Gods, Gangsters and Honour. Steven Machat. Published by Beautiful Books
Having read Gods, Gangsters and Honour my first thought was the author’s lucky to be alive, and certainly must be scarred for life if not by the knife but what he went through. I have now met Steven Machat and confirm that he is in one piece and at peace with himself. He is however vociferous about corrupt politicians, corporations and of course bankers.
Steven worked in the entertainment industry for several decades, as a lawyer, entrepreneur, manager and fixer for many of the biggest names around at the time and crossed the path of, if not swords with, some very dangerous corporate characters, not all of them overtly criminals. As he tells us even Ozzy was terrified of Don Arden, the head of Jet Records who was, as it turned out, eventually to be his father in law! Of necessity Steven had to paddle and indeed sometimes swim in some very murky water indeed.
His personal excesses whilst not matching some of the rock ‘n’ roll extremes certainly allowed him to party along with the ‘stars’ and influencers in the sport, music and film industries, seemingly a pre requisite to be accepted in that world, which gives him a unique perspective on the underbelly of the entertainment machine.
Steven is a great raconteur and his knowledge and enthusiasm for his subject, life, sportsmen and politics is incredible.
G.G.H ( I was tempted to type G.B.H ) is a revelation and yes we all know that a sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle can be seedy and our ‘heros’ are often reliant on some form of pharmaceutical or alcoholic support, but the author, because he lived the life- really tells it how it really was ( and presumably still is ). Often shocking, sometimes sad but always revealing this book is immensely readable. I thoroughly recommend it.
The list of names that Steven had dealings with is huge but include George Bush, Ozzy, The Stones, John Lennon, Genesis, ELO, Snoop Dogg, The Who,George Best and Sugar Ray Robinson( and that’s just some of them ).
If that’s not enough to wet your appetite then nothing will.
And if you would like to enter a competition to receive a personally signed copy of the book just click here., what could be simpler?
And Finally as Steven says…. “Those…. heros- they’re just humans after all!”