Set in the years between the meteoric launches of Madonna and Courtney Love, Petal Pusher takes readers on a stirring journey across rock and roll, from the big-haired 1980s to the grunge-filled 1990s, when Laurie Lindeen brought her all-girl band, Zuzu's Petals, to compete in the indie rock arena.
Minneapolis in the eighties was a musical hotbed, the land of 10,000 lakes and 10,000 bands that gave birth to Prince, the Replacements, and Soul Asylum. For Laurie Lindeen it was the perfect place to launch her rock-and-roll dream. She moved to the city with her best friends Phyll ("Annie Oakley meets Patsy Cline") and Coleen ("former cheerleader gone off the arty deep end") to crash in decrepit apartments and coax punk rock from crappy used guitars. But unbeknownst to her friends, Laurie has a secret in her past -- a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis that fuels her passion to make it big on the local, national, and international rock scene.
With inspiring determination, Laurie and her Zuzu's Petals survive the many challenges of being underdogs in a man's world. Then Laurie is thrown a curveball when she falls for Paul Westerberg of Replacements fame and reevaluates exactly what it means to "make it big."
By turns hilarious and heartrending, Petal Pusher is a brilliant behind-the-scenes look at music on the front lines, and the awe-inspiring tale of one woman's fight against disease and the disillusionment of life in the rock underground.
4 of 5 stars
rhettaa says...
Laurie Lindeen, in the 1990's, was the lead singer for the group, ZuZu's Petals. ZuZu's Petals always seemed to be on the verge of making it big, but they never quite did. Despite some critical review and decent sells, they were always an opening act or headlining in clubs and bars that ranged from fairly decent to perfectly awful. They never made enough money to quit their day jobs; in Laurie's case, cooking in a less than posh food establishment. So, when, the subtitle of the book is 'A Rock and Roll Cinderella Story," it seems this Cindy never quite makes it to the ball (although she does find not one but several Rock 'n Roll Princes along the way.)
With a diagnosis of MS always in the back of her mind, Laurie travels the rock backroads of America and England with her mates Phyll and Coleen, determined to make it big in the indie rock scene. Hanging out with well-known musicians like Soul Asylum and The Replacements, she finally settles on Phil Westerburg of The Replacements as her life partner (and is still married to him today.) But the rock and roll life, in this memoir, is mostly boredom and disillusionment, broken up mainly by thrift store shopping.
There are no juicy stories of groupies, wild parties, and drugs here; no throwing televisions out of hotel windows; just a very honest, no-holds-bars looks at what it's really like to be almost the next big thing in rock and roll.
I did not come away from this book feeling that I got to know very much about Phyll or Coleen, and I felt I got a fairly one-sided view of Laurie, the view with all the angst and less of the view of Laurie having fun and centering on other people than herself. But, hey, that's indie rock for you.
The book could have certainly used some photos. Photos would have helped me feel that I knew these people and had shared their travels much more.
Nevertheless, I give the book four stars for its honesty and unromanticized look at the indie rock lifestyle.
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