Would you like to know exactly what the members of Queen were eating as they recorded the endless “Galileos” of Bohemian Rhapsody? What David Bowie had for dinner, or which item was most prized when hardworking rockers had a food fight in the studio? The answers might all be found in Tiffany Murray’s highly entertaining memoir of a rock’n’roll childhood; or might not, depending what you think of the fallibility of memory.
Murray’s formative years were spent spying on 1970s rock nobility because her mother, Joan, was the prized cordon-bleu chef at two recording studios, serving gourmet dinners to sometimes unappreciative musos. Joan’s elegant cream-enhanced seafood dishes were regularly rejected by those whose facial hair alone precluded them from making judgments of taste. The bands with the most terrifying reputations were frequently the most polite, though Joan did have to issue certain rules: “No barging into the kitchen and chatting me up … And don’t grab the cook’s tits from behind.” Ozzy Osbourne was suitably chastened, having been spotted through the window by young Tiffany cavorting around the nearby churchyard at midnight, howling and unclothed. Her panicked tears were swiftly assuaged by a large consignment of fluffy toys from the soft-hearted hellraiser.
