Sometime in the spring of my junior year of high school, my dad was driving me to my friend’s house where we would do online school together, attempting a semblance of high-school life from her kitchen. Probably for the third time that morning, I played Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” over the car speakers — my hyperfixation song at the time — and hummed along. My dad paused the song and asked if I had ever seen the film “Almost Famous.” I said no. 

I walked into my friend’s kitchen still humming Elton John, to which my friend then asked me if I had ever heard of Penny Lane —  a lead character in “Almost Famous” — claiming that I am reminiscent of her (I’ve grown to learn that Penny Lane’s lifestyle is actually not one to be copied). 

After two mentions of the film in one morning, I sat down to watch it that night. I watched the two-hour movie in one sitting, eyes and ears glued to the screen. It was the best music I had ever heard. The Allman Brothers Band’s “Eat a Peach,” which I heard for the first time in that movie, is still my favorite album. 

The aftermath of “Almost Famous” was a record player and a new hunger for music. Vinyls from Simon & Garfunkel, The Allman Brothers Band, The Who, Joni Mitchell, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Elton John swarmed my room. While this musical discovery was a great gift from a single movie, an even bigger gift was a career discovery. The film, written by Cameron Crowe, was about Crowe’s life as a 15-year-old writing for Rolling Stone magazine. I believed maybe I could also write about music like him. 

I have seen “Almost Famous” over 10 times now, and the “Tiny Dancer” bus scene is still one of my favorites. I became obsessed with the film, even dressing up as Penny Lane for Halloween not once, but three times over the past four years. You can imagine my excitement when I learned Crowe was releasing his memoir in the fall of 2025. 

(Courtesy of Simon & Schuster)

Crowe’s “The Uncool” hit the shelves on Oct. 28, 2025, and I had the orange-sleeved book in my hands that morning. In an attempt to place the reader into the rock-star-studded world that was the 1960s and ‘70s, Crowe refrained from using the words “I remember.” He succeeded. 

Crowe’s musical journey began in 1964 at seven years old when he and his mother saw Bob Dylan, then a folk musician, play at a college gym. Just a few years later, he began writing for The San Diego Door, an underground paper which sought to combat Richard Nixon by publishing political articles. 

Discussing “The Uncool” would not be complete without a preliminary mention of Lester Bangs, the California-born rock critic famously fired from Rolling Stone for a bad review on the band Canned Heat. Although not a leading character in every aspect of the book, his presence is there, driving Crowe toward bigger and better stories. 

The memoir flows from big band to big band and Crowe’s stories about interviewing each one of them. And he didn’t just interview them, he traveled with them — inside green rooms, afterparties, limos, tour buses. Starting at 15 and feeling washed up in his late teens, Crowe was underage for all of it. 

His first cover story for Rolling Stone involved convincing Gregg Allman, leading man of the Allman Brothers, to agree to an interview after the unfortunate timing of the death of his brother and a bad review in the same week. Allman agreed. Next was Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, another interview-opposed musician who Crowe broke through to. And the greatest of all, David Bowie, a notorious anti-interview musician who agreed to let Crowe shadow him for the next 18 months. Crowe was reunited with Bowie years later, but Bowie seemed to have blocked out his entire Thin White Duke persona. He told Crowe those 18 months were a dark, drug-filled time in his life. 

Every journalist knows that music and journalism are not exactly a match made in heaven. A recurring line in “Almost Famous” refers to a young Crowe as “the enemy,” and that is not left out of the book. While not labeled as an enemy in his memoir, Bangs reminds Crowe to not make friends with the rock stars. Except, that is exactly what Crowe does. How could you not, after following one around for 18 months? Crowe befriended not just Bowie, but also Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones, Red Dog with the Allman Brothers Band and, of course, Pennie Trumbull, or, as she goes by, Pennie Lane. There is a real Pennie Lane after all. 

“The Uncool” captures what it feels like to be the youngest and most naive in the room. Crowe held off from the drugs and alcohol inevitably offered to him and recounts a moment when Allman took his being underage as a sign he was with the FBI. But Crowe still earned his place in the room and was the youngest writer for Rolling Stone.

At 15 years old, Crowe’s mother, Alice Crowe, had dreams for her son. She hoped he would follow the path of his grandfather by becoming the youngest lawyer in the country. In an attempt to solidify this future, Alice skipped her son ahead by two grades. Instead, he became one of the youngest music journalists in the country. And his washed-up feeling at the ripe age of 18 still was not enough to push him to law school. Instead, he dove headfirst into the film industry, writing and producing films such as “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Say Anything” and “Jerry Maguire.” Despite being told by Jann Wenner, co-founder of Rolling Stone, that he was not a “real writer,” urging him to read Joan Didion’s “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” to see what he meant, Crowe never gave up. 

“The Uncool” begins and ends with “Almost Famous: The Musical,” its opening day taking place around the same time as the death of his mother. In both the memoir and movie, it is starkly obvious that Alice is supremely anti-rock ‘n’ roll. There’s even a scene in the film where she accuses Simon & Garfunkel of being high on the cover of their album “Bookends.” But, rock ‘n’ roll eventually rubbed off on her, and she was the most excited for her son’s Broadway debut. Though Alice passed just short of opening day, Crowe still saved three seats for her in the back of every show, as per her request. Joni Mitchell sat in those seats for one of them. 

I can credit Crowe with the entirety of my young adult life Without watching “Almost Famous,” the world of music writing would have never landed in my lap. The most exciting part of my days at UC Santa Barbara is thinking of the next local band I get to interview, or the next show I get to review. I have met 

I am still reading Crowe articles that I discover daily, and I keep a screenshot of Crowe’s Allman Brothers story on my home screen, reminding me of who I want to be when I grow up. I hope to keep a part of the Crowe that lives within me for the rest of my life. For a glimpse into the golden age of rock and roll and into the mind of a writing protegee, grab “The Uncool” and indulge. Perhaps you will find a song or two to add to your playlist.

A version of this article appeared on p. 9 of the Nov. 20 print edition of the Daily Nexus.