Best of
Rock-N-Roll

2004

Passion Is a Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash


Pat Gilbert - 2004
    It was an agenda mirrored in the Clash’s music, which swiftly evolved from ferocious punk rock to incorporate reggae, ska, funk, jazz, soul, and hip-hop. Passion Is a Fashion draws on over 70 interviews with the key participants in the story—roadies, producers, friends, and fans—and conversations with the Clash: Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Topper Headon. The first book to give real insight into what went on behind the scenes during the Clash’s ten-year career, it charts the Clash’s picaresque progress through the days of the early punk scene and their groundbreaking Rock Against Racism gigs, to the arduous touring, to their break out in America, and the making of the classic London Calling album, all the way to the band’s eventual dissolution and the sudden, sad death of frontman Joe Strummer. Gritty, compelling, and above all authoritative, Passion Is a Fashion is the biography the Clash has long deserved.

Pig City: From The Saints to Savage Garden


Andrew Stafford - 2004
    But behind the music lay a ghost city of malice and corruption.Pressed under the thumb of the Bjelke-Petersen government and its toughest enforcers - the police - Brisbane's musicians, radio announcers and political activists braved ignorance, harassment and often violence to be heard."Pig City" maps the shifts in musical, political and cultural consciousness that have shaped the city's history and identity. This is Brisbane's story - the story of how a city finally grew up.

Playing Right Field: A Jew Grows in Greenwich


George Tabb - 2004
    "Playing Right Field" refers to an early experience of the author and his brother, Lloyd, who played Little League together; they were forced to share one team t-shirt between the both of this because his father the multi-millionaire was too cheap to buy one of each of them. George and Lloyd chose right field because hardly any balls ever got hit out there and they thought it would be safe and provide them with lots of space. The book will include many stories, all true – and some very hard to believe. Each story has a strong sense of morality, and the book will be fun as well as very educational. Using the idea of "right field", the book will trace Tabb's growing sense of isolation and rebellion from birth through near the end of tenth grade.

Beastie Boys Anthology: The Sounds of Science


Beastie Boys - 2004
    Starting out as a punk band from New York City, they mutated into the first Hip Hop act to hit number one on the pop charts, and went back to live instrumentation, while always drawing on a wide array of musical sources—from funk to hardcore, from Hip Hop to afro-cuban jazz. Compiled by the band, Beastie Boys Anthology: The Sounds of Science takes you through the lives of MCA, Ad-Rock, and Mike D as they chronicle the creation of "Fight for Your Right", "Shake Your Rump", "Hey Ladies", "Pass the Mic", "Jimmy James", "So What’cha Want", "Sure Shot", "Sabotage", "Intergalactic", "Body Movin’" and more—all in their own words. The anthology also includes two CDs packed with their greatest hits and B-sides, making this the ultimate Beastie Boys collector’s item. With photographs taken by Spike Jonze, Ari Marcopoulos, Ricky Powell, Glen E. Friedman, Danny Clinch, Nathanial Hörnblowér, and Sean Mortenson, to name a few, Beastie Boys Anthology provides the most insightful look to date into the trio that has defined cutting edge hip hop and alternative music and culture for more than two decades.

The Saga Of "Hawkwind"


Carol Clerk - 2004
    This updated edition of 'The Saga of Hawkwind' includes an exclusive interview with Hawkwind leader, Dave Brock. It also gives details of their latest album 'Take Me To Your Leader'.

Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, with Music


Helene Stapinski - 2004
    She used to sneak in and play them when he was away; when he realized what she was doing, he dismantled them each time he finished playing. But Helene figured out how to put them back together. She learned the classic drum solos and followed the careers of famous drummers. As an adult, Helene put the drums aside and became a journalist. When she was thirty she interviewed Julie, the leader of a rock band, for a story. The band needed a drummer, and Helene’s long-forgotten ambitions came flooding back. She joined, and then she brought her husband aboard on bass. Just as they started playing out at clubs, though, Helene’s husband quit the group. And as Helene’s involvement with her bandmates deepened, her relationship with her husband became distant and strained—and very nearly shattered. Baby Plays Around reads like a novel but will ring true to anyone who has ever been in a band or just dreamed of it. Set amid the bars, clubs, and rehearsal studios of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, it’s an incisive exploration of the romance of rock and roll, and of the realization and relinquishing of youthful dreams—about ambition, freedom, and infidelity, about love lost and found again. Written with the same wit and insight that distinguished Stapinski’s uproarious memoir Five-Finger Discount—and a sense of humor as sharp as the crack of a snare drum—Baby Plays Around is a unique and deeply personal story of music and passion.From the Hardcover edition.