Drummer Carmine Appice enjoyed fame with Vanilla Fudge, Cactus and Beck, Bogert & Appice before managing to get sacked from both Rod Stewart and Ozzy Osbourne’s 80s bands. Despite firing his co-writer on Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? (which Appice maintains was because Rod was sick of hearing how he may be joining Led Zeppelin, even though that band ceased instantly after Bonzo’s death), Stewart provides the foreword to this narcissistic Tarzan call.
Sadly, it’s stuffed with too much information, whether it’s straddling underage sex, racism, misogyny, homophobia or the tediously over-mythologised mudshark incident.
Rather than calculating his conquests, the book would have benefited greatly from more insight on Appice’s encounters with Hendrix and Fudge producer Shadow Morton, rather than the endless macho bragging and skin-crawling sense of entitlement. Predictably, it’s been seized on by the tabloids and he probably does interviews with a cucumber stuffed down his shorts. The title says it: avoid.
