Book picks similar to
Ranters and Crowd Pleasers: Punk in Pop Music, 1977-1992 by Greil Marcus
music
non-fiction
punk
nonfiction
Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina
Chris Frantz - 2020
With never-before-seen photos and immersive vivid detail, Frantz describes life on tour, down to the meals eaten and the clothes worn--and reveals the mechanics of a long and complicated working relationship with a mercurial frontman.At the heart of Remain in Love is Frantz's love for Weymouth: their once-in-a-lifetime connection as lovers, musicians, and bandmates, and how their creativity surged with the creation of their own band Tom Tom Club, bringing a fresh Afro-Caribbean beat to hits like "Genius of Love."Studded with memorable places and names from the era--Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Stephen Sprouse, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and Debbie Harry among them--Remain in Love is a frank and open memoir of an emblematic life in music and in love.
Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey
Nicholas Schaffner - 1991
At the heart of the saga is Syd Barrett, the group's brilliant founder, whose public decline into shattered incoherence--attributable in part to his marathon use of LSD--is one of the tragedies of rock history. The making of Dark Side of the Moon and Floyd's other great albums is recounted in detail, as are the mounting of "The Wall" and the creation of the flying pigs, crashing planes, "Mr. Screen" and the other elements of their spectacular stage shows. The book also explores the many battles between bass player/song writer Roger Waters and the rest of the group, leading up to Water's acrimonious departure for a solo career in 1984 and his unsuccessful attempt to disolve the group he had left behind.Saucerful of Secrets is an electrifying account of this ground-breaking, mind-bending group, covering every period of their career from earliest days to latest recordings. It is full of revealing information that will be treasured by all who love Pink Floyd's music.
Gimme Something Better: The Profound, Progressive, and Occasionally Pointless History of Bay Area Punk from Dead Kennedys to Green Day
Jack Boulware - 2009
Gimme Something Better brings this outrageous and influential punk scene to life, from the notorious final performance of the Sex Pistols, to Jello Biafra's bid for mayor, the rise of Maximum RocknRoll magazine, and the East Bay pop-punk sound that sold millions around the globe. Throngs of punks, including members of the Dead Kennedys, Avengers, Flipper, MDC, Green Day, Rancid, NOFX, and AFI, tell their own stories in this definitive account, from the innovative art-damage of San Francisco's Fab Mab in North Beach, to the still vibrant all-ages DIY ethos of Berkeley?s Gilman Street. Compiled by longtime Bay Area journalists Jack Boulware and Silke Tudor, Gimme Something Better chronicles more than two decades of punk music, progressive politics, social consciousness, and divine decadence, told by the people who made it happen.
Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution
Sara Marcus - 2010
A dynamic chronicle not just a movement but an era, this is the story of a group of pissed-off girls with no patience for sexism and no intention of keeping quiet.
33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, from Billie Holiday to Green Day
Dorian Lynskey - 2011
Rather than being merely a worthy adjunct to the business of pop, protest music is woven into its DNA. When you listen to Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Public Enemy, or the Clash, you are not sitting down to a dusty seminar; you are hearing pop music at its most thrillingly alive. 33 Revolutions Per Minute is the story of protest music told in 33 songs. An incisive history of a wide and shape-shifting genre, Dorian Lynskey's authoritative book takes us from the days of Billie Holliday crooning “Strange Fruit” before shocked audiences to Vietnam-era crowds voicing their resentment at the sounds of Bob Dylan to the fracas over the Dixie Chicks’ comments against George W. Bush during the Iraq War.For anyone who enjoyed Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise, Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, or Simon Reynolds’ Rip It Up and Start Again, 33 Revolutions Per Minute is an absorbing and moving portrait of a century when music was the people’s truest voice.
Cover Me: The Stories Behind the Greatest Cover Songs of All Time
Ray Padgett - 2017
A great cover only makes a song stronger. Jimi Hendrix’s version of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.” The Beatles rocking out with “Twist and Shout.” Aretha Franklin demanding “Respect.” Without covers, the world would have lost many unforgettable performances. This is the first book to explore the most iconic covers ever, from Elvis’s “Hound Dog” and the Rolling Stones’ “Not Fade Away” to Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused,” the Talking Heads’ “Take Me to the River,” and Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love.” Written by the founder of the website covermesongs.com, each of the 20 chapters investigates the origins of a classic cover—and uses it as a framework to tell the larger story of how cover songs have evolved over the decades. Cover Me is packed with insight, photography, and music history.
The Beatles Anthology
The Beatles - 2000
Together with Yoko Ono Lennon, they have also made available the full transcripts (including all the outtakes) of the television and video series The Beatles Anthology. Through painstaking compilation of sources worldwide, John Lennon's words are equally represented in this remarkable volume. Furthermore, The Beatles have opened their personal and management archives specifically for this project, allowing the unprecedented release of photographs which they took along their ride to fame, as well as fascinating documents and memorabilia from their homes and offices. What a book The Beatles Anthology is! Each page is brimming with personal stories and rare vintage images. Snapshots from their family collections take us back to the days when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Richard Starkey were just boys growing up in Liverpool. They talk in turn about those early years and how they came to join the band that would make them known around the world as John, Paul, George and Ringo. Then, weaving back and forth, they tell the astonishing story of life as The Beatles: the first rough gigs, the phenomenon of their rise to fame, the musical and social change of their heyday, all the way through to their breakup. From the time Ringo tried to take this drum kit home on the bus to their much anticipated audience with Elvis, from the making of the Sgt. Pepper album to their last photo session together at John's house, The Beatles Anthology is a once-in-a-lifetime collection of The Beatles' own memories.Interwoven with these are the recollections of such associates as road manager Neil Aspinall, producer George Martin and spokesman Derek Taylor. And included in the vast array of photographs are materials from both Apple and EMI, who also opened their archives for this project. This, indeed, is the inside story, providing a wealth of previously unpublished material in both word and image.Created with their full cooperation, The Beatles Anthology is, in effect, The Beatles' autobiography. Like their music has been a part of so many of our lives, it's warm, frank, funny, poignant and bold. At last, here is The Beatles' own story.
Love, Janis
Laura Joplin - 1992
By the time her life and artistry were cut tragically short by a heroin overdose, Joplin had become the stuff of rock–and–roll legend.Through the eyes of her family and closest friends , we see Janis as a young girl, already rebelling against injustice, racism, and hypocrisy in society. We follow Janis as she discovers her amazing talents in the Beat hangouts of Venice and North Beach–singing in coffeehouses, shooting speed to enhance her creativity, challenging the norms of straight society. Janis truly came into her own in the fantastic, psychedelic, acid–soaked world of Haight–Asbury. At the height of her fame, Janis's life is a whirlwind of public adoration and hard living. Laura Joplin shows us not only the public Janice who could drink Jim Morrison under the table and bean him with a bottle of booze when he got fresh; she shows us the private Janis, struggling to perfect her art, searching for the balance between love and stardom, battling to overcome her alcohol addiction and heroin use in a world where substance abuse was nearly universal.At the heart of Love, Janis is an astonishing series of letters by Janis herself that have never been previously published. In them she conveys as no one else could the wild ride from awkward small–town teenager to rock–and–roll queen. Love, Janis is the new life of Janis Joplin we have been waiting for–a celebration of the sixties' joyous experimentation and creativity, and a loving, compassionate examination of one of that era's greatest talents.
Low
Hugo Wilcken - 2005
David Bowie is holed up in his Bel-Air mansion, drifting into drug-induced paranoia and confusion. Obsessed with black magic and the Holy Grail, he's built an altar in the living room and keeps his fingernail clippings in the fridge. There are occasional trips out to visit his friend Iggy Pop in a mental institution. His latest album is the cocaine-fuelled Station To Station (Bowie: "I know it was recorded in LA because I read it was"), which welds R&B rhythms to lyrics that mix the occult with a yearning for Europe, after three mad years in the New World. Bowie has long been haunted by the angst-ridden, emotional work of the Die Brucke movement and the Expressionists. Berlin is their spiritual home, and after a chaotic world tour, Bowie adopts this city as his new sanctuary. Immediately he sets to work on Low, his own expressionist mood-piece.
Can't Stand Up For Falling Down: Rock'n'Roll War Stories
Allan Jones - 2017
By turns hilarious, cautionary, poignant and powerful, the Stop Me...stories collected here include encounters with some of rock's most iconic stars, including David Bowie, Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Elvis Costello, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Smiths, R.E.M. and Pearl Jam. From backstage brawls and drug blow-outs, to riots, superstar punch-ups, hotel room confessionals and tour bus lunacy, these are stories from the madness of a music scene now long gone. Allan Jones is an award-winning British music journalist and editor. In 1974, he applied for a job on the UK's best-selling music paper as a junior reporter, signing off his application with "Melody Maker needs a bullet up the arse. I'm the gun, pull the trigger†?. He was editor of Melody Maker from 1984 to 1997 and until 2014 editor of music and film monthly Uncut.
Corn Flakes with John Lennon: And Other Tales from a Rock 'n' Roll Life
Robert Hilburn - 2009
He was the only music critic to visit Folsom Prison with Johnny Cash. He met John Lennon during his lost weekend period in Los Angeles and they became friends. Bob Dylan granted him his only interviews during his "born-again" period and the occasion of his 50th birthday. Michael Jackson invited Hilburn to watch cartoons with him in his bedroom. When Springsteen took to playing only old hits, Hilburn scolded him for turning his legendary concerts into oldies revues, and Springsteen changed his set list.In this totally unique account of the symbiotic relationship between critic and musical artist, Hilburn reflects on the ways in which he has changed and been changed by the subjects he's covered; Bono weighs in with an introduction about how Hilburn's criticism influenced and altered his own development as a musician.Corn Flakes with John Lennon is more than about one man's adventures in rock and roll: It's the gripping and untold story of how popular music reshapes the way we think about the world and helps to define the modern American character.
Forever Changes
Andrew Hultkrans - 2003
Here, Andrew Hultkrans explores the myriad depths of this bizarre and brilliant record. Charting bohemian Los Angeles' descent into chaos at the end of the ‘60s, he teases out the literary and mystical influences behind Arthur Lee's lyrics, and argues that Lee was both inspired and burdened by a powerful prophetic urge.EXCERPT'Forever Changes' may be thirty-six years old at the time of this writing, but its hermetic fusion of the personal and the political feels more relevant than ever. It speaks to the present in ways that, say, a Jefferson Airplane record never could, whatever the parallels between the late '60s and our contemporary morass. For unlike most rock musicians of his time, Arthur Lee was one member of the '60s counterculture who didn't buy flower-power wholesale, who intuitively understood that letting the sunshine in wouldn't instantly vaporize the world's (or his own) dark stuff. For him, the glittering surface of the Age of Aquarius obscured an undertow of impending doom.
Ramones
Nicholas Rombes - 2005
Over 50,000 copies have been sold! Passionate, obsessive, and smart. Nylon an inspired new series of short books about beloved works of vinyl. Details Nicholas Rombes is an English professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, where he teaches and writes about film, music, and pop culture. His writing has appeared in a range of journals and magazines, including Exquisite Corpse (edited by Andrei Codrescu) and McSweeney s. He is also the editor of the forthcoming book Post-Punk Cinema. Description What could be more punk rock than a band that never changed, a band that for decades punched out three-minute powerhouses in the style that made them famous? The Ramones repetition and attitude inspired a genre, and Ramones set its tone. Nicholas Rombes examines punk history, with the recording of Ramones at its core, in this inspiring and thoroughly researched justification of his obsession with the album. Excerpt: When I sat down to write about the album s opening song, Blitzkreig Bop, my first line was This is the best opening song to any rock album. Then I decided that sounded too creepily fanatic and more than a little disingenuous, since I haven't heard every rock album ever made, and I took it out. But then I went downstairs to the turntable and played it and midway through ran back upstairs and put the line back in even before the screensaver clicked in. Here s why: Blitzkrieg Bop succeeds not only as a song in its own right, but also as a promise kept. The songs that follow live up to the speed, humor, menace, absurdity, and mystery of that first song, whose opening lines Hey ho, let's go offer not so much a warning as an invitation to the listener, an invitation and a threat that the song isn t a fluke or a one-off, but that it sets the stage for an entire album that will be fast and loud.
Hitless Wonder: A Life in Minor League Rock and Roll
Joe Oestreich - 2012
Hitless Wonder measures the price of obscurity. What happens when you chase a dream into middle age and, in doing so, risk losing the people you love?
Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years
Brian Sweet - 1994
This edition spans the years between 1973's Can't Buy a Thrill and their 2000 comeback Two against Nature.