure, but if you want the real story, find a copy of Bob Greene's "Billion Dollar Baby", the best book ever written about the rock and roll life circa 1974.

[Becky · Rating 1 out of 5]

the title and cover are misleading. this book does not delve into the lives of groupies or share juicy tidbits of unknown information about arena rock stars. it had no new scandalous tales of rock, but a lot of alice cooper reliving his glory days. also, the author states way too often that 1973 was the year where the 1970s pulled away from the 1960s. you don't need to repeat that -- it's on the cover of the book and in every single chapter. WE GET IT.

[Melissa Seitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I graduated from high school in 1973, and this book reminded me of this time in my life when music shaped the person I was evolving into. Led Zeppelin's music soothed my angst-driven teenage years. Excellent research and Walker's strong narrative voice make this a compelling read.

[patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was in about 7th grade in the year in question and certainly remember the music he's talking about, but not a big fan of any of the 3 bands whose tours that year form the focal points of the story. Not entirely sure why I got this one at the library, therefore, but I guess I was lured in by the implicit sociology promise in subtitle.

not sure there was anything very convincing to locate '73 as the specific year the sixties died, though. Once in a while he says something about the macroeconomy and how that affected ticket prices people would pay and therefore the economics of touring by private plane or improvements in audio tech that facilitated creation of crazier stage shows, but for the most part it's quickly back to play by play illustrating fairly obvious dynamics [guys who aren't the stars of a band become jealous of the star; young single guys who are suddenly showered with attention from groupies are often nonmonogamous; money disputes bring out people's worst sides; constant travel can be disorienting and cause friction among coworkers.........]

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really fun, short read about how 3 tour in 1973 transformed rock music from its counterculture roots of the 1960's into the mega stardom and big business of the 1970's and later. The book covers albums and tours by Led Zeppelin (Houses of the Holy), The Who (Quadrophenia) and Alice Cooper (Billion Dollar Babies) and their tours to support the albums to show how those tours set the template for the future of rock music. This involved bigger budgets and focus on detail and production in making the albums and on a vastly larger scale of the concert tours. The description of the making of the albums is very interesting. The author describes how by 1973 there was enough technological quality in the studios to allow obsessive producers like Bob Ezrin (for Alice Cooper) as well as Townsend and Page (for Who and Zeppelin) to vastly improve the sound quality of rock records via maniacal focus on production quality. It also describes how by 1973, the record companies had understood the commercial appeal and scale of top rock bands and made large budgets available to support those bands. The resources available to top acts were now huge. Alice Cooper were given a huge mansion in LA to record along with a top producer in Ezrin. Zeppelin had an estate in England to do the recording and the Who had one as well. The artists had also matured and were writing top flight music so the introduction of production quality improvements made for truly incredible output as Cooper and Zeppelin had number 1 albums in 1973 and the Who stalled at Number 2 (kept out of top spot only by Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road).
The budgeting and scale were also visible in the tours by the same artists in 1973 as private airplanes, entire floors of hotels, and convoys of limousines and large staff were made the new norm. The venues were also bigger as large sports arenas and stadiums replaced clubs and theaters.
A barrier or separation was created between the musician and the fans and part of that remoteness was what was said to have appealed to the young fans of the new mega rock stars and the lifestyle of the mega rock star now formed part of their appeal. This was indeed a change from the "we are all one" communal connection between musician and audience in the 1960's.
The book spends some time describing the excesses this lead to, but it doesn't overly dwell on these. Some points are amusing - I thought it was interesting that Jimmy Page grew tired of the band plane and decided to fly a commercial flight to San Francisco so he could fly with "normal" people again (the plane was late and the San Fran Zeppelin show was delayed several hours leading management to forbid such acts in the future...)
To the author's credit, much of the book focuses on the quality and the making of the music. This is good as the albums were indeed great ones as was the entire period of early and mid 1970's for rock music. And as anyone who has ever seen Zeppelin in concert can tell you - it was an awesome experience and it was because of the music, not because of the tour escapades....
One can make the case that the Stones 1972 Tour was really the template for the industry changes the writer describes. True, but the Stones were alone in 1972 and in 1973 the industry learned the lessons from the Stones and the three tours the writer describes made those changes the norm.
A golden age of rock n roll well described...

[Paul Lyons · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very disappointing book about rock and roll and life on the road in the United States in 1973 for three bands: Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin and The Who. Though the effort is appreciated, the title is misleading: "What You Want Is in the Limo: On the Road with Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, and the Who in 1973, the Year the Sixties Died and the Modern Rock Star Was Born." Instead of a fresh look inside the tours and mayhem involved with the three legendary bands, the book mostly provides the same old information found in too many other books.

Written by Michael Walker, "What You Want Is in the Limo: On the Road with Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, and the Who in 1973, the Year the Sixties Died and the Modern Rock Star Was Born" spends a little over half of the book setting up the story of each band. Makes one wonder who the author and his editors thought the readers of the book might be? Clearly anyone who picks up this book most likely knows who Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin and The Who are, as well as their individual histories.

So for 128 pages out of the book's scant 256 page-length, the reader is treated to the same old information, with no new insight at all. None. By the time the author actually gets to the part where these legendary groups hit the road, he only spends 40 percent of the book's second half on the topic, leaving the final ten percent of the book on an unnecessary postscript on where the bands went to after 1973.

A mere 40 percent of "...On the Road with Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, and the Who in 1973" features life "On The Road." And of that 40 percent, only HALF of that is new, or insightful information that someone who is well educated on the subject of at least two of the bands featured in the book might appreciate. That's a dismal equation, and made me regret my time reading the book at all. Yes, I did enjoy the few parts of the book that I did not already know, the stories and interview quotes I had never seen before, yet they were very few and far between.

To make matters far worse, Michael Walker's source material (found in the bibliography at the end of the book) included a few terrible and inaccurate rock and roll books written by overzealous writers eager to make a buck, in addition to the books I had already read, and that have been around for years. It makes me wonder, why would the author offer up a new book without having much new information or insight to share?

If anything, "What You Want Is in the Limo: On the Road with Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, and the Who in 1973, the Year the Sixties Died and the Modern Rock Star Was Born" feels unfinished, published before it had the chance to dig deeper, and offer up something, ANYTHING new, revealing or insightful...especially about Led Zeppelin and The Who. As much as I do appreciate the idea of the subject matter, the book just does not deliver the goods.

[Dave Schwensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was light reading about a heavy year in rock. Focusing on 1973, the author makes a pitch for this being the pivotal year of pop stars morphing into "rock stars." This theory leaves out Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who were all established "rock stars" by any standards at the end of 1969.

But it's easy to understand the author's point of view and go with it. By 1973 it wasn't just The Rolling Stones that could fill arenas and stadiums anymore; The Who, Led Zeppelin and Alice Cooper (the band) had joined the club. These are the BIG three bands (the Stones toured the year before behind "Exile On Main Street") covered in this book with details about their (arguably) career defining albums and mega-tours within those twelve months.

The LP's are The Who’s "Quadrophenia," Led Zeppelin’s "Houses of the Holy," and Alice Cooper’s "Billion Dollar Babies." Again, arguments can be made for "Tommy," "Led Zeppelin IV" and "Killer," as career-definers. But that's just personal taste. As someone who saw all three of these legendary bands live during this peak in their popularity, I enjoyed the author's research as he describes the recording and touring processes with an insider point of view.

Most of the details about The Who and Led Zeppelin were really nothing new for fans. We're familiar with the basic characters and stories from previous books and documentaries. It was much more compelling to follow the Alice Cooper band as the once loyal friends dealt with their monster success, over-excesses, musicianship, and watching the band splintering apart as they create "Billion Dollar Babies." When the other members of the band woke up to the reality around them, it must have been like a scene from "Welcome To My Nightmare" to realize Vincent had legally changed his name to Alice Cooper and could launch a successful solo career while the others fell into obscurity.

Fans of any combination of these bands will enjoy this book. It's also a good telling of the rock scene in 1973 for pop culture enthusiasts. I will say the cover and title are a bit misleading. It's not all about sex, drugs, booze and riding around with groupies in a limo, though those aspects of the story are not hidden. This one is mostly about the rock personalities and their music that made 1973 a very cool year to be a rock fan.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sometimes fascinating look at the state of Rock in 1973. No one will argue that 1973 wasn’t one of the best years for the Rock and Roll, being at its creative and cultural peak. Two years past the break-up of the Beatles, 1973 saw the last of rock as revolution and the beginning of Rock as commodity. Or so Walker suggests. To look back at 1973, it is overwhelming to realize the amount of essential rock and roll being made. Walker focuses on the 1973 albums and tours of Led Zeppelin (Houses of the Holy,) The Who (Quadrophenia) and Alice Cooper (Billion Dollar Babies) to argue his point.

Anyone who spent any evening of their adolescence at a festival-seating (read “no-seating”) concert in a basketball arena crushed against a steel barrier knows the era of rock and roll that 1973 launched. At this point, the Who were the old guard, a decade into their career. Led Zeppelin, shunned by the Lester Bang-school of rock critics, were the kid’s choice. Alice Cooper, through sheer force-of-will, were just at their peak of their meteoric career. Walker shows the proceedings from the points of view of the band, their management, the fans, and the rock press.Thankfully, unlike a lot of these sorts of books, the writer keeps himself out of it. The author bio photo, Walker circa 1973, is the only acknowledgement that he was living through these events, too. (However, he does throw in a few out-of-nowhere cheap shots at Grand Funk Railroad.)

Also, Walker does a very good job at not romanticizing things. While the title, the cover verbage, and the chapter headings seem to promise salacious backstage details, Walker does not indulge in any sort of “boys will be boys” dismissal of things. As it turns out, statutory rape and sexual assault really isn’t that fun when you get down to the details.

Rock may not be dead, but rock as it was in 1973 certainly is.

[Lila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this as a Goodreads giveaway, and I am so grateful that I signed up! I LOVED this book!!! The Introduction drew me right in. The author does an amazing job of making you feel like you are right there in that era, at the concerts, with the band. He certainly made me wish I was old enough to be going to rock concerts in 1973. Although I was not a huge fan of any of the three bands featured in this book, I found myself completed captivated by their stories. I have heard some of the anecdotes before, but this book was told from a point of the view of the actual bands and music executives. It was entertaining and very nostalgic. I will never listen to songs by Led Zeppelin, The Who or Alice Cooper the same way again. The author is clearly a true fan and a music lover. The book provides glimpses of the music industry that I never had. The middle section drags a bit with too much technical information and so many names of industry folks that get hard to follow. But the incredible photos help and the back stage, real life stories kept me turning the pages.

I think that one reason this book resonated with me was that it is so appropriate to what is happening in the music industry today. I could not help but compare the outrage over the Miley Cyrus incident to the antics of rock bands in 1973. She had nothing on them! The (totally accepted and admired) excessive rock and roll lifestyle of the 70's makes the current acts look tame to me. It is curious the double standard.

This book makes me remember why music is so powerful. It leaves me starstruck. I would consider this a "must read" for anyone who grew up the 70's or is a fan of these 3 bands. But really, ANYONE who loves rock music will enjoy this book!!!

[Stephen Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining, but too short.
It hardly seems possible that so many great albums were released in 1973: Raw Power-The Stooges, Tyranny and Mutation-Blue Öyster Cult,
Dixie Chicken-Little Feat, The Dark Side of the Moon-Pink Floyd,
Closing Time-Tom Waits, Bloodshot -The J. Geils Band, Aladdin Sane-David Bowie, Catch a Fire-Bob Marley & The Wailers, Desperado-Eagles,
Mott-Mott the Hoople, Tres Hombres- ZZ Top, We're an American Band-Grand Funk Railroad, Berlin-Lou Reed, Countdown to Ecstasy-Steely Dan, Honky Tonk Heroes-Waylon Jennings, Innervisions-Stevie Wonder, Let's Get It On-Marvin Gaye, Over-Nite Sensation-Frank Zappa, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road-Elton John, Head Hunters-Herbie Hancock, Burnin'-Bob Marley & The Wailers, Mind Games-John Lennon, Viva Terlingua-Jerry Jeff Walker, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath-Black Sabbath, Band on the Run-Paul McCartney & Wings, Shotgun Willie–Willie Nelson plus debut LPs from Aerosmith, Springsteen, Queen, New York Dolls, Rufus and Lynyrd Skynyrd. An entire book could be written about any one of these, but Walker focuses on the three biggest albums and tours of the year: Led Zeppelin-Houses of the Holy, The Who-Quadrophenia and Alice Cooper-Billion Dollar Babies. Great stories and insight into the early rock tours, I just wish there was more of it.