Overview

Since first becoming a true believer in the power and importance of rock & roll as a boy in the 1950s, Art Fein has been immersed in music and the music business, taking on many diverse roles: Journalist: onetime music editor of Variety, contributor to the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Rolling Stone, Billboard and other publications TV host: Art Fein's Poker Party, a talk-&-live-music public access cable show that ran for 24 years. Band manager: Blasters, Cramps Record company staffer: Capitol, Elektra, Casablanca Music Consultant for TV and film: Roadhouse 66, Tour of Duty Album Producer: L.A. Rockabilly Author: The L.A. Musical History Tour Blogger: Another Fein Mess And: event promoter, photographer, record collector, and rock & roll historian. In the memoir Rock's in My Head, drawing on 10,000 (!) pages of a journal he began keeping in the early 1970s, Fein recounts such incredible rock & roll adventures as: A week spent working with John Lennon and Yoko Ono Touring the UK with rockabilly legend Ray Campi Throwing wild New Year's Eve parties for hundreds of revelers with cars as door prizes Cooking up an ill-fated album with Ringo Starr (""Twenty-six years later, I was chatting with Ringo and mentioned the rockabilly album we'd planned. He said, 'Did I do the album? Did I stay at your house? I was so drunk in those days.'"") In 1985, Fein did the one thing fans are always cautioned about: he befriended an idol, becoming part of legendary record producer Phil Spector's inner circle. That relationship--often gratifying, sometimes terrifying--lasted through Spector's murder conviction in 2009. Fein knows--and reports--startling and intimate details about Spector that have appeared nowhere else.

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Reviews

Art Fein knows records, and a lot of the people who made records. He interviewed hundreds of them on his long-running cable TV show. He was the DJ at my wedding reception, and the dance floor was always full! He's a great writer, too. Read this book! [radio host Dr. Demento] Edited from about a million words of his legendary journals by the one and only Art Fein of Hollywood, Rock's in My Head captures a lifetime of rock and roll obsession with all the fervor and fire of those rockabilly records Fein prized above all others. He is the Ersel Hickey of rock memoirists. You can buy this, you can read this, but you can never be as cool as Art Fein, so just dig it. [journalist and author Joel Selvin ] Everybody oughta get to know Art Fein, and this wonderful book is the best way to do it. Art has served rock & roll as scribe, flack, label guy, manager, promoter, TV host, kibitzer, schmoozer, and all-around good Joe. He has known the famous, infamous, nefarious, and fabulous denizens of the music and lived to tell the tale. His license plate is the best possible review of his tome: SO FEIN. [journalist and author Chris Morris] Rock's in My Head is opinionated, funny, brutally honest and revealing and always driven by rock 'n' roll - not the rock and roll of the hall of fame or classic rock, but the real stuff from the 1950s that, via Elvis, hooked Fein as a boy in Chicago.... The most intimate look at [Phil] Spector that I've read - and I've read most, if not all of the books written about him.... Rocks in My Head [is] my favorite rock 'n' roll read of 2022. [L. Kent Wolgamott in the Lincoln Journal Star] As a music journalist for 45+ years, most of that writing and reviewing for the Los Angeles Times, I can strongly recommend Fein's memoir as one of the most refreshing and breeziest I've read in a long while. It's about life in the trenches of the music business, in contrast to so many books written from the top floor of the penthouse suites. Fein's an excellent writer whose wry sense of humor, disarming honesty and self-deprecating air make this an entertaining and illuminating journey through his various roles as record label publicist, talent manager, music journalist and irrepressible host of his long-running music-centric public access cable TV show Art Fein's Poker Party. Even his chapter titles are witty counterpoint to so much self-importance that runs through the music business. Many of his anecdotes of interactions with pop music superstars and record industry honchos are laugh-out-loud funny. [Randy Lewis, former LA Times staffer]

"""Art Fein knows records, and a lot of the people who made records. He interviewed hundreds of them on his long-running cable TV show. He was the DJ at my wedding reception, and the dance floor was always full! He's a great writer, too. Read this book!"" [radio host Dr. Demento] ""Edited from about a million words of his legendary journals by the one and only Art Fein of Hollywood, Rock's in My Head captures a lifetime of rock and roll obsession with all the fervor and fire of those rockabilly records Fein prized above all others. He is the Ersel Hickey of rock memoirists. You can buy this, you can read this, but you can never be as cool as Art Fein, so just dig it."" [journalist and author Joel Selvin] ""Everybody oughta get to know Art Fein, and this wonderful book is the best way to do it. Art has served rock & roll as scribe, flack, label guy, manager, promoter, TV host, kibitzer, schmoozer, and all-around good Joe. He has known the famous, infamous, nefarious, and fabulous denizens of the music and lived to tell the tale. His license plate is the best possible review of his tome: SO FEIN."" [journalist and author Chris Morris] Rock's in My Head is opinionated, funny, brutally honest and revealing and always driven by rock 'n' roll - not the rock and roll of the hall of fame or ""classic"" rock, but the real stuff from the 1950s that, via Elvis, hooked Fein as a boy in Chicago.... The most intimate look at [Phil] Spector that I've read - and I've read most, if not all of the books written about him.... Rocks in My Head [is] my favorite rock 'n' roll read of 2022. [L. Kent Wolgamott in the Lincoln Journal Star] As a music journalist for 45+ years, most of that writing and reviewing for the Los Angeles Times, I can strongly recommend Fein's memoir as one of the most refreshing and breeziest I've read in a long while. It's about life in the trenches of the music business, in contrast to so many books written from the top floor of the penthouse suites. Fein's an excellent writer whose wry sense of humor, disarming honesty and self-deprecating air make this an entertaining and illuminating journey through his various roles as record label publicist, talent manager, music journalist and irrepressible host of his long-running music-centric public access cable TV show ""Art Fein's Poker Party."" Even his chapter titles are witty counterpoint to so much self-importance that runs through the music business. Many of his anecdotes of interactions with pop music superstars and record industry honchos are laugh-out-loud funny. [Randy Lewis, former LA Times staffer]"

Author Information

Art Fein is the author of The L.A. Musical History Tour. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Variety, and many other publications. He lives in Los Angeles.

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