Better to Burn Out: The Cult of Death in Rock 'n' Roll

From Joe Meek, the brilliant rival of Phil Spector, who was cursed with a premonition of Buddy Holly's death and whose descent into Satanism and paranoia led to a gruesome murder/suicide, to Jonathan Melvoin, the Juilliard trained keyboard player who succumbed to the lure of heroin while touring with the Smashing Pumpkins, Better to Burn Out documents the deaths of the foot soldiers of rock'n'roll. This fascinating addition to the select shelf of musical necrographies - books about the deaths, not the lives, of their subjects - recounts more than seventy untimely, unexpected, and just plain unfortunate deaths, some in passing, some in depth, some in almost painful detail, drawn from well over a decade's worth of personal interviews and conversations.