A Likely Lad

Product Information

But these strange little references in certain books I picked up intrigued me, especially to opium, which was described in a luxurious sense, associated with a sensation of peace and accomplishment and a mystical, magical land. In addition, there isn't any insight into why Pete was driven to such olympian levels of self-destruction. Loving/preferring happy uppers was lucky I guess, but I wasn't cut out for the life of a smack-bandit or crack-head.

His lack of reflection then is perhaps understandable given that he likely doesn’t remember a whole lot of what happened. Much of what is known about Doherty comes from sensational headlines grabbed from tabloid newspaper and bombastic interviews where the singer spieled exaggerated stories about his rockstar lifestyle or just blatantly told lies.Peter's music is as eclectic as it is introspective, and is consistently thought of one of the leading lights on the British rock scene. Ten years ago after her divorce from Jamie Hince, the supermodel phoned her ex-boyfriend to check in on him and see whether he was still doing drugs.

Doherty reveals that beyond the tabloid hoopla, it wasn’t all brinksmanship and squalor; there was joy too, in the excess, in his relationship with Moss – at times “an Evelyn Waugh scene”, we learn, all secret rendezvous and four-poster beds – and in the camaraderie among bands, especially in the Libertines’ more ramshackle days. He sometimes made use of tabloid curiosity, selling photographs and stories to pay debts, a naivety guiding his approach: “I thought I’d be able to crack it. There is not much of a redemptive narrative arc, very little contrition, and Pete seems to indicate that it's everybody else's intolerance that is the issue and not his Herculian drug hoovering. and an addict) and loved gaining a deeper insight into his genius/sources of inspiration, and learning the real timeline of events of his life. A man who viewed parenting as dropping his children off at a library while he spends the afternoon in a bookmakers.Felt like he was trying to set some records straight although as a book about recovery I was saddened to hear that Pete had fallen into using after the Libertines was formed. The issue is not that the book is lacking in salacious stories – there are plenty – it’s just that Doherty doesn’t seem to have much to say about them. I think he almost had to do that, go through everything he did, and come out the other side to truly discover who he is as a man; a father; a husband; a son; a whole person. There are the years when Doherty worked as a gravedigger or pulling pints, stealing from the cash register. In 2005, Doherty became prominent in tabloids, the news media, and pop culture blogs because of his romantic relationship with model Kate Moss and his frequently-publicised drug addictions.

It felt like a very literal recount of Pete's life, with a rather flat style, that didn't really convey the wonderful poetry of Pete's lyrics and outstanding songwriting. Fans of the Libertines – who formed in 1997 – may hope for a work rivalling the literary merit of Patti Smith’s Just Kids or Bob Dylan’s Chronicles.But just as he approaches a moment of insight, or self-reflection, he veers away again, choosing instead to focus on an irrelevant detail. I really wasn't expecting to come away from this book liking Doherty, but he just completely challenged my preconceptions about him before I'd even finished the first chapter.

I miss something what Keith Richards said in Life ,that he didn’t advice to follow him in the hell of the drugs because his case is somehow unique . To me it paints a very accurate and important picture of drug abuse and addiction and to talk about it so openly isn’t to glorify it.Doherty describes how, after that first Top of the Pops appearance, he and Barât were “mobbed” by fans for the first time, something they’d been hoping would happen for years. You may think you have heard them all (and plenty more fabricated ones too), but the indie rock star is set to lift the lid on his decade-spanning career with the release of a memoir. There are Doherty’s first experiences with crack cocaine and heroin during the much-mythologised early days of the band, when they’d play tiny, unruly gigs in basements, squats and the brothel where they lived in north London – all always described as “the Albion Rooms”.