Author:Peter Doherty
Tabloid bad boy, misunderstood musician, cult hero, public enemy – which of these tags apply to Pete Doherty? This book, co-authored with Simon Spence, looks back at his life with all its many wild highs and crushing rock bottom often self inflicted lows. A talented musician certainly – just listen to the Up The Bracket album – but one who was seemingly overwhelmed by a Herculean appetite for self-destruction. The book doesn’t try to whitewash the drug abuse, violence, spells in prison and the like, things reaching a nadir around the Babyshambles/ Kate Moss era in the mid 2000s, and the parallels with Shane MacGowan and Amy Winehouse in his chaotic selfish lifestyle are certainly plain for all to see. He’s obviously an intelligent man underneath all this, and at various points knowledgeably discusses poetry, politics and philosophy, but all too often this persona is subsumed by the dark side of his character in this at times humorous, at times reflective, at times haunting memoir – he’s someone who has certainly lived life to the full, but all too often this has been to the detriment of those around him. It’s an interesting read, but you can’t help feeling he could have achieved so much more had he taken different paths and made better choices, but at the end of the day he did it his way and in a perhaps somewhat unlikely happy ending seems to have finally cleaned up his act and found a modicum of peace and contentment in his life.
Length of Read:Medium
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
The Libertines, rock memoirs.
One thing you’ve learned
Doherty is definitely someone who polarises opinions!.
You’re a better man than I am, Bargey Din.
If I had to read more than one page of this it would take a team of surgeons several days to get my teeth unclenched.
I try not to have a downer on people I don’t like – with the obvious exception of Kasabian – but my biography of him would be one word (four letters) long. Two words if I included the prefix “talentless”.
The whole Libertines thing didn’t really translate to anywhere outside of the UK or at least its tabloid media. And if you remove the tabloid frenzy and self-mythologising, there is very, very little left.
So what is he doing now? Making music? Any good ?
Living in France and stuffing his face with cheese by all accounts.
Yep. A fairly thorough interview published recently suggests he has a good chance of living long enough to wobble past his youthful indiscretions.
I’m not a huge fan myself, but I can’t believe that anyone calling him ‘talentless’ has heard some of the things from him that first alerted me to his existence before the subsequent descent (almost) to oblivion. In fact I think he has considerable talent, it’s just that we haven’t seen or heard much of it for a while. I wish him well and look forward to hearing what he comes up with when he’s ready to do so again.
I had an early (around the time of their first single) ‘experience’ of the Libs live in the flesh. The band were tolerable, but he was a prize ****. And then he began to “sing”. I was later told by my chums at the venue that he turned the upstairs dressing room into a drug den, before trashing it.
Their next appearance in town was cancelled when he failed to turn up to the gig.
So I come at this with ‘previous’.
I did hear Can’t Stand Me Now on the radio last year and thought “that’s not bad”… until the vocals started.
Boundary-pushing misunderstood poet/artist, or just a twunt? I know which way I’m voting.
I agree with this. They wrote some pretty great songs and played some excellent live shows. They were horrible drug addicts, but then so are/were a lot of bands.
Plus, one of my brothers looks almost exactly like Carl Barat, and is sometimes stopped in the streets by fans, much to our familial amusement.
I agree VV – there was “something” about The Libertines songs and performance. Kept hoping he would actually deliver on the promise (or so I perceived it).
Turned into a bit of a bumbling knob – was given a chance on stage with Elton John at Live8 … nearly managed it but ended up the wrong side of shambolic, like he was playing at being “too cool for school” – it wasn’t even 2pm he looked completely f**ked.
I reckon talentless t##t is giving too much praise.
I listened to his ‘music’ when all the hullabaloo in both the tabloids/music press was at it’s height. I really wanted to hear something to be in awe of, unfortunately what I heard was utter crap and his singing…..
The easily needled Peter Perrett is no great fan of our Pete either
Is that a comment or some kind of pronunciation exercise?
Also is “easily-needled” a brilliant play on words re heroin use – or does it simply mean he is quick to anger?
I was striving for the former but wouldn’t be such an arrogant prick as to claim I’d achieved it.
“Arrogant prick” – ISWYDT.
And there was me beginning to think I was wasted on this place
Only if you follow the Doherty guide to life.
He must have some charm to have snared Kate Moss. Don’t know much about his music but if we eliminated all selfish rock star drug addicts/alcoholics then we would lose a lot of music of great worth. In fact what would be left? Cliff maybe?
Macca, for one, surely?
Depends, he has been a pot addict for about 57 years. Also I believe some issues at times with alcohol and cocaine. As far as I know he has behaved pretty well though (in general)
Addiction suggests to me problems and inability to cope with normal life, often with financial and physical/mental health issues. I didn’t know he was a long-term regular toker, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Nothing about his public behaviour suggests addiction.
Very likely, 99% of other AWers can quote chapter and verse to disprove what I’ve said, but it’s the impression I’ve formed.
Well there’s “addicts’ and “functioning addicts”. I am not putting McCartney in the same category as Doherty, but I would imagine the times when he has no chemicals in his system are few and far between.
Why would PD need charm to snare KM?
I think she was probably more attracted by the unmistakable whiff of danger that came from hanging around with PD and his circle of “bad boy” friends
“He must have had some Charlie to have snared Kate Moss”.
There, fixed it for you. In every sense 😏
Sadly their relationship didn’t do her career a powder of good
If he was a Likely Lad, I’d know about it.
It’s more “likely” he’s a 60s-dodging-crock-o-shite.
Hello Thelma. Pet…
As I’ve always maintained, and it’s only my opinion, the Libertines were two-thirds of a great band: they looked good, had a fab ramshackle sound…but they just couldn’t write any decent songs.
Got to say that between PD, Amy Winehouse, that tosser Blake she was seeing, Shane McGowan’s decline, and a few others, the early 21st century was been pretty good at “deconstructing” the “elegantly wasted” rock and roll bullshit that rather blighted life from the 70s onward as regards heroin use. I’ve not yet seen cocaine use become as unhip, but I’m hoping.
Let’s hope so, think alcohol killed Amy W but she got into other stuff too
This from her Wiki page:
“She was hospitalised during this period for what was reported as an overdose of heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine and alcohol.”
That’s quite a night out! Later:
“British tabloid The Sun posted a video of a woman, alleged to be Winehouse, apparently smoking crack cocaine and speaking of having taken ecstasy and valium.”
Is there anything she didn’t try?
Who can blame her? If I had to spend any amount of time with PD I’d have all that plus Brasso with a Tixylix chaser.
“Benylin, it’s my wife and it’s my life”
Crack/heroin etc didn’t kill her though. From same wikipedia page:
“A coroner’s inquest reached a verdict of misadventure. The report released on 26 October 2011 explained that Winehouse’s blood alcohol content was 416 mg per 100 ml (0.416%) at the time of her death, more than five times the legal drink-drive limit.[258] According to the coroner, “The unintended consequences of such potentially fatal levels was her sudden death.”
Nothing she did to herself was as toxic as her dad and her so-called boyfriend. OOAA
Yep, after a longish period of being dry and clean. It’s the post-detox falling-off-the-wagon dose that finishes off many an addict, isn’t it?