Film-maker and author Cameron Crowe has released the audiobook edition of his memoir, The Uncool, narrating his adventures as a teenage music journalist in 1970s America. The book, which inspired his 2000 film Almost Famous, details his encounters with rock legends including David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Gram Parsons, the Eagles and the Allman Brothers Band.
The title stems from rock critic Lester Bangs’s assessment of Crowe, who is portrayed as a perennial outsider. Unlike the stars he interviewed, Crowe cared little for sex, drink or drugs, and lacked savoir-faire. Yet his sincerity and admiring approach made him a welcome presence among artists who preferred him to dispassionate reporters.
Crowe’s narration is described as warm and vivacious, capturing the wide-eyed astonishment of his youth. He paints a vivid picture of an era when bands lacked PR protection, allowing a journalist to spend 18 months with an artist – as he did with Bowie in the mid-1970s – for a single profile.
The memoir concludes shortly after Crowe conducts a filmed interview with Tom Petty. When the video director disappears, Petty instructs Crowe to pick up the camera. This moment leads Crowe to discover his ideal medium: “I’d been a music journalist, translating time and space for others to savour. This was an exercise in cutting out the middleman. It was like writing without a pen.”
