This Band Has No Past

Brian J., short for Brian James, hails from Waukesha, where he was raised in two houses, one across the street from a bowling alley, the other haunted. The bowling alley was the Sunset Bowl, where Cheap Trick were 'discovered' by Jack Douglas. Douglas also happened to be the name of the ghost: a seven-year-old boy, one of the previous owner's nine children, who fell off the roof of a neighborhood building. In the mid-nineties, Brian attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where it seemed like every other person he met had a great Cheap Trick story and was eager to tell it. The band were legendary in that town, icons already, and for Brian, an ardent rock fan and budding record collector, Cheap Trick pressed all the right buttons. Thirty years and thousands of records later, here we are: Brian is now the proud author of this, his first book, about his favorite band.