Punk rocker Ali Smith, author of The Ballad Of Speedball Baby
Summary: ABOUT ALI SMITH AND THE BALLAD OF SPEEDBALL BABY<br><br>"Ali Smith's The Ballad of Speedball Baby is a sometimes-harrowing ride poetically described in neon prose. Ali takes me to places I've been myself as a fellow 'woman of the road' and rocked and rolled. She brings it all back home so vividly with humor, originality, and love-and 'oh-yeah-that-happened-to-me-too' truthfulness. Like the touring band's rite of passage: crashing in a stranger's house in Where-am-I? USA and barely escaping with your life and bass guitar.or bartending in an East Village dive bar. It's a special experience being a Woman in Rock, and as Ali's story unfolds, she'll bring you along for the trip of your life."<br><br>-- Kate Pierson, the B-52's<br><br>A Stylist Magazine (UK) Pick of Best New Nonfiction<br><br>A Kobo Pick of Best Book of the Month in Biographies & Memoirs<br><br>The Ballad of Speedball Baby is the thrilling, darkly hilarious, and heart-wrenchingly vulnerable story of Ali Smith's coming-of-age in '90s New York as she commits to the messy, exhilarating life of a musician and must survive the slings and arrows society reserves for women who refuse to comply.<br><br>As an only child reeling from the demolition of her parents' toxic marriage, the New York City underground music scene offers a young Ali a different family of misfits and talented outsiders to belong to.<br><br>She becomes the bass player for edgy band Speedball Baby, a decision that will take her around the world-from onstage at the legendary CBGBs to the red-light district of Amsterdam. She's often the only girl in a broken-down tour van, being strip-searched at the Croatian border, chased by lunatics, and navigating the seedy underbelly of a male-dominated music scene full of addiction, violence, and misogyny-all while keeping her sharp wit and dark humor intact.<br><br>Rimmed with heavy black eyeliner and smelling faintly of cheap booze, The Ballad of Speedball Baby is a pulse-quickening, unpredictable ride through the '90s music scene-alternately terrifying, hilarious, and painfully evocative-as well as a love letter to the power of female solidarity<br><br>ALI SMITH BIO<br><br>The vibrant style Ali Smith has brought to her writing and photography-featured regularly in The New York Times, The Guardian, and other publications internationally-was forged in New York's underground music scene where she played bass in the seminal punk / blues / avant-garde band Speedball Baby. After touring worldwide and recording nine albums, Ali released two books of photography about women's lives. The first, Laws of the Bandit Queens, led to a feature on OWN, Oprah Winfrey's television network. The second,Momma Love: How the Mother Half Lives, won a Silver IPPY and an International Book Awards prize, was praised by the New York Times, and Gloria Steinem called it "a gift to moms." With a passion for telling women's stories, Ali's memoir,The Ballad of Speedball Baby, is her literary debut. Learn more at AliSmith.com and @mommaloveAli on Instagram.<br><br>Get the book: <a href="https://a.co/d/4DDlINI" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://a.co/d/4DDlINI</a> <a href="http://www.alismith.com/the-ballad-of-speedball-baby" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">http://www.alismith.com/the-ballad-of-speedball-baby</a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/alismithphoto/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a><br><br><a href="https://www.facebook.com/alismithphoto/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.facebook.com/alismithphoto/</a> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/mommaloveali/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.instagram.com/mommaloveali/</a> <br><br>Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/i-am-refocused-radio--2671113/support.
