PUBLICATION DATE: JUNE 5, 2012
Everyone knows the price of fame. Hitless Wonder measures the price of obscurity. What happens when you chase a dream into middle age and, in doing so, risk losing the people you love?
This book recounts the two-week tour that forces Joe Oestreich—singer, songwriter, and bassist of the band Watershed—to decide if he and his longtime bandmates still have a future together. In the mid-‘90s, Watershed’s large Midwest following led to a six-figure deal with Epic Records. But the band never had a hit, and the label dropped them. Seventeen years later, long after their more famous peers have called it quits, Watershed keeps climbing into the Econoline and touring mop bucket bars.
But Joe can’t help but wonder: Are he and his bandmates—approaching forty with wives and kids and mortgages—admirable or pathetic? Successes or failures? The tour tests the bonds of Joe’s friendships and the strength of his marriage, as he’s torn between the lure of the road and the call to finally settle down.
TESTIMONIALS
—Tom Perrotta, author of ELECTION and THE LEFTOVERS “Zippos up for Joe Oestreich’s smart, funny, touching, unputdownable HITLESS WONDER—my new favorite memoir and a shoo-in for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”
—Will Allison, author of LONG DRIVE HOME and WHAT YOU HAVE LEFT “Finally, somebody gets it right: the real story of rock and roll is not about limos and paparazzi; it’s about driving all day in a beat-up van to play your ass off in a scroungy dive for gas money, year after year, hoping for that big break. Believe me, Joe Oestreich’s superbly written HITLESS WONDER is the best and most honest memoir about the thwarted desire for rock stardom that you will ever read.”
—Donald Ray Pollock, author of THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME and KNOCKEMSTIFF “I love Watershed’s music so much, I used a lyric from one of their songs as the epigraph for my last novel. Joe Oestreich is a musician and a writer of uncommon skill—a virtuoso of language, a teller of tales, a cultural critic, a man eager to show us where he’s been and where he’s heading. The first time I listened to a Watershed CD and then saw them perform live, I couldn’t get their songs out of my head. Now I can’t forget this glorious memoir, HITLESS WONDER—a story of rock and roll, passion, friendship, and the communities that sustain us. I dare say, you won’t be able to either. Get ready to rock!”
—Lee Martin, author of THE BRIGHT FOREVER and BREAK THE SKIN
Pingback: Countdown to the Books of 2012 (Nonfiction!) « Memoriousmag's Blog