Film-maker and author Cameron Crowe narrates his memoir The Uncool, a vivid account of his teenage years as a music journalist in 1970s America. The title stems from a comment by rock critic Lester Bangs, who deemed Crowe perpetually uncool compared with the stars he interviewed.
Long before directing films such as Almost Famous, which loosely depicted his journalistic adventures, a teenage Crowe criss-crossed the United States to interview some of the era's biggest acts, including Gram Parsons, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, the Eagles and the Allman Brothers Band. His memoir presents him as an outsider who cared little for sex, alcohol or drugs, and who lacked the usual rock-world savoir-faire.
Yet musicians appreciated his company, drawn to his sincerity and his role as an admiring fan rather than a detached reporter. The audiobook also evokes a time when bands were not shielded by legions of publicists, allowing a writer to spend 18 months with an artist – as Crowe did with Bowie in the mid-1970s – for a single profile.
The narrative concludes shortly after a filmed interview with Tom Petty. When the video director vanished, Petty told Crowe to pick up the camera and start shooting. That moment led Crowe to discover his true calling, as he put it: '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.'
Crowe's warm and energetic narration conveys the wide-eyed astonishment of his younger self, offering listeners an intimate portrait of a lost era in rock journalism.
