{"product_id":"9781400066223","title":"Under Their Thumb: How a Nice Boy from Brooklyn Got Mixed up with the Rolling Stones (and Lived to Tell about It)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"German is party to all sort of Stones' doings, many of which are enjoyable, quite a few of which are scandalous. \u003cb\u003eGreat rock 'n' roll Babylon stuff\u003c\/b\u003e.\"\u003cbr\u003e- Booklist (Starred Review)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The \u003cb\u003eepic tale \u003c\/b\u003eof an obsessive teenager who launched a \u003ci\u003eRolling Stones \u003c\/i\u003efanzine and spent the next two decades capturing the band’s whirlwind metamorphosis from behind the scenes….\u003cb\u003eFirst-rate, firsthand account \u003c\/b\u003eof the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band, and a disenchanted chronicle of its increasingly crass commercialization.\"\u003cbr\u003e- Kirkus Reviews\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a teenager, Bill German knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life: chronicle the career and adventures of his favorite rock band, the Rolling Stones. And in 1978, on his sixteenth birthday, he set out to make his dream a reality. Feverishly typed in his Brooklyn bedroom, and surreptitiously printed in his high school’s mimeograph room German’s Stones-only newsletter, Beggars Banquet, was born. His teachers discouraged it, his parents dismissed it as a phase, and his disco-loving classmates preferred the Bee Gees, but, for German, this primitive, pre-Internet fanzine was a labor of love. And a fateful encounter with his idols on the streets of New York soon proved his efforts weren’t in vain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eImpressed with Beggars Banquet, the Stones gave the ’zine instant cred on the rock scene by singing its praises–and by inviting German to hang with the band. At first a fish out of water in the company of rock royalty, German found himself spilling orange juice on a priceless rug in Mick Jagger’s house and getting pegged as a narc by pals of Keith Richards and Ron Wood. But before long he became a familiar fixture in the inner sanctum, not just reporting Stones stories but living them. He was a player in the Mick-versus-Keith feud and was an eyewitness to Keith’s midlife crisis and Ron’s overindulgences. He even had a reluctant role in covering up Mick’s peccadilloes. “In the span of a few months,” German recalls, “I’d gone from wanting to know everything about my favorite rock stars to knowing too much.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this warts-and-all book, which includes many never-before-seen photographs, German takes us to the Stones’ homes, recording sessions, and concerts around the world. He charts the band’s rocky path from the unthinkable depths of a near breakup to the obscenely lucrative heights of their blockbuster tours. And ultimately, German reveals why his childhood dream come true became a passion he finally had to part with.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnder Their Thumb\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eis an up-close and extremely personal dispatch from the amazing, exclusive world of the Rolling Stones, by someone who was lucky enough to live it–and sober enough to remember it all.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Random House Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47048870756592,"sku":"9781400066223","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781400066223_p0.jpg?v=1763769232","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781400066223","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}