Hekta (Hooked)

Just finished the biography about Ronni Le Tekrø that just came out - Hekta (Hooked) by Stein Østbø. For those of you that don't know Tekrø (or Rolf Ågrim Tekrø, as his real name is), he is the guitar player of TNT, Norway's most internationally famous hard rock/metal band, with hits like 10 000 Lovers (In One), Intuition, End Of The Line and Downhill Racer. Dude's also been involved with more standard rock acts like Vagabond and Bad Habitz - the latter being a tribute to Thin Lizzy, and some jazz/fusion in collaboration with Terje Rypdal. Tekrø is also famous for being a shred monster, primarily because of his "machine gun" technique, as can be seen demonstrated here on YouTube by a fan. While I don't necessarily agree that Ronni is the best or fastest guitar player to ever come out of Norway (Tore Østby of Conception and later ARK or Jørn-Viggo Lofstad of Pagan's Mind should have massive beef with such a statement), he is certainly a great player, and definitely the most famous. These days, he's also the host/teacher for a reality show based on the movie "School Of Rock" starring Jack Black, where he tries to convert a bunch of overprivileged, snotty kids who are trained in classical music into a functioning rock band. If you've seen any episodes of this, you know exactly how arrogant and snotty these kids are.......

The book is quite cool, and paints a picture of Ronni from the time he was a kid and until TNT parted ways with Tony Harnell and actually brought in a new singer. Mind you; this doesn't mean that they won't pull an Iron Maiden or a Black Sabbath down the road, but I must say that the problems between Harnell and the rest of the band look pretty daunting from what's written in the book. Ronni is also a very interesting person with some left-field views, so Hekta is very entertaining. Plus - I like TNT, so I was not difficult to convince. However, the book suffers from some shortcomings, some of which have been summarized below (just to do this peer-review style):

• Seeing as how it's highly unlikely that there will ever be a Ronni Tekrø biography again (unless he pulls off an autobiography) - isn't this premature? TNT is still rockin' and rollin', his other projects are putting asses in the seats, his studio just recently started making money, and now he's a TV host in addition to other stuff. It's not like the dude is going to put down the guitar and fade from the spotlight any time soon..
• One thing that's totally noteworthy is the level of kompissuging (buddy blowjobs - not really a good translation, but you get da gist of it) that goes on. Nothing even remotely critical about Ronni at all, despite him having condoned Hell's Angels both directly - and through drummer Diesel Dahl - indirectly. For example. Too much fanboi brown-nosing.
• Many, many hints at stories which would've been interesting, only to be cut short. Quotes like "If you ever run into Bernie Marsden, ask him about that time with Clapton, Paul McCartney and the four inflatable donkeys, Ronni says, grinning" Stupid quotes and hints that never materialize. Note - the above example is not from the book, but it's eerily similar to many of them.
• Typos. You'd be hard pressed to find two consecutive pages without tons of typos...... That's amateur hour.

All in all it's a cool book, though. Awesome to have on flights.