People like to say that all diaries are written with a reader in mind. And it's true--some diaries, especially those written by famous artists, read like they want to be read. But some, like Diary of a Rock'n'Roll Star by Ian Hunter, lead singer of Mott the Hoople, are written specifically for publication.
Unless you spent the entire glitter era with your head immersed in a topographic ocean, you probably don't need to be reminded that Mott the Hoople was the legendary band for whom David Bowie wrote "All the Young Dudes," a worldwide smash that galvanized a generation of poncey lads. Ian Hunter was the heart and soul (and voice) of Mott, which is why, in 1972, Panther Publishing commissioned Hunter to keep a journal of the band's heroic five-week tour across America in support of "Dudes." Two years later, Diary of a Rock'n'Roll Star was released. Five years after that, Mott the Hoople was dead.
In the fog of years since its original publication, Hunter's diary has attained mythic status; it's the key that unlocks the blinkered soul of a tortured rock poet, and bares the naked, wriggling belly of a cultural watershed. "Think about me about eight tonight," he writes on page 54. "I will be eating sheperd's pie and drinking good wine at the Haymarket on 8th Avenue and I'm really looking forward to it. See you, p.s. Batman's on the telly." While this style may be seductive, it makes the job of deciphering the legacy of its troubled author all the more confounding. What can we hope to find when we read the diary of a rock icon? We can find that Roxy Music played a "shit gig" at Madison Square Garden on December 8, 1972, and that Jethro Tull blew them off the stage. And we keep looking, because sometimes rock stars leave behind more than just songs. Sometimes they leave behind words and drawings, too.
Hunter's diary is more than just a chronicle of a time and a place. It is a chronicle of several places--American places. Places like Los Angeles and New York, but also places like Cleveland, St. Louis, Valley Forge. It is also the receptacle of self-doubt, bravado, confusion, fatigue, elation, and gossip about David Bowie (and others). It is, variously, a Möbius strip, a Chinese box, a double helix, a labyrinth, a snake that eats its own tail, and a cattywampus. It is also a glimpse, however fleeting, into the mind of a man in a band on a tour of America 30 years ago--and like any such tour, it involved airplanes:
Wednesday 22 November 1972
For those of you who have never flown, I can tell you it's a buzz if you can dig it. You get "free" meals, drinks, and papers, duty free gifts and fags (200 Benson & Hedges for ÂŁ1.50) and they get good wages to treat you like royalty. I've flown about 100 times so the novelty has worn off but I'll never forget that first flight. I was elated. Looking down at that land of clouds--you want to jump out and play in them and jump up and down. The seats recline and they even have movies (a choice of two). I'll be watching Steve McQueen in Junior Bonner any minute now.
Over the windows there are pull-down shades which a chick just asked me to close because of the film. I feel good on a continuous supply of Schlitz, the traveller's companion, so I'll settle down and watch the action--see you later.... (pp. 9-10)
It's difficult to know where to begin. First and foremost, we see that Hunter is essentially an optimist--no great surprise to fans of jubilant songs like "All the Young Dudes" and "Rock 'n' Roll Queen," but testament nonetheless to the singer's indomitable spirit in the face of the maelstrom. Also impossible to miss is Hunter's childlike wonder, unsulliable by the cynicism of the age and bolstered by poetic flourish. He doesn't just like to fly, he is "elated." While his body sits politely in his reclining chair, his heart longs to gambol through the "land of clouds." But for all Hunter's romantic whimsy, there lurks in the prose an unslaked thirst. For what, we may never truly understand, but we turn to the diary for clues.
Take, for example, the reference to Schlitz beer. It appears to be a candid comment on an industry that drives its denizens, all too literally, to drink. Look closer, however, and note the world-weary irony of the phrase "the traveller's companion," and the fatalistic resignation with which Hunter pledges to "settle down and watch the action." Even his sign-off feels forcibly casual: "See you later," as if the world weren't tearing his very consciousness asunder, and as if we, his fans, weren't prepared to see what lay beneath.
The very next entry--"Well, the film was shit"--speaks volumes. As does this entry:
Saturday 16 December 1972
I never will understand why they put so much ice in a glass of Coke. Actually, it could be that they don't like giving too much of the stuff away. My top lip's numb and that's what happens everytime--it's like going to the dentist. (p. 121)
Who was Ian Hunter? We may just as well ask, Who was Mick Ralphs? Overend Watts? Phally Allen? Terry Griffin? More to the point, who was Mott the Hoople, and who, in turn, am I? Was Hunter an ambitious performer leading his ragtag band, "neither big nor small," across the promised land, chasing a hit? Was he a debauched hedonist, buying vinyl records and leather clothes and trying to keep slim while sizing up groupies in the winter of "All the Young Dudes"? Or was he a soul in communion with the rock firmament, calling out to his celestial brethren? "I wonder what Lennon's doing now," Hunter writes on page 70. "He's probably just having breakfast. Bacon and eggs Japanese-style. Good luck, mate."
Perhaps the most telling evidence of Hunter's nature can be found not in the dazzling lights and roaring engines of stardom's infernal machinery, but in the quiet shadows of a "tiny" music shop on Sunset Boulevard. Deep in the maw of a road cliché as eternal as Graceland or Waffle House, Hunter pauses to offer not judgment or confession, but advice and prophecy. "See," he writes, "the only way to find bargains in shops like these is to poke about in dark corners, perhaps finding an old gem in the dusty back room. There's soon going to be a market for antique guitars--one usually finds their sound superior anyway. All you kids who eventually get enough bread together to buy a Gibson or a Fender, don't waltz in and buy a shiny new one. Find a 10-year-old battered one; the difference in sound will surprise you. And give Gretsch and Mosrite a go, too. These are great guitars, generally overlooked 'cos they're not groovy at the moment, but they'll come back into popularity one day."
Dark corners, indeed.
The jigsaw fragments of Diary of a Rock'n'Roll Star ultimately come together, a collage of stimuli and responses, of secrets and deeper secrets, of sex and drugs, but also of rock 'n' roll. We have heard Ian Hunter's voice on records for more than 30 years. But no song can ever tell the whole story. Thankfully, we also have Hunter's words, bound in paper, to fill in the cracks: a beacon to illuminate the umbra of a tormented icon and "carry the news" for generations to come.
