Cameron Crowe Memoir 'The Uncool' Hits Bookshelves: Buy Online

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Cameron Crowe may be an acclaimed film and music video director, but his first memoir, The Uncool, is largely about his first job: a Rolling Stone writers. Crowe profiled artists like the Allman Brothers Band and David Bowie during his stint at the magazine, which influenced his semi-autobiographical 2000 film, Almost Famous.

Crowe got his start as a music journalist when he was just a teenager, traveling with bands like Led Zeppelin on tour. He pivoted to a career in film when he wrote Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and his directorial debut came with 1989's Say Anythingbefore directing films like Jerry Maguire, Almost Famousand Vanilla Sky.

Crowe spoke to Rolling Stone in September, ahead of the memoir's release, explaining that the book was born out of the idea to make a compendium of his early journalism writing. “Ultimately, it also came time to do a collection book of all the journalism that I'd done for Rolling Stone and other places in the day, because I'd gone back and re-interviewed a lot of those people again. And that was my little long-term project. But it turned out that this [memoir] was a good kind of first chapter to all of that.”

Tom Petty helped Crowe get his start as a director with Tom Petty: Heartbreakers Beach Party, which was released as an MTV special in 1983. Crowe explained, “[Petty] says, 'Pick up the camera and film this.' I'm like, 'There's no director around.' [He said] 'Pick up the camera!' And he does this song, 'I'm Stupid,' right into the camera. I'm like, 'This is amazing. This feeling doesn't happen when you're transcribing 12 hours of interviews in the middle of the night. This is going right to the center of the creative process.' Cut. He goes, 'Congratulations, you're a director.'