​In the '70s and '80s, during stints with Trapeze, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and solo/duo efforts, Glenn Hughes proved a triple threat musically as a singer, songwriter, and bassist. Plus, he had fucking rock star hair.

The problem was, he also did three times the amount of drugs -- cocaine in particular -- as most of his contemporaries. This lead to the derailment of his career, many near-death experiences, and ultimately a ruination of reputation.

Now clean and sober for many years, Hughes has resurged as the lead singer/bassist for Black Country Communion, one of the best new hard rock acts to come out recent years. Rocks Off spoke with music journolist Joel McIver (who has also written tomes on Metallica, Black Sabbath, Slayer, and Ozzy Osbourne) about collaborating with the metal madman on his autobiography, and how Houston proved pivotal in the career of Glenn Hughes.

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​Get Lit: Dirty Deeds - My Life Inside/Outside of AC/DC
By Mark Evans
288 pp., $19.95, Bazillion Points Books

The Thunder from Down Under that is AC/DC has been blasting eardrums for nearly four decades, continuing to move millions of records and tour huge arenas worldwide. And though the lineup has changed over the years, the band has found a niche in sticking to a simplistic - though highly effective -- musical blueprint.

Much of that blueprint was laid early in the band's career, and bassist Mark Evans was there. Joining in 1975 at the age of 19, he played hundreds of gigs with the then-struggling rockers, and appeared on seminal early records T.N.T., Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Let There Be Rock, and the '74 Jailbreak EP. And when he took not one but two women home after his very first gig, it certainly seemed like a great career, with more booty bounty to come.

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​If there is one thing virtually all of us agree on when it comes to Thanksgiving, it is that we like to eat and we often do more of it on that particular day than we should. Apparently, heavy metal musicians are no different. In between blood-soaked shows filled with music that will melt your face, these guys (and gals) like to get their food on. Who knew?

Last year for Christmas, a good friend bought me Mosh Potatoes: Recipes, Anecdotes and Mayhem from the Heavyweights of Heavy Metal, proceeds of which benefit Meals on Wheels. Who says metal guys don't have heart, but can they cook? Sure, there are some really disgusting offerings like Lemmy's "Krakatoa Surprise," which is basically a mound of uncooked flour, chocolate syrup, refried beans, curry powder and strawberry syrup you smother in brandy and light on fire. He suggests you eat it while it is still burning. Oh, Lemmy. But, overall, there are some damn fine recipes in there.

For this Thanksgiving, I decided to compile a complete Thanksgiving meal with the recipes from the book and provide a little music video accompaniment so you can bang your head while you prepare dinner. Oh, and the entire book is available online at Amazon, so check out the full recipes there.

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No Regrets by Ace Frehley with Joe Layden and John Ostrosky
320 pp., $26, Gallery Books

​Even by standards of '70s hard rock excess, original KISS guitarist Ace Frehley was out of this world. In this breezy, buzzy, and debauched memoir, The Spaceman takes readers on a rocket ride through his ups and downs with his bandmates, musical career, private life, and booze-and-drug binges that would make the guys in Mötley Crüe beg for a day to recover.

Born Paul Frehley -- the nickname "Ace" stemmed from his success in finding girls for he and his buddies -- the teen was the classic stereotype of the long-haired, drinking-and-drugging-and-fucking musical aspirant, and flitted through a series of bands while attending as many shows -- and sometimes sneaking backstage -- as he could.

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​English lad and budding drummer Jerry Shirley was all of 16 years old in late 1968 when he received the phone call that would change his life forever.

On the other line was Steve Marriott, the singer/guitarist for mod group the Small Faces ("Itchycoo Park"). Shirley's musical hero and new acquaintance told him that another singer/guitarist, Peter Frampton, was leaving his band the Herd and putting together a new group. He'd recommended Shirley's skin thumping skills, and told the teen that maybe he'd want to check it out. And maybe Marriott would be involved as well.

In rather quick order -- after picking up ex-Spooky Tooth bassist Greg Ridley -- the four formed Humble Pie. Until 1975 they would release a string of seminal records (including some with later Frampton replacement Dave "Clem" Clempson) like As Safe As Yesterday Is, Humble Pie, Rock On, Smokin' and one of the genre's greatest live records, Performance - Live at the Fillmore. The band's best known U.S. singles were a live version of "I Don't Need No Doctor" and "30 Days in the Hole."

After the Pie crumbled in 1975, Shirley went on to play in bands like Natural Gas, Magnet, and Fastway, and would also be part of various resurrected Humble Pie lineups. He also contributed to records by Syd Barrett, John Entwistle, George Harrison, and Sammy Hagar. But his time with the Marriott-led group's golden years proved his most fertile. Shirley recollects those hazy, crazy years in the memoir Best Seat in the House (Rebeats Books, 322 pp., $24.99).

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Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson by Kevin Avery
584 pp., $29.99, Fantagraphics Books

​It was a scene like out of the hardboiled detective novels that Paul Nelson loved so much when police broke into his New York apartment in 2006. What they found was a dark, dingy room reeking of cigarette smoke and crammed with thousands of books, magazines, records, CDs, and hand-labeled videotapes in stacks so high they blocked out most light from the windows.

And on the bed was the emaciated body of 70-year-old Paul Nelson, starved to death -- though there was plenty of cash for food on the dresser. Oh, and it had been a week before the body was found.

How a man who, at one point, was one of music's most influential and revered journalists could end up this way is startling enough, but in this insightful and riveting biography, Avery has brought the flat-capped, sunglassed, mustachioed, Nat Sherman-smoking, hamburger eating, and Coca-Cola guzzling wordsmith back to life; a writer as fascinating -- and frustrating -- as many of his interview subjects.

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Photos by Baron Wolman

Ike & Tina Turner

​Every Picture Tells a Story - Baron Wolman: The Rolling Stone Years
Omnibus Press, 176 pp., $37.50

If you could point to one thing that makes today's music journalists most jealous, it would probably be the music journalists of the '60s and '70s. Back then, writers and photographers might spend days or even weeks hanging out with acts onstage, in studios, and at parties to get a story.

Complete access was the norm, and the artists themselves were often unguarded and accepting. Simply impossible to fathom in today's world of 15-minute hotel-room phone interview - that a frantic publicist usually cuts off just as they get interesting - and first-three-songs-no-flash photography.

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​Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath
By Toni Iommi with T.J. Lammers
Da Capo Press, 416 pp., $26.

Imagine this passage being read in your best "Behind the Music" narration:

It was in the center of a dirty, grimy sheet-metal factory in Birmingham, England, when a 17-year-old guitar player let out a bloodcurdling scream. A horrible machine accident had sheared off the tips of two fingers on his right hand - his playing hand! And, of all ironies, on his last day of work before he planned to quit.

But the plucky player persevered, fashioning his own fake fingertips so he could continue hitting chords - albeit also forced to de-tune his axe strings, giving the instrument a much heavier, deeper sound. He took it to his new band with a dark-sounding moniker. And thus, HEAVY METAL WAS BORN!

Well, not quite. While it's impossible to point to any one person as having "invented" any style of music, the accident that happened to Tony Iommi certainly led to forging the blueprint for the sound of Black Sabbath, and thus heavy metal itself.

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Former Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan is now, among other things, a columnist for Rocks Off's sister music blog in Seattle, Reverb. This month Touchstone Books will publish Duff's memoir, It's So Easy: And Other Lies, and he agreed to publish an excerpt on Reverb. In turn, Reverb agreed to share Duff's wisdom with Rocks Off and our readers. When we left off Monday, Duff and his G N' R bandmates finally arrived in Seattle to a hero's welcome and some wicked potent pot brownies.

Photo by Greg Freeman

Luckily, Guns N' Roses made better rock stars than they did arsonists

​Danny, Joe-Joe, and our gear still hadn't arrived when we played the show on Wednesday night at Gorilla Garden. We were sloppy on borrowed gear, though on the plus side only about a dozen people were subjected to our set. Kurt Bloch of the Fastbacks is always nice, and made a point of telling all the guys we had played great. We knew we were better than the actual gig -- or at least we now knew we would be. The important thing for us was that we had made it there at all. Together.

After the Fastbacks set, we helped pack up their gear then hung out for a while with the crowd at the club -- which was pretty much just old friends of mine at that point. Hanging out, of course, meant drinking, and drinking heavily.

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​Had Me a Real Good Time - Faces: Before, During & After
By Andy Neill
456 pp., $29.95, Omnibus Press

A band that was actually more popular in the U.S. than their English homeland -- based on their incendiary live shows if not album sales -- Faces (or, to most, The Faces) are far more than just "Rod Stewart's old band" or the group that did the classic rock radio staple "Stay With Me." And Neill's exhaustive (and I mean exhaustive) bio makes just that point.

After Steve Marriott left the mod group Small Faces to form Humble Pie with Peter Frampton in late 1968, singer/bassist Ronnie Lane, keyboardist Ian "Mac" McLagan, and drummer Kenney Jones pondered their next move.

They found more-than-willing collaborators in vocalist Rod Stewart and guitarist Ronnie Wood, both recently ousted from the Jeff Beck Group. As Jack-the-Lads together, these Faces were all smiling, and making a bloozier, funkier-sounding music than in their previous acts.

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