A few years ago, on my 37th birthday, while we were all still caught in the seemingly neverending cycle of the COVID pandemic, I sat down and watched Almost Famous for the first time in years. Just as it had the first time I saw it, it completely mesmerised me. I think it’s pretty much a perfect film from beginning to end. If you’ve never seen it, or if you’ve only seen the theatrical cut, I highly recommend watching the director’s cut as it adds about forty minutes.

When I heard Cameron Crowe was writing a memoir, I was very excited to get my hands on it. Aside from Almost Famous, I’m also a huge fan of Vanilla Sky (there are a few of us, believe me) and Elizabethtown. Cameron’s deep knowledge of rock and pop music led to iconic soundtracks that are just as important as the screenplay. So you can understand how excited I was to hear a few behind the scenes stories about those films – maybe how they were cast as well as any insights he may have into his creative process and how he successfully married deeply emotional storytelling with just the right song.

I’m sorry to say that if that’s what you’re interested in, you’re going to be left wanting. His film career is reduced to a handful of chapters on Fast Times, a sentence or two on Say Anything and two pages on Almost Famous (although you could argue that the whole book is about Almost Famous). Nothing else makes the cut. It would be an understatement to say that I was deeply disappointed. There is also a fair amount about the Almost Famous musical, not something I was overly interested in. So how exactly is it that I am giving this a big recommendation?

THE UNCOOL is an extremely well-written memoir about a young burgeoning rock writer and his relationship with his family. I loved reading stories about Cameron’s road trips with The Allman Brothers, his eighteen-months spent interviewing David Bowie on and off, and his brief trip with Led Zeppelin shortly before their release of Physical Graffiti. I also loved learning about his mother Alice and his sister Cindy and what had directly influenced Almost Famous. There is also a fair bit in here about his oldest sister Cathy’s untimely death – something I was not aware of. We take for granted how easy it is to make connections in 2025 and how convenient it is to have the internet in our pockets 24/7, but trying to schedule interviews, creating contacts within the publishing and music industry, and being available for phone calls felt chaotic.

I almost wish he hadn’t mentioned anything with respect to his movies so I could hold out hope for part two, but I don’t see that happening. Either way, there is a treasure trove of material here for folks looking for a jog down memory lane back to the era of 70s rock and the early days of The Rolling Stone.