Not a lot of meat to this Grohl bio

THIS IS A CALL. By Paul Brannigan. Da Capo Press. 353 pages. $27.

Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters, punk, grunge, Nirvana -- c'mon. For a story about a very loud, confrontational rock rebellion movement, "This is a Call" is a pretty tame biography.

Paul Brannigan does ferret out what fans might say are cool descriptions of the '80s underground punk movement.

But the book overall is really just a straight-up, now-he-did-this, then-he-did-that biography.

It traces Grohl's evolution from the kid who didn't fit in at school in the Washington, D.C., area, through his "Woodstock" moment at a D.C. music festival to his arrival as another rock icon caught in the maelstrom of fame.

It's really not much different from a lot of other rock biographies.

The best parts, probably to Grohl's dismay, are the chapters dealing with Nirvana, the seminal grunge band for whom he played drums, and the tragedy of its leader, Kurt Cobain.

It reads like a cat scratching a post. There's not a lot of meat to go after. But if the reader has an itch for details about Grohl or the punk transition movements of the period, it's a good enough read.