Rating: 
Summary: An overdue document on a band that desreves your attention.
Review: I'm so surprised there aren't many books or even a documentary
on the band LOVE. If you're into inventive and dynamic music
it doesn't get much better than LOVE. Stuart-Ware's book tells
the story of the pioneering psychedelic group in great detail without having to resort to sensationalism. He gives the reader a feel of the creative enthusiasm that blossomed in the
L.A. music scene of the 1960s. For fans,of course,this is an important work. Personally,when I read it I felt like I was transported into the past to witness the good and bad times these guys went through. Stuart-Ware satisfied my curiosity about
their career onstage and in the studio.After enjoying LOVE's music so much I finally get to know the personalities of the
bandmembers. He also candidly shares their experiences with drugs
and in doing so provides us with an important lesson in decadence. One does not have to be a fan to enjoy this exceptional biography. Not only will you find the story interesting but you may just be prompted to discover the treasure
that is their music.
Rating: 
Summary: Great read. lots of fun, poignant recollections...
Review: If you are a fan of the band (especially the incarnation that created the first album, "Da Capo" and "Forever Changes"), you will thoroughly enjoy this book! (Be forewarned, however, that - as also evidenced by Barney Hoskyns' book - you might find yourself disliking Arthur Lee by the time you're finished reading it.) Written by the band's drummer, it is fun from start to finish.
Rating:
Summary: A "must read" for LOVE fans!
Review: If you are a fan of the band (especially the incarnation that created the first album, "Da Capo" and "Forever Changes"), you will thoroughly enjoy this book! (Be forewarned, however, that - as also evidenced by Barney Hoskyns' book - you might find yourself disliking Arthur Lee by the time you're finished reading it.) Written by the band's drummer, it is fun from start to finish.
Rating:
Summary: Great read. lots of fun, poignant recollections...
Review: Imagine that you are an ardent Love fan, and one night you step into a bar and sitting next to you is some guy and it turns out that he was the drummer for Love and played on Da Capo and Forever Changes. All you would want is to do is sit there all night and ask: "what was it like?!" -- Well, the answer would be this book. I couldn't put it down, and basically read it straight through in two sittings. Two nights of hearing Michael Stuart tell what it was like. The chapters are short and accessible. It almost feels like he is just talking straight to you. What he describes is anecdote after anecdote, story after story, and various moments in the 1906's LA scene. There's Kim Fowley grooving out at some UCLA gig. There's Arthur yelling at Jim Morrison for skinny dipping in his pool. Laurel Canyon, the Sunset Strip, Bido Lito's....from the silly to the sublime, the memories are shared, often eloquently.
Arthur definitely comes off as a jerk. A genius, a magnetic personality, a strong and charismatic force -- but a a jerk. Sarcastic, cruel, and he even, according to the author, stiffed the other guys and didn't ever give them their royalties from the work on these two albums. Harsh. My interactions with Arthur have all been positive; he even wrote me back when he was in prison, and has been kind and curteous every time I have ever approcahed hm. But maybe he has just softened as he's gotten older. Because in this book, he seemed pretty mean and unsavory. The liner notes to McLean's "If you Believe..." paint a similar portrait.
My only criticism of this book is that it gives really short shrift to Forever Changes. In my opinion, Forever Changes is the greatest album of all time, ever. It moves me more than any book I have ever read, more than any painting I have ever seen -- it is simply the greatest human creative expression that I have ever expeienced. That said, I was let down that the author really doesn't say all that much about it. Just a little: they didn't rehearse much, studio musicians were brought in, then let go, then it was recorded -- and that was that and he quickly moves on. I was stunned. There was no discussion of the sheer brilliance of it; the non-traditional musical arrangments (like no choruses or hooks), the astounding lyrics, the chilling snare work in the beginning of You Set the Scene....I wanted to know more; how did they feel as they recorded it? What did the author think the first time he heard The red Telepone, for instance?
This is a must-read for any Love fan, or anyone compelled by LA in the 1960s.
Rating:
Summary: Love's drummer changed, but not forever
Review: Late last year, Rolling Stone published its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The number 40 spot belonged to Forever Changes, the 1967 classic by the bi-racial Los Angeles rock band Love. Changes peaked at only 154 on the Billboard Album chart. However, with its weird, druggy songs, and eccentric mixture of rock, Herb Alpert-like brass arrangements, and haunting strings, the album has become regarded as a masterpiece. Michael Stuart-Ware, Love's drummer during its heyday, apparently wrote this book for consumption by fans of the band (a version of Love still tours with Arthur Lee, its front man and sole original member). However, the author also has produced an engaging memoir of the 1964-68 L.A. music scene, when the rock genre was being transformed from a niche teen market into a cultural phenomenon. The son of an aerospace worker, Stuart-Ware plays drums in his high school band (a photograph shows him with a bow tie and a buzz cut) and earns a college scholarship. As a student at UCLA, he is taken by the new sound of The Beatles, Rolling Stones and other British Invasion bands. The author drops out of college, joins a band, and later is asked to join Love. Despite his awareness of Love's reputation for rampant drug use, and his own disdain for drugs, Stuart-Ware readily accepts the invitation. The author shares living space with other band members, and soon is smoking hash with them and dropping LSD. Indeed, a communal hash pipe seemingly accompanies the band's every activity, whether traveling on a commercial jet, rehearsing, or just eating. Lead singer Lee, a black man from Watts (but more musically influenced by folk-rocker Roger McGuinn than James Brown), is the focal point of the book. Lee is portrayed alternatively as a thug (mercilessly beating a man for a drug deal gone awry), and as strict taskmaster who successfully transforms his vision for Changes into a finished product.
Ultimately, Lee's boorishness and self-absorption, and the whole band's drug use and unprofessionalism, spell its downfall. For instance, after flying to Miami at the expense of Elektra Records, and being entertained at the home of an Elektra executive, Lee cancels a gig when he learns that The Mothers of Invention have top billing. At what should have been the band's zenith, the original Love implodes and its members quickly scatter. Stuart-Ware kicks around with other acts, and is offered a job backing up Neil Diamond. He considers the offer, but declines after attending a Diamond concert and remembering, "I had never liked one song Neil Diamond had ever recorded, not even a bit." After which the author permanently leaves the music business, going on to hold a number of different jobs, including printer, product inspector, scuba instructor and telephone pole climber. Stuart-Ware, a first-time author, is not a great writer. His verse is stilted and suffers from unnecessary detail ("We found a place to park about a half block from the restaurant and I fished some change from my pocket and fed the meter."). Conversely, the interesting post-breakup escapades of Love's members are all but ignored. No mention is made of Arthur Lee's later, frequent brushes with the criminal justice system (culminating in a six-year prison term under California's "three strikes and you're out" law). Nor does Stuart-Ware relate that two heroin-addicted former band mates (guitarist Johnny Echols and bassist Ken Forssi) did time for holding up donut shops, or that singer-guitarist Bryan MacLean became a Christian missionary until his death in 1998. Those omissions are inexplicable. On the other hand, Stuart-Ware is a fine storyteller. He takes readers into the mid-60s L.A. club scene and culture, centered on Sunset Boulevard and places like the Whisky and Bido Lito's, and houses inhabited by rock musicians in nearby Laurel Canyon. The author relates how an agitated and prudish Lee chases a naked Jim Morrison from a swimming pool at MacLean's house. There is poignant tale of the shaggy-haired band amicably sharing a plane with Vietnam-bound troops. Also, there are plenty of anecdotes about how members of a working band pass the waking hours between rehearsals and gigs. Finally, without a trace of bitterness, Stuart-Ware recalls being in a Sam Goody's shop in 1998, when his young son shows him the Love box set CD; the author pays $30 to buy the music he created 30 years before. "Pegasus Carousel" is an enjoyable paperback about an ordinary man who took an early life detour into the realm of the abnormal. Unlike his band mates, the author returned seemingly unscathed. Now approaching the end of his working life, he writes, "I can honestly say I never had a job I didn't like," presumably including his career as a drug band drummer. He concludes, "I like normal." Apparently, the man in the bow tie is the real Michael Stuart-Ware.
Rating:
Summary: Love's drummer changed, but not forever
Review: Late last year, Rolling Stone published its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The number 40 spot belonged to Forever Changes, the 1967 classic by the bi-racial Los Angeles rock band Love. Changes peaked at only 154 on the Billboard Album chart. However, with its weird, druggy songs, and eccentric mixture of rock, Herb Alpert-like brass arrangements, and haunting strings, the album has become regarded as a masterpiece. Michael Stuart-Ware, Love's drummer during its heyday, apparently wrote this book for consumption by fans of the band (a version of Love still tours with Arthur Lee, its front man and sole original member). However, the author also has produced an engaging memoir of the 1964-68 L.A. music scene, when the rock genre was being transformed from a niche teen market into a cultural phenomenon. The son of an aerospace worker, Stuart-Ware plays drums in his high school band (a photograph shows him with a bow tie and a buzz cut) and earns a college scholarship. As a student at UCLA, he is taken by the new sound of The Beatles, Rolling Stones and other British Invasion bands. The author drops out of college, joins a band, and later is asked to join Love. Despite his awareness of Love's reputation for rampant drug use, and his own disdain for drugs, Stuart-Ware readily accepts the invitation. The author shares living space with other band members, and soon is smoking hash with them and dropping LSD. Indeed, a communal hash pipe seemingly accompanies the band's every activity, whether traveling on a commercial jet, rehearsing, or just eating. Lead singer Lee, a black man from Watts (but more musically influenced by folk-rocker Roger McGuinn than James Brown), is the focal point of the book. Lee is portrayed alternatively as a thug (mercilessly beating a man for a drug deal gone awry), and as strict taskmaster who successfully transforms his vision for Changes into a finished product.
Ultimately, Lee's boorishness and self-absorption, and the whole band's drug use and unprofessionalism, spell its downfall. For instance, after flying to Miami at the expense of Elektra Records, and being entertained at the home of an Elektra executive, Lee cancels a gig when he learns that The Mothers of Invention have top billing. At what should have been the band's zenith, the original Love implodes and its members quickly scatter. Stuart-Ware kicks around with other acts, and is offered a job backing up Neil Diamond. He considers the offer, but declines after attending a Diamond concert and remembering, "I had never liked one song Neil Diamond had ever recorded, not even a bit." After which the author permanently leaves the music business, going on to hold a number of different jobs, including printer, product inspector, scuba instructor and telephone pole climber. Stuart-Ware, a first-time author, is not a great writer. His verse is stilted and suffers from unnecessary detail ("We found a place to park about a half block from the restaurant and I fished some change from my pocket and fed the meter."). Conversely, the interesting post-breakup escapades of Love's members are all but ignored. No mention is made of Arthur Lee's later, frequent brushes with the criminal justice system (culminating in a six-year prison term under California's "three strikes and you're out" law). Nor does Stuart-Ware relate that two heroin-addicted former band mates (guitarist Johnny Echols and bassist Ken Forssi) did time for holding up donut shops, or that singer-guitarist Bryan MacLean became a Christian missionary until his death in 1998. Those omissions are inexplicable. On the other hand, Stuart-Ware is a fine storyteller. He takes readers into the mid-60s L.A. club scene and culture, centered on Sunset Boulevard and places like the Whisky and Bido Lito's, and houses inhabited by rock musicians in nearby Laurel Canyon. The author relates how an agitated and prudish Lee chases a naked Jim Morrison from a swimming pool at MacLean's house. There is poignant tale of the shaggy-haired band amicably sharing a plane with Vietnam-bound troops. Also, there are plenty of anecdotes about how members of a working band pass the waking hours between rehearsals and gigs. Finally, without a trace of bitterness, Stuart-Ware recalls being in a Sam Goody's shop in 1998, when his young son shows him the Love box set CD; the author pays $30 to buy the music he created 30 years before. "Pegasus Carousel" is an enjoyable paperback about an ordinary man who took an early life detour into the realm of the abnormal. Unlike his band mates, the author returned seemingly unscathed. Now approaching the end of his working life, he writes, "I can honestly say I never had a job I didn't like," presumably including his career as a drug band drummer. He concludes, "I like normal." Apparently, the man in the bow tie is the real Michael Stuart-Ware.
Rating:
Summary: Wow, what great read!!
Review: The "Love" of the 65'-68' variety is the one I remember, and the Author, Michael Stuart-Ware "Nail's It" in this incredibly well documented and factually written book "Pegasus Carousel". I do not claim to be much of a book "critic", but being on the same bill occasionally in L.A. and the Bay Area with Love back in those days, I can certainly relate to quite a few personal experience's witnessed by myself that Stuart-Ware relates.
It is as if Michael takes you back to the fun, and troubled times of a band that was marked for destiny, by handing you a "back stage pass", and personally guiding you through the climb up the ladder of the talented musical talent's of the individuals of this group, continuing on to their "mysterious" cult L.A. Sunset Strip following and popularity, to the slow descent and desintegration of a band with a serious future.
This is a MUST READ for any past and present Love fan, of any degree. Also, an influential "guide book" for any band now, or in the future. Once you pick it up to start reading, make sure you have a few free hours. Chances are likely you won't put it down until you have finished it!
Rating:
Summary: Wow, what great read!!
Review: The "Love" of the 65'-68' variety is the one I remember, and the Author, Michael Stuart-Ware "Nail's It" in this incredibly well documented and factually written book "Pegasus Carousel". I do not claim to be much of a book "critic", but being on the same bill occasionally in L.A. and the Bay Area with Love back in those days, I can certainly relate to quite a few personal experience's witnessed by myself that Stuart-Ware relates.
It is as if Michael takes you back to the fun, and troubled times of a band that was marked for destiny, by handing you a "back stage pass", and personally guiding you through the climb up the ladder of the talented musical talent's of the individuals of this group, continuing on to their "mysterious" cult L.A. Sunset Strip following and popularity, to the slow descent and desintegration of a band with a serious future.
This is a MUST READ for any past and present Love fan, of any degree. Also, an influential "guide book" for any band now, or in the future. Once you pick it up to start reading, make sure you have a few free hours. Chances are likely you won't put it down until you have finished it!
Rating:
Summary: Best "rock bio" I've read
Review: This is the best "rock bio" I've read (and I've read quite a few). Michael takes an approach I haven't seen taken in a book of this type before . . . so personal and honest. In Pegasus he deals with much more than simply the literal history of the late-sixties underground rock group, LOVE. He uses the story of the band to give the readers a rare glimpse beneath the surface of an entire era, writing with an "editorial" slant and a style that borders on the "conversational." Great cast of real-life characters. Couldn't put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Best "rock bio" I've read
Review: This is the best "rock bio" I've read (and I've read quite a few). Michael takes an approach I haven't seen taken in a book of this type before . . . so personal and honest. In Pegasus he deals with much more than simply the literal history of the late-sixties underground rock group, LOVE. He uses the story of the band to give the readers a rare glimpse beneath the surface of an entire era, writing with an "editorial" slant and a style that borders on the "conversational." Great cast of real-life characters. Couldn't put it down.
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