Bruce Springsteen on Tour, 1968-2005


Dave Marsh - 2006
    This gorgeously designed retrospective incorporates 350 color and black-and-white photos--many never before published--plus tour artifacts and memorabilia, and features an intimate portrait by bestselling rock writer Marsh following Bruce's career from his first days on stage right through his 2005 Devils and Dust tour. Bruce Springsteen on Tour chronicles a great American musician thrilling audiences for more than thirty years, and is a must-have volume for all his fans.

Everything Is Combustible


Richard Lloyd - 2017
    Lloyd recounts the founding of Television, the band's rise alongside other bands and personalities in the 1970’s New York Music scene, and the legend-making of the unparalleled music venue CBGB. As the rock ‘n’ roll tales unfold, he accompanies them with insights into his approach to music and the electric guitar.Lloyd’s mid-career vignettes detail his solo years, including the backstory of critically praised records such as Alchemy and Field of Fire, his drug addiction and recovery, his 90s-era work, and touring adventures with artists such as Matthew Sweet, John Doe, and Robert Quine. Throughout the book is an undercurrent—Lloyd’s continually evolving spiritual-philosophical approach to life, emerging from the conscious digestion of the highs and the lows—both ends of the same stick.In Everything is Combustible, Richard Lloyd relates his life, both inner and outer, in the narrative style, digging beneath the events and revealing their meanings.Considered a foundational band of alternative rock, Television’s debut record, Marquee Moon, is widely viewed by critics and musicians as one of the greatest albums ever recorded. As one half of Television’s unique guitar sound, and a legendary solo artist in his own right, Richard Lloyd’s music has influenced a range of bands and artists from U2, Johnny Marr and Joy Division to R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Wilco and John Frusciante.

Punk USA: The Rise and Fall of Lookout! Records


Kevin Prested - 2014
    In 1987, Lawrence Livermore founded independent punk label Lookout Records to release records by his band The Lookouts. Forming a partnership with David Hayes, the label released some of the most influential recordings from California’s East Bay punk scene, including a then-teenaged Green Day. Originally operating out of a bedroom, Lookout created "The East Bay Punk sound,” with bands such as Crimpshrine, Operation Ivy, The Mr. T Experience, and many more. The label helped to pave the way for future punk upstarts and as Lookout grew, young punk entrepreneurs used the label as a blueprint to try their hand at record pressing. As punk broke nationally in the mid 90s the label went from indie outfit to having more money than it knew how to manage.

Writings on Music, 1965-2000


Steve Reich - 2002
    These early works, characterized by a relentless pulse and static harmony, focused single-mindedly on the process of gradual rhythmic change. Throughout his career, Reich has continued to reinvigorate the music world, drawing from a wide array of classical, popular, sacred, and non-western idioms. His works reflect the steady evolution of an original musical mind.Writings on Music documents the creative journey of this thoughtful, groundbreaking composer. These 64 short pieces include Reich's 1968 essay Music as a Gradual Process, widely considered one of the most influential pieces of music theory in the second half of the 20th century. Subsequent essays, articles, and interviews treat Reich's early work with tape and phase shifting, showing its development into more recent work with speech melody and instrumental music. Other essays recount his exposure to non-western music -- African drumming, Balinese gamelan, Hebrew cantillation -- and the influence of these musics as structures and not as sounds. The writings include Reich's reactions to and appreciations of the works of his contemporaries (John Cage, Luciano Berio, Morton Feldman, Gyorgy Ligeti) and older influences (Kurt Weill, Schoenberg). Each major work of the composer's career is also explored through notes written for performances and recordings.Paul Hillier, himself a respected figure in the early music and new music worlds, has revisited these texts, working with the author to clarify their central narrative: the aesthetic and intellectual development of an influential composer. For long-time listeners and young musicians recently introduced to his work, this book provides an opportunity to get to know Reich's music in greater depth and perspective.

The History of the NME: High Times and Low Lives at the World's Most Famous Music Magazine


Pat Long - 2012
    The fights, the bands, the brawls, the haircuts, the egos, and much more—the definitive book about the infamous music magazine. For 60 years, since it was founded in 1952, the New Musical Express has played a central part in the British love affair with pop music—and has been essential for American connoisseurs to remain in-the-know as well. This authoritative history is an insider's account of the high times and low lives of one of the world's most influential music magazines. It explains the stories behind the stories that kept readers coming back week after week—the office brawls, the former staffers who launched their careers there (Tony Parsons, Julie Burchill, Nick Kent, Mick Farren, Steve Lamacq, and Stuart Maconie), and the bands who owe their success to the magazine. Snotty, confrontational, enthusiastic, and sarcastic: the new issue of the NME was the high point of any music fan's week, whether they were listening to The Beatles, Bowie, or Blur.

The Clash: Return of the Last Gang in Town


Marcus Gray - 2002
    Revised and updated to cover the Clash's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the band members' post-Clash careers, The Clash: Return of the Last Gang in Town now includes the first full account of Joe Strummer's "Wilderness Years," his triumphant comeback with the Mescaleros, and his sudden and tragic early death. Extensively revised and updated from both its 1995 and 2001 incarnations, The Clash traces the band members' progress from dispiriting rehearsals in damp London basements to packed American stadiums. A fascinatingly detailed account of the first band to take punk's radical politics to the masses and survive for a decade against all the odds, it also offers an intriguing investigation into the gap between rock mythology and rock reality.

Anthem: Rush in the '70s


Martin Popoff - 2020
    The first of three volumes, Anthem puts the band's catalog, from their self-titled debut to 1978's Hemispheres (the next volume resumes with the release of Permanent Waves) into both Canadian and general pop culture context, and presents the trio of quintessentially dependable, courteous Canucks as generators of incendiary, groundbreaking rock 'n' roll.Fighting complacency, provoking thought, and often enraging critics, Rush has been at war with the music industry since 1974, when they were first dismissed as the Led Zeppelin of the north. Anthem, like each volume in this series, celebrates the perseverance of Geddy, Alex, and Neil: three men who maintained their values while operating from a Canadian base, throughout lean years, personal tragedies, and the band's eventual worldwide success.

No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving, No Spikes: An Oral History of the Legendary City Gardens


Amy Yates Wuelfing - 2014
    And now, finally, the story is being brought to you by the people who lived it.During the ‘80s and into the mid-‘90s, City Gardens was a haven for the underground. Music, art, and a general sense of creative collectivism drove the imaginations of its patrons and performers alike, and the resulting memories have been captured and molded into a narrative that, while reminiscent of a larger history, is still uniquely Jersey.The doors of 1701 Calhoun St. closed some 20 years back, but in the minds of many, the “House That Randy Built” still casts its long shadow of influence. Whether you grew up there or you were just visiting, chances are City Gardens had some impact on you, and that impact probably informs and instructs the person you are today. Some of those stories are here; some of those stories still reek of pit-sweat and still glow with the exuberance of youth colored by nostalgia. In the pages of this book are war stories and friendship stories and the inspirational stories of lives realized and identities met. It is a story of life; the imperfect, often messy and sometimes brilliant moments of life. Its cast is as diverse as its moments, yet still uniform in one similar goal: the search for something different. Almost each and every person who participated in the world of City Gardens will echo, in some combination of description and passion, the desire to reject what was handed to them and, instead, find their own path. The universal sentiment is one of belonging; of a visceral impulse to connect to something larger and to find a safety in similarity. To find home.Know that when you read these stories that have been curated with great care; with almost a kind of religious reverence. They have been handled with loving, gloved hands; as one would handle a brittle old photo of a long-lost loved one. They have been chosen to represent the lives of so many people. Regardless of where you were from or how you came to City Gardens, your story is as valuable as any we’ve recorded. The sheer volume of lives intersecting with lives and history piled on top of history may have hindered the inclusion of all stories, but, hopefully, if you lived the life and you felt the joy and the strength of the music we all celebrate, you’ll recognize yourself in some of these words. You can order the book here:http://www.citygardensnj.com/?page_id=9

Fast Forward: Confessions of a Post-Punk Percussionist: Volume II


Stephen Morris - 2020
    

Tune In, Part 1 (The Beatles: All These Years, #1)


Mark Lewisohn - 2013
    This extended special edition of Mark Lewisohn's magisterial book Tune In is a true collector's item, featuring hundreds of thousands of words of extra material, as well as many extra photographs. It is the complete, uncut and definitive biography of the Beatles' early years, from their family backgrounds through to the moment they're on the cusp of their immense breakthrough at the end of 1962. The ebook of the extended special edition comes in two parts, mirroring the two hardbacks that make up the deluxe print edition. Each part is sold separately and this is Part One, taking the story from the very beginning to their first, famous trip to Hamburg in 1960. Readers wishing to buy the whole extended special edition of Tune In in ebook should be sure to buy Part One and Part Two. Mark Lewisohn's biography is the first true and accurate account of the Beatles, a contextual history built upon impeccable research and written with energy, style, objectivity and insight. This extended special edition is for anyone who wishes to own the complete story in all its stunning and extraordinary detail. This is, genuinely and without question, the lasting word from the world-acknowledged authority.

God Save the Kinks: A Biography


Rob Jovanovic - 2013
    After a little noticed debut and a follow-up that had failed to chart at all, Pye Records were threatening to annul the group’s contract. But with its unforgettable distorted guitar riff, 'You Really Got Me’ went on to reach No.1, entering the US Top Ten later the same year. Followed by a string of hits, it marked the breakthrough of one of Britain’s most innovative and influential bands, and a turning point in the fortunes of two brothers whose troubled story is as tumultuous and characterful as the music they produced: Ray and Dave Davies. Born into a deeply musical working-class family in London’s Muswell Hill, Ray and Dave grew up in a city recovering from the bombs and privations of the Second World War, and, more than any other musicians of the Sixties, they crafted the soundtrack that made it swing again. In songs such as ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’, ‘Sunny Afternoon’ – which toppled The Beatles to become the hit of Summer 1966 – ‘Waterloo Sunset’, ‘Days’ and ‘Lola’, they drew on music hall, folk and rhythm and blues to craft a peculiarly English pop idiom, inspiring generations of songwriters from David Bowie to Jarvis Cocker and Damon Albarn.Pocked by sibling rivalry, furious on-stage violence, walkouts, overdoses, a career-throttling ban from the US, gross self-indulgence, and the band's curious rebirth as Eighties stadium rockers, the story laid bare in God Save The Kinks is one of the greatest in British pop history.

Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time


Rob Sheffield - 2007
    Rob and Renee's life together - they wed after graduate school, both became music journalists, and were married only five years when Renee died suddenly on Mother's Day, 1997 - is shared through the window of the mix tapes they obsessively compiled. There are mixes to court each other, mixes for road trips, mixes for doing the dishes, mixes for sleeping - and, eventually, mixes to mourn Rob's greatest loss. The tunes were among the great musical output of the early 1990s - Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Pavement, Yo La Tengo, REM, Weezer - as well as classics by The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Aretha Franklin and more. Mixing the skilful, tragic punch of Dave Eggers and the romantic honesty of Nick Hornby, LOVE IS A MIX TAPE is a story of lost love and the kick-you-in-the-gut energy of great pop music.

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.

Recruited


R.R. Haywood - 2014
    A chance to set things right. Mike Humber, an ex-detective sacked for beating a child molester is offered an opportunity to make amends for the failures of his past but once that path is chosen it leads to an event that changes everything he has ever known.From the mind of the best-selling author RR Haywood comes a violent gut-wrenching tale of revenge.RECRUITED was first published in RR Haywood's The Book of Shorts Volume One to great critical acclaim

The Jazz Theory Book


Mark Levine - 1995
    For intermediate to advanced players, and written by one of the acknowledged masters of jazz, it is used by universities around the world.