The Improbable Rock Star

All These Things That I Have Done: My Insane, Improbable Rock Life – Matt Pinfield with Mitchell Cohen (Scribner)

To be honest…I never understood how Matt Pinfield ended up on MTV/VH1. Here was this dweeby little bald headed dude, what amounted to a not good looking version of the talentless Carson Daly. I often wondered aloud, “who do these guys have pictures of with farm animals?” Granted, I was a viewer when MTV launched and had been through all the changes along the way, so by the time Pinfield rolled around I was spending countless hours watching the boob tube.

So I didn’t know what to expect when I cracked open All These Things That I Have Done: My Insane, Improbable Rock Life, Pinfield’s autobiography. What I soon discovered was that Pinfield is a certifiable music fanatic of epic proportions. This guy is truly embalmed in music and for me his story was immensely relatable.

I got into radio not to be star DJ, but because I loved music and wanted to tell people about it and share great stuff with people. When Pinfield tells the story of being herded into a room with a bunch of B and C level writers and DJs to interview The Cure, I could totally relate, because I had been in a different version of that same room with artists like Sinead O’Connor, The Squeeze and The Hooters. It’s one of those deals when you ask the question that makes you stand out and you end up later drinking whiskey the band like you had been lifelong friends.

Pinfield’s tale is a bit rambling at times, with strange asides like the story of the birth of his first child, followed by an odd paragraph about a cassette he received in the mail that purports contained 45 minutes of the cult leader Jim Jones on a rant while his followers scream and writhe on the ground around him. Not sure what one has to do with the other.

Improbable rock life, yep I think Pinfield has that one covered. In fact his story reads like another edition of Behind the Music, with his rise up from nothing to rock star fame, drugs and alcohol followed by the obligatory rehab and redemption, it covers all the bases. Bet he didn’t see that coming.