Book Review: When the Screaming Stops – The Dark Side of the Bay City Rollers
Author: Simon Spence
Pages: 568
First Published: 2016 – Omnibus Press
Goodreads
As I have said in a previous book review, I was a massive Bay City Roller fan. Massive. Having read Shang-a-lang by Les McKeown not so long ago, I thought that When the Screaming Stops – The Dark Side of the Bay City Rollers should also be well worth a read. After all – I already had an inkling of the seedy side of the Rollers’ lives from McKeown’s book.
The book also had a good star rating. I would love to know who contributed to this rating. Because sadly, the book should have been called: ‘The Life and Times of Tam Paton – with just enough BCR Stuff to Justify Their Photo on the Book Cover.’
My first issue with the book was the tedious repetition: songs; this person said that; this person didn’t want that – on and on and on. Not to mention the homosexual trysts of Paton et. al. Same story, not necessarily different person or day – and lets heat it more than once.
I learnt a few things about the members of the band that I didn’t know – but mostly it was about their not-particularly-nice manager: his motives, his manipulation, drug abuse and drugging of others, his misuse of young, vulnerable boys who thought they needed him to succeed. Quite frankly – he got away with blue murder if there is any truth in the book. But it was hard to judge – I kept getting lost in the unnecessary detail.
Had the book been half as long as it was, with details about the ‘dark side’ of the band first and foremost, it may have been a different story. I kept reading only because I intended writing a review – and I won’t do that without reading the entire book. As it was – I felt like it was hours of my life that I won’t get back.
Cheers
Kerry
Categories: book review
Kerry A Waight - Author
A writer of historical fiction and paranormal stories.
Kerry A Waight - Author 
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