Best of
Rock-N-Roll

2020

(R)evolution: The Autobiography


Gary Numan - 2020
    He has been lauded by everyone from Prince ('His album Replicas never left my turntable . . . There are people still trying to work out what a genius he was') through the Foo Fighters and Nine Inch Nails to Lady Gaga ('[He] proves music has always been really inventive for the masses'). (R)evolution is Numan's long-awaited memoir; one that charts his two lives. The first: from growing up in west London, where he was expelled from school and beaten up daily for looking different, before discovering his first synthesiser and conquering the music world in rapid time; to the extravagance, the undiagnosed Asperger's and the slow decline of a career that faded into near obscurity. The second: a twenty-plus year renaissance, catalysed by the date with a super-fan, which has allowed Gary to rediscover his creativity, produce some of his best music and become the true Godfather of electro-pop. This will be the story of one man, several dozen synthesisers, multiple issues and two desperately different lives.

Good Lovin': My Life As A Rascal


Gene Cornish - 2020
    Hits like "Groovin', "Good Lovin'", "It's A Beautiful Morning" among others launched The rascals into the pantheon of rock and roll legends. Gene has now put his story onto the page. It is a rollercoaster ride of tremendous highs and catastrophic lows. Gene tells his story of fame and stardom that devolved into one of drug addiction, despair and tribulation culminating in a rise from the ashes. Gene tells the story of The Rascals meteoric rise and devastating fall as well as the story of rock and roll's most energetic time, the 1960's. Gene tells his story with 100% honesty, 100% candor and it's 100% rock and roll.

Overpaid, Oversexed and Over There: How a Few Skinny Brits with Bad Teeth Rocked America


David Hepworth - 2020
    Suddenly the youth of the richest, most powerful nation on earth was trying to emulate the music, manners and the modes of a rainy island that had recently fallen on hard times.The resulting fusion of American can-do and British fuck-you didn’t just lead to rock and roll’s most resonant music. It ushered in a golden era when a generation of kids born in ration card Britain, who had grown up with their nose pressed against the window of America’s plenty, were invited to wallow in their big neighbour’s largesse.It deals with a time when everything that was being done - from the Beatles playing Shea Stadium to the Rolling Stones at Altamont, from the Who performing their rock opera at the Metropolitan Opera House to David Bowie touching down in the USA for the first time with a couple of gowns in his luggage - was being done for the very first time.Rock and roll would never be quite so exciting again.

Trapped with the Bad Boy (Wild Preachers Club Book 2)


Winter Travers - 2020
    

A New Day Yesterday: UK Progressive Rock & The 1970s


Mike Barnes - 2020
    He examines the myths and misconceptions that have grown up around progressive rock and paints a vivid, colourful picture of the Seventies based on hundreds of hours of his own interviews with musicians, music business insiders, journalists and DJs, and from the personal testimonies of those who were fans of the music in that extraordinary decade.

A Rainbow Like You


Andréa Fehsenfeld - 2020
    From out of the dive bars of Long Beach, this high school dropout rocketed his band to the pinnacle of success. But after a whirlwind decade ended with him broken and questioning, Adrian disappeared.Now back on tour after a year in exile, Adrian’s still struggling and under pressure to deliver his next hit. The last thing he needs is to find a teen runaway hiding in his tour bus. As it turns out, Hastings Sinclair is a synesthete who can see music in color. But her offer to help color-blind Adrian unpack his creative block upends their lives in ways they never imagined.Because Adrian’s troubles run deep—beyond what any song can fix—and Hastings hasn’t been upfront about hers. When calamity strikes, a perfect storm of fates unleashes and caught in the crossfire are Adrian’s band mates, a fame-shy beauty he falls hard for, and a scheming journalist with a vendetta. With everything he values suddenly on the line, can Adrian reconcile his own brash history? Or will he be forced to face the music in a way he never has before?

David Bowie: Icon


Iconic Images - 2020
    And yet, his legacy lives on. From his humble origins as a teen musician in the 1960s up until the very end, David Bowie's music, lyrics and provocative performances inspired not only his generation, but every generation that followed. While his sound and style underwent several alterations throughout his career, two facts never changed. He was an innovator, and photographers adored him. David Bowie: Icon gathers the greatest shots of this star into a single volume. The result: the single most important anthology of David Bowie images that has ever been compiled. Follow the visual evolution of Bowie over the years, through the lenses of iconic photographers. Featured photographers include: Gerald Fearnley, Justin de Villeneuve, Terry O'Neill, Masayoshi Sukita, Norman Parkinson, Kevin Cummins, Geoff McCormack, Alec Byrne, Ray Stevenson, Chalkie Davies, Brian Aris, Tony McGee and Greg Brennan.

The Life Times of Malcolm McLaren: The Biography


Paul Gorman - 2020
    . . With this book, Gorman convincingly moves away from the ossified image of McLaren as a great rock'n'roll swindler, a morally bankrupt punk Mephistopheles, and closer towards his art-school roots, his love of ideas. Tiresome, unpleasant, even cruel - he was, this book underlines, never boring' Sunday Times'Exhaustive . . . compelling' Observer'This masterful and painstaking biography opens its doorway to an era of fluorescent disenchantment and outlandish possibility' Alan MooreMalcolm McLaren was one of the most culturally significant but misunderstood figures of the modern era. Ten years after his life was cruelly cut short by cancer, The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren sheds fascinating new light on the public achievements and private life of this cultural iconoclast and architect of punk, whose championing of street culture movements including hip-hop and Voguing reverberates to this day. With exclusive contributions from friends and intimates and access to private papers and family documents, this biography uncovers the true story behind this complicated figure.McLaren first achieved public prominence as a rebellious art student by making the news in 1966 after being arrested for burning the US flag in front of the American Embassy in London. He maintained this incendiary reputation by fast-tracking vanguard and left-field ideas to the centre of the media glare, via his creation and stewardship of the Sex Pistols and work with Adam Ant, Boy George and Bow Wow Wow. Meanwhile McLaren's ground-breaking design partnership with Vivienne Westwood and his creation of their visionary series of boutiques in the 1970s and early '80s sent shockwaves through the fashion industry.The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren also essays McLaren's exasperating Hollywood years when he broke bread with the likes of Steven Spielberg though his slate of projects, which included the controversial Heavy Metal Surf Nazis and Wilde West, in which Oscar Wilde introduced rock'n'roll to the American mid-west in the 1880s, proved too rich for the play-it-safe film business.With a preface by Alan Moore, who collaborated with McLaren on the unrealised film project Fashion Beast, and an essay by Lou Stoppard casting a twenty-first-century perspective over his achievements, The Life & Times Of Malcolm McLaren is the explosive and definitive account of the man dubbed by Melvyn Bragg 'the Diaghilev of punk'.

Rocked by Grace (Love and Chaos, #1)


M.J. Schiller - 2020
    I’d never done anything like that before. But something about Grace drew me to her. And within minutes of pulling her on stage, I knew I’d made one of the best decisions of my life. Since our drummer Devin’s overdose, I’d felt dead inside. Perhaps for even longer than that. But Grace was fun, sexy—and as I would discover later—good and selfless. And an irresistible magic surrounded us that made me feel alive again.That is, until I blew it. In classic Zane style. Funny thing is, when I first got Grace up on stage, I had no idea what to do with her. Now I have no idea what I’ll do without her.Grace Devlin was living out every girl’s fantasy.Only thing is, fantasies ended, and I realized pretty quickly that I didn’t want this one to stop. Zane had a magnetism about him that was more than mere charisma. That was evident the moment I—the girl who normally had to be dragged out onto the dance floor—practically became a pole dancer in his arms. Then it happened. The moment everyone kept referring to as “The Kiss.” But it was all part of the show, right? It didn’t matter that Zane made more than my feet move. He stirred up feelings that scared the crap out of me. The depth of his sadness called out to me even more than his unbelievable sex appeal, and that was saying something.But it could never work between us. He may have come from a small town like me, but he was all rock star now and totally out of my league. I was a flower shop owner, not his saving Grace.Are some actions beyond forgiveness or will he be rocked by Grace?