Overview

What happens when a group of music business refugees decide to take a different route and play music for the love of it? They form a band called the Continental Drifters, establish a dive-bar residency in Hollywood, and eventually are joined by more biz survivors who adapt their laissez faire approach to the art form that initially drew them into their professions - rock and roll. From Los Angeles to New Orleans, White Noise & Lightning: The Continental Drifters Story covers the trials, tribulations, joy, love, heartbreak, and surprising revival of an unlikely ""super group"" comprised of members of The Cowsills, The Bangles, R.E.M., The Dream Syndicate, Hootie & the Blowfish, The dB's, and more as they navigate the difficult world of band life while juggling ambition, ambivalence, romance, addiction, and family. Sean Kelly's authorized biography of the Drifters tells the band's story through extensive interviews with all ten of the musicians who were full-time members at various times, as well as a myriad of their colorful friends and cohorts, leaving no stone unturned in researching this rather extraordinary group of people and their quest for musical family during a journey one member likened to a ""locomotive going down a hill.""

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Reviews

"Unfortunately, the Continental Drifters were, in their own special ways, doomed to fail. Not because they didn't have the goods. Not because they didn't have the songs, and certainly not because they didn't have the players. Instead, the journey depicted in Sean Kelly's 'White Noise & Lightning: The Continental Drifters Story' from a foundational start in California to pre-Katrina New Orleans echoed their stubborn refusal to ever acquiesce to the hassles and the hurts - the business - of music again. They'd had success with the Bangles, the Cowsills and the dB's, but they'd also been burned. This binded them together, through marriage and drink, hurricane and divorce, even while it kept them from the wider notice they so richly deserved. Kelly traces this winding road toward final acceptance of a shared musical fate using the Continental Drifters' voices. Who better to reveal the deeply personal reasons why this band will always be so criminally overlooked? Along the way, 'White Noise & Lightning' creates a striking and strikingly honest intimacy. No, they never had a big hit. They traded kinship for it - and Kelly captures it beautifully. -Nick DeRiso, author of Journey: Worlds Apart and five-time newspaper columnist of the year The Continental Drifters have always been, to fans like me, one of those bands that slipped through the cracks...the kind of band that ""it should have happened"" for. In White Noise & Lightning: The Continental Drifters Story, Sean Kelly dismantles that view, making it crystal clear that just about everything imaginable did, in fact, happen. And then some. An astonishing assemblage of talent, wholeheartedly and lovingly drifting without a master plan through multiple record deals, romances, breakups, babies, lineup changes, reunions, addictions, hurricanes, deaths...mainstream success is quite clearly the only thing they didn't navigate together. The records will always, beautifully, speak for themselves. And now, Sean's book will always serve as the perfect companion piece. Read it. Today. -Steve Gorman, former Black Crowes drummer and author of Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes Sean Kelly, a passionate fan and natural storyteller, has produced a band bio that, like its subject, is messy and triumphant. Looking for a breathtaking ride? All aboard the locomotive that is the Continental Drifters' story! - Ed Whitelock, co-author of Apocalypse Jukebox: The End of the World in American Popular Music"

Unfortunately, the Continental Drifters were, in their own special ways, doomed to fail. Not because they didn't have the goods. Not because they didn't have the songs, and certainly not because they didn't have the players. Instead, the journey depicted in Sean Kelly's 'White Noise & Lightning: The Continental Drifters Story' from a foundational start in California to pre-Katrina New Orleans echoed their stubborn refusal to ever acquiesce to the hassles and the hurts - the business - of music again. They'd had success with the Bangles, the Cowsills and the dB's, but they'd also been burned. This binded them together, through marriage and drink, hurricane and divorce, even while it kept them from the wider notice they so richly deserved. Kelly traces this winding road toward final acceptance of a shared musical fate using the Continental Drifters' voices. Who better to reveal the deeply personal reasons why this band will always be so criminally overlooked? Along the way, 'White Noise & Lightning' creates a striking and strikingly honest intimacy. No, they never had a big hit. They traded kinship for it - and Kelly captures it beautifully. -Nick DeRiso, author of Journey: Worlds Apart and five-time newspaper columnist of the year The Continental Drifters have always been, to fans like me, one of those bands that slipped through the cracks...the kind of band that ""it should have happened"" for. In White Noise & Lightning: The Continental Drifters Story, Sean Kelly dismantles that view, making it crystal clear that just about everything imaginable did, in fact, happen. And then some. An astonishing assemblage of talent, wholeheartedly and lovingly drifting without a master plan through multiple record deals, romances, breakups, babies, lineup changes, reunions, addictions, hurricanes, deaths...mainstream success is quite clearly the only thing they didn't navigate together. The records will always, beautifully, speak for themselves. And now, Sean's book will always serve as the perfect companion piece. Read it. Today. -Steve Gorman, former Black Crowes drummer and author of Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes Sean Kelly, a passionate fan and natural storyteller, has produced a band bio that, like its subject, is messy and triumphant. Looking for a breathtaking ride? All aboard the locomotive that is the Continental Drifters' story! - Ed Whitelock, co-author of Apocalypse Jukebox: The End of the World in American Popular Music

Author Information

Sean Kelly is a musician, producer, and writer who spent nearly 20 years as the co-songwriter and singer of the band A Fragile Tomorrow. With his band, Sean toured internationally with the likes of Indigo Girls, Matthew Sweet, The Bangles, K's Choice, and Toad the Wet Sprocket, and released seven albums. He currently serves as co-founding editor of The Savannahian, a nonprofit digital news publication in Savannah, Georgia, and composes music for independent films. He lives in Savannah with his wife, Kennedy, and their two children.

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