Brett Callwood is a music journalist whose work has appeared in the Metro Times, Metromix, Modern Drummer, and Classic Rock, among other publications. His first book, MC5: Sonically Speaking, was published in the U.S. by Wayne State University Press in 2010.
"And while an unabashed fan, author Callwood - who also penned The MC5: Sonically Speaking - also brings solid journalistic cred to the pages, buoyed by his original interviews with most band members, related musicians and scenesters. --Bob Ruggiero ""Houston Press Blog"" Callwood gets Detroit in ways that most people from outside the area never will. It is/was a City of underdogs, hard scrabble survivors, and chips on shoulders bigger than the sculpture of Joe Louis fist that sits outside Detroit City Hall; of cold beer, freezing winters, and more square footage of bowling alleys than anywhere in the nation. It is the birthplace of the labor movement, a case study in the economic devastation that is sure to follow a one-dimensional economic base (the auto industry), and a City that lost 800,000 people from its peak of 1.7 million in the mid-1950s. Detroit is also a City of revolutionaries, militants, proud renegades, talented musicians, independent artists, and a type of person for which West Coast image-consciousness, East Coast pretension, and soft underbellies are anathema. And all of it pours out of the real life characters examined by Callwood in this eminently readable and penetrating document of Motor City rock history. --Scott Alisoglu It's a good book. I thank you for writing it."" --Iggy Pop ""is an American rock musician"" Like the band it chronicles, Head On is a direct, quick shot. Callwood doesn't dive into flowery hyperbole and never oversells the group. While it would have been nice to see a wider interview pool or more facts about the band's early days, Head On is still a concise, cohesive read. If you're a fan, the middle chapters about lesser known pursuits will hook you. If you want to explore punk rock beyond the Ramones and the Sex Pistols (and you really should, poser), Head On makes the case for the Stooges' relevance, then and now. -- ""Picasso Blue Blog"" The drugs! The debauchery! The decadence! The wild-man performances from Iggy Pop, a man with a taste for peanut butter-not to eat, but to smear on his chest-and broken glass, which he likewise worked into his flesh while on stage. It's all here in Brett Callwood's exhaustive account of the rise and demise of the Stooges, the Michigan band who effectively invented punk rock."" --David Cheal ""Telegraph"" With each 'Stooge' getting close to equal billing, Callwood's research results in a thorough exploration-and explanation-of the band's seismic importance to the Detroit music scene. Interesting, amusing, and engaging, The Stooges will enlighten even the biggest Stooges fan."" --TL ""Rhythm"""