I'm in.

I saw Steve Boone play with John Sebastian last December. A concert experience I never even considered I'd ever get to see. I'm in as well.

I'm about 70 pages into this book, and it is amazing--the story of the Spoonful has never been told with this much depth and detail.

Boone is also offering autographed copies at his website at http://www.steveboone.net/

This is a great book. I'm sort of jaded as far as rock biographies/autobiographies are concerned, but what sets Steve Boone's story apart is that it really is the first time that the story of the Lovin' Spoonful has been told in any great depth. This isn't quite a tell-all--Boone mostly dishes dirt on himself (he was a pot smuggler in the 1970's)--but it does provide a frank look at the dynamics among the four group members from 1965 through today. After reading it, the short but brilliant trajectory of the Spoonful now makes a lot more sense.

What's really amazed me is that I've written a couple of gushing e-mails and website comments to Steve Boone, and he's responded. It's a little bit scary. But part of what prompted me to write him is because I wonder the same things he wonders--why isn't the Spoonful catalog considered to be as sacrosanct at the catalogs of so many other 60's bands?

The 50th anniversary of the Lovin' Spoonful is next year. It will be something to celebrate. We'll see.

One thing I did ask him at one point is whether the Spoonful ever played in Japan, because for a long time, much of the catalog could only be found on Japanese imports. Turns out that they never did, but he did observe that the Japanese labels have certainly treated the band with more respect that their own label ever did.