In the Court of King Crimson


Sid Smith - 2002
    chart hit. The band followed it with 40 further albums of consistently challenging, distinctive and innovative music. Drawing on hours of new interviews, and encouraged by Crimson supremo Robert Fripp, the author traces the band’s turbulent history year by year, track by track.

You're Living All Over Me


Nick Attfield - 2011
    An in-depth study of the visceral slacker classic from 1987, an album that influenced enormously the nascent alternative scene.

The Beatles and Me On Tour


Ivor Davis - 2014
    In this first-ever chronicling of that revolutionary tour from the inside, author Ivor Davis serves up the stories behind the stories as only an insider can.In the rowdy and riotous recollections of THE BEATLES AND ME ON TOUR, Ivor Davis, then a reporter for the London Daily Express, shares his unrestricted access to the Liverpool lads as a member of the Beatles entourage. From inside the band’s hotel suites to the concert arenas to the private jets, the madness and magic plays out through Davis’ personal accounts of hanging with the Beatles for thirty-four jam-packed days.Go behind the scenes for all-night Monopoly games with John Lennon, witness the Beatles’ legendary living-room jam with Elvis, and be there the night Bob Dylan introduces the band to pot. Roll up for this definitive account of the legendary band at a critical moment in the history of rock ’n’ roll.

Electric Ladyland


John M. Perry - 2004
    During the recording process, Jimi Hendrix at last had time and creative freedom to pursue the sounds he was looking for. In this remarkable and entertaining book, John Perry gets to the heart of Hendrix's unique talent - guiding the reader through each song on the album, writing vividly about Hendrix's live performances, and talking to several of Hendrix's peers and contemporaries.ExcerptNatural wit, sharpness of ear and a pervasive sense of fun prevented Hendrix from sticking just to the wah-wah pedal's literal use (and it's worth remembering that Hendrix off-stage was a natural mimic, whose imitations of Little Richard or of Harlem drag-queens made his friends howl). In fact, he found a use for the pedal without even using guitar. By turning his amp up high and treading the pedal he found he could modulate the natural hiss of amplifier valves, producing sounds of gentle breezes, howling storms or the susurration of waves on a beach; sounds that are all over "1983" and "Moon Turn The Tides." Hendrix had an ear and (though it's often overlooked) he also had a fine, sly sense of humour that - with characteristic lightness of touch - he was able to express in music.

Foo Fighters: Learning to Fly


Mick Wall - 2015
    A reason why generations have bought into his story, his dream, his self-fulfilling prophecies. Dave may not have the savant glamour of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, but whereas Kurt dwelled in darkness, Dave was a lover, not a loner, a bringer of light.Foo Fighters: Learning to Fly is his story, and therefore the true story of the Foo Fighters--like it's never been told before. From Grohl's days as the new kid in Nirvana, to becoming the Grunge Ringo of the Foo Fighters, to where he is now: one of the biggest, most popular male rock stars in the world. Internationally acclaimed rock writer Mick Wall tells us how and why none of this happened by accident in a style that pulses with rock's own rhythms.With testimony from true insiders, including former band mates, like Nirvana bass player Krist Novoselic, producers, record company executives, and those closest to Grohl and the Foos, this is the first full, explosive, no-holds-barred biography of the band and their otherwise critically bulletproof leader.

Pink Moon


Amanda Petrusich - 2007
    Features interviews with producer Joe Boyd, string arranger Robert Kirby, and even the marketing team behind the VW Cabrio commercial that launched the album to platinum status more than thirty years after its release.

Paula, Michael and Bob: Everything You Know Is Wrong


Gerry Agar - 2003
    When their lives collided, the events that unfolded were too bizarre even for fiction; the very public seduction and intense love affair, the fights, the drugs bust, heartbreaking custody battles, financial deals and the deaths of Paula and Michael were front-page news for months. But the vital facts of the web the lovers wove together were kept secret, and the reasons for their deaths were never clear, even to their family and friends.Only one person was there to witness every aspect of the story - Gerry Agar. A former publicist and Paula's long-term friend, Gerry's life, both personal and professional, became inextricably tied to those of the star-crossed lovers, and to the one who would be left behind.This is the stuff of modern legend; a red-blooded tragedy played out in the merciless glare of the media spotlight. Here are the facts, divulged in painful and deeply moving detail, and told with an intimacy that could only be disclosed by one caught in the centre of the storm. This is Gerry Agar's story of Paula, Michael & Bob.

Björk's Homogenic


Emily MacKay - 2017
    With the release of her conceptual app-album Biophilia in 2011, and a huge retrospective exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art coinciding with her most recent album, Vulnicura, in 2015, her status as artpop auteur has been secured. The album that made all this possible, though is 1997's Homogenic, a turning point in Björk's career and still among her finest musical achievements. Produced under great strain, it moves beyond the stylistic magpie rush of Debut and the urbanophile future-pop of Post, to something darker, stronger and braver, full of dramatic assertions of independence, sharp, stuttering beats, rich strings and raw outbursts of noise. It created, as the Alexander McQueen designed sleeve clearly asserted, a new Björk, one who would never stop hunting.

Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY, and the Lost Story of 1970


David Browne - 2011
    Over the course of the next twelve months, their lives ... and the world around them ... will change irrevocably.Fire and Rain tells the story of four iconic albums of 1970 and the lives, times, and constantly intertwining personal ties of the remarkable artists who made them. Acclaimed journalist David Browne sets these stories against an increasingly chaotic backdrop of events that sent the world spinning throughout that tumultuous year: Kent State, the Apollo 13 debacle, ongoing bombings by radical left-wing groups, the diffusion of the antiwar movement, and much more.Featuring candid interviews with more than 100 luminaries, including some of the artists themselves, Browne's vivid narrative tells the incredible story of how ... over the course of twelve turbulent months ... the '60s effectively ended and the '70s began.

Surf City: The Jan and Dean Story


Dean Torrence - 2016
    As a memoir The Jan and Dean Story has elements of humor, tragedy and redemption. It tells their story from the early high school friendship struck up between Jan Berry and Dean Torrence and their ascent to the dizzying heights of stardom riding the crest of the “surf” craze. The Jan and Dean Story is as much about the culture of the 1960s as it is about music. Dean has lived an incredible life and continues to promote a lifestyle and surf culture that is now universally admired and followed throughout the world.The story also recounts Jan’s tragic car accident and his ability to recover enough to continue to perform will be inspiring to many readers even those not familiar with surf music. For pop culture addicts and music buffs alike this book is indispensable. As early teen icons, Jan and Dean left an indelible mark on the music of the 60’s and the American psyche.Dean Torrence is still touring and creating music and often appears with the Beach Boys and other groups from the heyday of surf music.

A Fast Ride Out of Here: Confessions of Rock's Most Dangerous Man


Pete Way - 2017
    A Fast Ride Out of Here tells a story that is so shocking, so outrageous, so packed with excess and leading to such uproar and tragic consequences as to be almost beyond compare. Put simply, in terms of jaw-dropping incident, self-destruction and all-round craziness, Pete Way's rock'n'roll life makes even Keith Richards's appear routine and Ozzy Osbourne seem positively mild-mannered in comparison. Not for nothing did Nikki Sixx, bassist with LA shock-rockers Motley Crue and who 'died' for eight minutes following a heroin overdose in 1988, consider that he was a disciple of and apprenticed to Way.During a forty-year career as founding member and bassist of the venerated British hard rock band UFO, and which has also included a stint in his hell-raising buddy Ozzy's band, Pete Way has both scaled giddy heights and plunged to unfathomable lows. A heroin addict for more than ten years, he blew millions on drugs and booze and left behind him a trail of chaos and carnage. The human cost of this runs to six marriages, four divorces, a pair of estranged daughters and two dead ex-wives. Latterly, Way has fought cancer, but has survived it all and is now ready to tell his extraordinary tale. By turns hilarious, heart-rending, mordant, scabrous, self-lacerating, brutally honest and entirely compulsive, A Fast Ride Out of Here will be a monument to rock'n'roll debauchery on an epic, unparalleled scale and also to one man's sheer indestructability.

Armed Forces


Franklin Bruno - 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 Franklin Bruno s writing about music has appeared in the Village Voice, Salon, LA Weekly, and Best Music Writing 2003 (Da Capo). He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from UCLA, and his musical projects include Tempting: Jenny Toomey Sings the Songs of Franklin Bruno (Misra) and A Cat May Look At A Queen (Absolutely Kosher), a solo album. He lives in Los Angeles.

Oasis' Definitely Maybe


Alex Niven - 2014
    But this remarkable album was also a social document that came closer to narrating the collective hopes and dreams of a people than any other record of the last quarter century.In a Britain that had just undergone the most damaging period of social upheaval in a century under the Thatcher government, Noel Gallagher ventriloquized slogans of burning communitarian optimism through the mouth of his brother Liam and the playing of the other Oasis 'everymen': Paul McGuigan, Paul Arthurs and Tony McCarroll. On Definitely Maybe, Oasis communicated a timeworn message of idealism and hope against the odds, but one that had special resonance in a society where the widening gap between high and low demanded a newly superhuman kind of leaping.Alex Niven charts the astonishing rise of Oasis in the mid 1990s and celebrates the life-affirming, communal force of songs such as "Live Forever," "Supersonic," and "Cigarettes & Alcohol." In doing so, he seeks to reposition Oasis in relation to their Britpop peers and explore one of the most controversial pop-cultural narratives of the last thirty years.

This Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story of the Misfits


James Greene Jr. - 2013
    Led by Glenn Danzig, a singer possessed of vision and blessed with an incredible baritone, the Misfits pioneered a death rock sound that would reverberate through the various musical subgenres that sprung up in their wake.This Music Leaves Stains now presents the full story behind the Misfits and their ubiquitous, haunting skull logo, a story of unique talent, strange timing, clashing personalities, and incredible music that helped shape rock as we know it today. James Greene, Jr., maps this narrative from the band's birth at the tail end of the original punk movement through their messy dissolve at the dawn of the 1980s right on through the legal warring and inexplicable reunions that helped carry the band into the 21st century.Music junkies of any stripe will surely find themselves engrossed in this saga that finally pieces together the full story of the greatest horror punk band that ever existed, though Misfits fans will truly marvel at the thorough and detailed approach James Greene, Jr. has taken in outlining the rise, fall, resurrection, and influence of New Jersey's most frightening musical assembly.

Aja


Don Breithaupt - 2007
    A double-platinum, Grammy-winning bestseller, it lingered on the Billboard charts for more than a year and spawned three hit singles. Odd, then, that its creators saw it as an "ambitious, extended" work, the apotheosis of their anti-rock, anti-band, anti-glamour aesthetic. Populated by thirty-fi ve mostly jazz session players, Aja served up prewar song forms, mixed meters and extended solos to a generation whose idea of pop daring was Paul letting Linda sing lead once in a while. And, impossibly, it sold. Including an in-depth interview with Donald Fagen, this book paints a detailed picture of the making of a masterpiece.