The Whyte Python World Tour
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3 months free
The Whyte Python World Tour
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Narrated by:
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Wil Wheaton
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By:
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Travis Kennedy
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
It’s Los Angeles, 1986, and metal rules the world. For aspiring drummer Rikki Thunder, life is good—even if he is sleeping in a condemned paint store and playing with a band that’s going nowhere. But when he gets a shot to join L.A.’s hottest up-and-coming band, Whyte Python, Rikki’s young life turns up to 11. Soon he has a hit single scorching up the charts, and the new love of his life in the audience. Rikki couldn’t ask for anything more.
But good fortune can be deceiving. With the Cold War breathing its last gasps and American music blasting through the Iron Curtain, a youth revolution is taking hold—and a hair band is unknowingly playing host to the final battle for the hearts and minds of the Eastern Bloc. Rikki Thunder soon realizes there is a deeper web of influence propelling Whyte Python, and the stakes for his mission—to spread peace, love, and epic shredding across the globe—are far more dangerous than he could ever imagine.
"A rock-n-roll thrill ride… Heavy Metal icon Rikki Thunder’s satirical memoir is sweeter than Cherry Pie and better than a prescription from Dr. Feelgood! You need to read it.”—Ernest Cline
© Travis Kennedy 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
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This novel gripped me like the snake it eponymously references, preventing me from doing anything apart from purely reading the story. During the times I was away from the book – I was thinking about it, even dreaming about the characters and the narrative in my sleep. It is clever, thought-provoking and witty, which at times becomes ‘laugh-out-loud’ as the absurd plot unravels at a fevered pace.
Set in the late 1980s, the author weaves the collapse of the Soviet Bloc into the era of peak heavy metal with the rise of a fictitious Los Angeles rock band Whyte Python. The band consists of four weird misfits - on Vocals Davy Bones (aka Lawrence Barkly), on Bass Guitar Spencer Dooley, on Lead Guitar (Robert) Buck Sweet and finally on Drums Richard Henderson aka Rikki Thunder.
Whyte Python is managed by the wimpy British producer Kirby Smoot for Andromeda Records and unbeknownst to the band, manipulated by the American Central Intelligence Agency’s Asian Intelligence Division [AID].
It appears that the Deputy Director of the CIA Ed Lonsa is reluctantly tasked to orchestrate a Cold War Psychological Operation against the Soviet Bloc. The Psy-Ops entitled Operation Facemelt is born, peopled by agents undergoing ‘disciplinary process’ though only three of them are aware that they are in this process. Firstly we have Amanda Price [aka Shawna Peppers] who works under the identity of rock and roll journalist Tawny Spice who is tasked with manipulating Drummer Rikki Thunders [from his band Qyksand] into joining Whyte Python. The other CIA agents being the insubordinates Catherine Stryker and Daryl Boone with the more conformist Bradford Mancuso.
The CIA’s Operation Facemelt manoeuvres Whyte Python’s debut album “All Squeeze, No Vermin” to the top of the charts and pushes the band to embark upon a massive US tour. Operation Facemelt’s Daryl Boone uses subliminal design to help write the rock ballad ‘Tonight, for Tomorrow’ that vocalist Davy Bones is tricked [due to egotism] into believing he wrote. This song is the lead from their sophomore release ‘The Whyte Album’ and becomes an anthem for disaffected youth of Eastern Europe rebelling against Soviet Oppression. Soon, Whyte Python embark on their ‘Wyrld Peace Tour’ playing stadiums in Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and East Germany.
The Stasi [East German Intelligence] under the aegis of Lt General Kurt Becker have their own counter-intelligence operation ‘Cobra’ which gets wind of the American Psy-Ops Operation and their vehicle the Heavy Metal band Whyte Python.
Soon the Cold War becomes fought over the sounds [and absurd excesses] of Heavy Metal music with booze, drugs, groupies, big haircuts, face paint and shoulder pads. With the absurdities of Slow Horses mixed with doses of Wayne’s World & This Is Spinal Tap, Travis Kennedy’s novel entertains as it forces contemplation and amusement from the reader.
It is hard to believe this work to be a debut, as it features such assured and confident writing.
As a thriller it is outstanding.
Hugely recommended, as beyond the wondrous absurdity and humour – it has heart and leaves the reader feeling good because it is totally life affirming.
Absurd but genius
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Great fun, made all the better by the Narration
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