By: Jackie Lo

Being a teenage girl in the 90s, I had a handful of girl bands that I obsessed over. Hole was one of them. I was 14 when I discovered them and when Kurt Cobain died. I remember my mom taking me to the store and buying me ice cream and picking up a copy of the People magazine with his face on the front of it and she explained that sometimes our idols die and it’s OK to be sad and it’s also good that we remember them. I wondered what Courtney was going to do and what it meant for Hole with the release of their album, Live Through This, just one week after Kurt’s death. Even Good Girls Will Cry opens by dropping you on stage at Redding Festival 1994, just months after Kurt’s death and weeks after the death of Kristen Pfaff from the eyes of Melissa Auf der Maur who was about to play her first show with Hole, on this giant stage, taking Pfaff’s place on bass. You’ll spend the rest of the book finding out just who she is and how the hell she got there.

Growing up in Montreal with progressive parents, Melissa studied photography and grew up best friends with Rufus Wainwright. Immersed in the Montreal music scene and an avid show goer, after seeing Smashing Pumpkins play in Montreal, she became pen pals with Billy Corgan, who became her “spiritual fucking cowboy”. She decided to pick up a bass, start a band, and writes to Billy’s label to see if her band can open for him when they come back to Montreal. Not only does it work, but Billy sees her talent and is the one that makes the call when Hole unexpectedly finds themselves needing a bass player after Kristen’s death.

You’ll follow her reluctant journey to join the band, spend 5 years in hotel rooms traveling the world, record an album with an incredibly tough producer, hear about the wild encounters along the way while managing addicts in the band all while avoiding that pitfall herself. The lineup of bands they played with was an incredible and insane list and hearing what it was like to be a woman in such a male-dominated field back then adds a whole new dimension to her story. You’ll find out some of the relationships she had along the way with one night stands and she even opens up about her serious relationship with Dave Grohl.  She’ll lose a father and quit Hole only to be picked up by Smashing Pumpkins for another year tour that will take you through the world yet again.

Through her photography, descriptions of behind the scenes of shows and videos of photoshoots you know, to describing the stunning 90s wardrobe, you’ll feel like you’ve stepped right back in time and are side-stage to watch the whole story. Her first hand account of some of the notorious stories that surrounded Hole was fascinating and it’s beautiful to hear Melissa stay true to her own voice, get back to photography, write her own music (and book!), become a mother, and reconnect with friends that got clean and came back into her life. 

I also love that she released the book on her birthday. That’s some shit I would do too.