“Give me Friction, Baby!
Turbonegro und die Turbojugend”
Uta Heuser

Approximately two years ago, someone named Uta e-mailed me asking to use my interview with Happy Tom of Turbonegro in a book about the band. Being a huge fan, I eagerly agreed. I never heard from Uta again, until one day, a package from some far off land appeared on my desk. Inside, was a beautiful softcover book featuring the boys in denim on the front and titled “Give Me Friction, Baby!” A fucking awesome title by all accounts. At over 350 pages, this isn’t some slap and print fan biography, every page is teeming with interviews, citations, and first-person accounts of the history of Turbonegro. The pictures span the band’s long and tenuous existence, and the chapters are dense with information. There’s just one problem—It’s in German.

But hey, I’m listed in the credits, and I think I found a chunk of my interview (translated in German) littered throughout the book. The most surprising thing is that Uta is A) a woman B) She’s older than my mom. Crazy. Anyway, she did a fantastic job with the book, and here’s hoping that it will eventually be released in English. I mean, half these interviews were probably already in English to begin with.