We Are The Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered


Mark Andersen - 2018
    The repercussions of what went down politically both in the USAand UK back then are still very much felt today.”—Kosmo Vinyl, former manager of The Clash“The Clash are remembered as much for their blistering music as their gritty yet hopeful message to listeners worldwide. In this first serious look at The Clash’s music and meaning, post–commercial success, the authors mix thoughtful reflection with grassroots political analysis in an effort to inspire a new generation of music fans and activists to Cut the Crap.”—Craig O’Hara, author of The Philosophy of Punk: More than Noise! The Clash was an incendiary paradox of revolutionary conviction, musical ambition, and commercial drive. We Are The Clash is a gripping tale of how the band—fractured by its Top 10 success—fought to reinvent and purify itself as George Orwell’s 1984 loomed. This extraordinary effort crashed headlong into a wall of internal contradictions, personal tragedy, and rising rightwing power as personified by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.While the world teetered on the nuclear abyss, British miners waged a life-or-death strike, and tens of thousands died from US guns in Central America, Clash cofounders Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon set out to rebuild the band after ejecting guitarist Mick Jones and drummer Topper Headon. Bolstered by coconspirators Bernard Rhodes and Kosmo Vinyl, and three twentysomething recruits—drummer Peter Howard and guitarists Nick Sheppard and Vince White—The Clash launched a desperate last stand, shattering the band just as its controversial final album, Cut the Crap, was emerging.Authors Andersen and Heibutzki weave together extensive archival research and in-depth original interviews with virtually all of the key players involved to tell a moving story of idealism undone by human frailty amid a climatic turning point for our world.

Devo's Freedom of Choice


Evie Nagy - 2015
    Ohio art-rockers Devo had plainly prepared with their 1979 second LP Duty Now for the Future, and now it was go time. Propelled by the new decade's high-tech, free-market, pre-AIDS promise, 1980's Freedom of Choice would rocket what Devo co-founder Gerald Casale calls his "alternate universe, hermetically sealed, alien band" both into the arms of the Earthlings and back to their home planet in one scenic trip.Before an artistic and commercial decline that resulted in a 20-year gap between Devo's last two studio records, Freedom of Choice made them curious, insurgent superstars, vindicated but ultimately betrayed by the birth of MTV. Their only platinum album represented the best of their unreplicable code: dead-serious tricksters, embracing conformity in order to destroy it with bullet-proof pop sensibility. Through first-hand accounts from the band and musical analysis set against an examination of new wave's emergence, the first-ever authorized book about Devo (with a foreword by Portlandia's Fred Armisen) explores the group's peak of success, when their hermetic seal cracked open to let in mainstream attention, a legion of new Devotees, and plenty of misunderstandings. "Freedom of Choice was the end of Devo innocence–it turned out to be the high point before the s***storm of a total cultural move to the right, the advent of AIDS, and the press starting to figure Devo out and think they had our number," says Casale. "It's where everything changes."

Music Habits - The Mental Game of Electronic Music Production: Finish Songs Fast, Beat Procrastination and Find Your Creative Flow


Jason Timothy - 2015
    The goal of this book, is to cover music production from many different angles in a way that will change your thinking on the subject and build your confidence. Music making is a very mental and psychological game, and more often than not, all the technical stuff can hold you back from achieving your goals if you don't have the right creative habits in place first. With all the information available with a simple Google search, I wanted to really get to the heart of things that aren't being discussed nearly enough. I want to clear out all the garbage you may have been told and replace it with the essentials you can put to immediate use. Many people new to music may dive into forums and mindlessly watch video tutorials attempting to gather more and more information until they think they have enough to get going (hint: you never feel like you know enough). That would be like reading a whole encyclopedia and then being asked to recall only the important things that will get you from point A to point B. Even worse, much of the information you get will contradict the last thing you read. It's like finding a needle in a haystack only to be told it's the wrong needle. There is a much better approach. It's an approach that doesn't require you to know a lot to get started. You only need to know enough to get to the next step in your process. There is truly nothing stopping you from becoming a music producer. The ones who are successful now are the ones who started from nothing and chipped away at it until they found a way to express their unique voice. There are no gatekeepers making decisions on who is worthy and who isn't. The determining factor is you, your habits and your confidence in yourself. This book can be read from start to finish, or as a “choose your own adventure”, going directly to what you think can help you most right now. Don't get caught up thinking you have to devour everything before getting started. That isn't necessary, and isn't the point of the book. The core concepts in the book will come up time & time again which should help you retain them & be able to recall them when the need arrives. By exploring these concepts from several angles you should gain a broad view of their many uses. My hope is that this book is used as a toolbox. You simply find the right tool that moves you forward and get back to work. So few people, who have more than enough information in their heads, ever start. Of those who do start, even fewer finish what they started and are satisfied with the results. I want you to be in that small group of finishers. Let's get started.

Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division


Peter Hook - 2012
    Godfathers of alternative rock, they reinvented music in the post-punk era, creating a new sound—dark, hypnotic, and intense—that would influence U2, Morrissey, R.E.M., Radiohead, and numerous others. The story is now legendary: in 1980, on the heels of their groundbreaking debut, Unknown Pleasures, and on the eve of their first U.S. tour, the band was rent asunder by the tragic death of their enigmatic lead singer, Ian Curtis. Yet in the mere three years they were together, Joy Division produced two landmark albums and a handful of singles—including the iconic anthem "Love Will Tear Us Apart"—that continue to have a powerful resonance.Now, for the first time, their story is told by one of their own. In Unknown Pleasures, founding member and bass player Peter Hook recounts how four young men from Manchester and Salisbury, with makeshift instruments and a broken-down van, rose from the punk scene to create a haunting, atmospheric music that would define a generation. Peter talks with eye-opening candor and reflection about the suicide of Ian Curtis; the band's friendships and fallouts; the evolution of their sound and image; and the larger-than-life characters who formed a vital part of the Joy Division legend, including Factory Records founder Tony Wilson and producer Martin Hannett. Told with surprising humor and vivid detail, Unknown Pleasures is the book Joy Division fans have awaited for decades.

Leonardo Drawings: 60 Illustrations


Leonardo da Vinci - 1980
    60 illustrations.

99 Problems: Superstars Have Bad Days, Too


Ali Graham - 2015
    All the money and fame in the world won’t prevent him from having a bad hair day. Or stepping in gum. Or not being able to fit into skinny jeans, or watching helplessly as a scoop of ice cream falls from its cone. Or so an unnamed Superstar’s life is ingeniously imagined in this very funny book. Inspired by but not based on Jay Z’s monster hit “99 Problems,” illustrator Ali Graham riffs on what might be the real problems afflicting a world-famous music mogul who also happens to be married to the foremost diva of our time. Begun as a Tumblr, which went viral almost instantly, 99 Problems is a highly conceptual gift book showcasing 99 full-color illustrations of a cartoon character who looks just like a certain legendary rapper, and the often ordinary and sometimes fantastical things that happen to him. And that’s where the book finds its hilarious, compulsive hook—in an age that worships celebrity and assumes, somewhat enviously, that fame and fortune can protect one from life’s travails, what if that just weren’t true? There’s a surprising, underlying warmth here. Even when the author dips into flights of pop culture fantasy—Superstar on the bow of the Titanic; Superstar whipping up a bad batch alongside Walter White from Breaking Bad—the recognition of shared kinship is strong. It’s a cartoon version of celebrity, but like the best cartoons, it’s edgy and knowing, yet sweet, too.

Adult Head


Jeff Tweedy - 2004
    In turns surreal and concrete, playful and serious, urgent and whimsical, Adult Head rewards readers with a unique prosody and deep wisdom. Culled from the same mind responsible for some of the best lyrics and music made in the past decade, this volume displays Tweedy's prodigious talent for poetry on the page. Jeff Tweedy has devoted the last twenty years of his life to songwriting and music making. As a member of the band Wilco and formerly of the band Uncle Tupelo, Tweedy and his band mates have garnered respect and praise from Rolling Stone, Spin, the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune. Tweedy lives in Chicago with his wife and two sons.

A Vulgar Display of Power: Courage and Carnage at the Alrosa Villa


Chris Armold - 2007
    evil. Heavy Metal guitarist, Dimebag Darrell Abbott, was attacked and murdered on stage, December 8th, 2004 at the Alrosa Villa Nightclub. Erin Halk, Jeff Thompson and Nathan Bray each lost their lives trying to help Dimebag and others from the attack of an armed madman. While Dimebag is certainly a part of the story contained within the book, the focus is squarely on the background of Halk, Bray & Thompson, in addition to the killer, his motives and the actual incident at the venue. "A Vulgar Display Of Power: Courage And Carnage At The Alrosa Villa" is a deep, moving story which does an amazing job of honoring the memories Jeff, Nate, Erin, and Darrell. Of the victims who lost their lives, Nathan Bray is the only person who is survived by a wife and child. MJS Music Publications is contributing proceeds from every copy sold to a college fund set up for his son, Anthony. Music History/True Crime/Biography 352 pages, 240+ pictures.

Miles and me


Quincy Troupe - 2000
    It is also an engrossing chronicle of the author's own development, both artistic and personal. As Davis's collaborator on Miles: The Autobiography,Troupe--one of the major poets to emerge from the 1960s--had exceptional access to the musician. This memoir goes beyond the life portrayed in the autobiography to describe in detail the processes of Davis's spectacular creativity and the joys and difficulties his passionate, contradictory temperament posed to the men's friendship. It shows how Miles Davis, both as a black man and an artist, influenced not only Quincy Troupe but whole generations. Troupe has written that Miles Davis was "irascible, contemptuous, brutally honest, ill-tempered when things didn't go his way, complex, fair-minded, humble, kind and a son-of-a-bitch." The author's love and appreciation for Davis make him a keen, though not uncritical, observer. He captures and conveys the power of the musician's presence, the mesmerizing force of his personality, and the restless energy that lay at the root of his creativity. He also shows Davis's lighter side: cooking, prowling the streets of Manhattan, painting, riding his horse at his Malibu home. Troupe discusses Davis's musical output, situating his albums in the context of the times--both political and musical--out of which they emerged. Miles and Me is an unparalleled look at the act of creation and the forces behind it, at how the innovations of one person can inspire both those he knows and loves and the world at large.

Epic Fail: Bad Art, Viral Fame, and the History of the Worst Thing Ever


Mark O'Connell - 2013
    It fills our Facebook feeds. It keeps afloat a whole armada of late-night comedians, YouTube auteurs, and twitter wits … an endless stream of "Worst Things Ever." Recall, if you will, Rebecca Black's chart-topping disasterpiece, "Friday." Or “The Room”, Tommy Wiseau's cinematic tragedy turned cult farce. Or the devout Spanish septuagenarian who produced an infamously botched, and now stunningly ubiquitous, retouching of a 19th-century fresco of her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Internet era has fueled an obsession with these and other acts of cultural cluelessness. Hardly a week goes by, it seems, without some new aesthetic travesty spreading across the globe in the form of ones and zeros, spawning countless remixes and riffs, like the world's biggest inside joke. And once more the cry goes up: Fail! Epic Fail!But what, exactly, draws us to these futile attempts at making songs, movies, and art? What are the essential ingredients that render a ridiculous failure sublime? More important, what does our seemingly insatiable appetite for the "succès d'incompetence" say about our aesthetic impulses? Our ethical ones? Is our laughter all in good fun or is something more sinister at work?

Rat Girl


Kristin Hersh - 2010
    In 1985, Kristin Hersh was just starting to find her place in the world. After leaving home at the age of fifteen, the precocious child of unconventional hippies had enrolled in college while her band, Throwing Muses, was getting off the ground amid rumors of a major label deal. Then everything changed: she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and found herself in an emotional tailspin; she started medication, but then discovered she was pregnant. An intensely personal and moving account of that pivotal year, Rat Girl is sure to be greeted eagerly by Hersh's many fans.

Music Theory 101: From keys and scales to rhythm and melody, an essential primer on the basics of music theory


Brian Boone - 2017
    Understanding these basics is key to becoming a successful musician and well-rounded music lover. Music Theory 101 covers everything novice musicians and lifelong learners need to know, including: -How to read sheet music -Understanding the construction of chords and scales -The different rhythm and time signatures -How keys are identified and organized Full of music trivia, music history, comprehensive instruction, and visual aids of scales, music symbols, and chords throughout, Music Theory 101 is the essential guide you need for a crash course in music theory that even professional musicians would envy.

How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy


Stephen Richard Witt - 2015
    It’s about the greatest pirate in history, the most powerful executive in the music business, a revolutionary invention and an illegal website four times the size of the iTunes Music Store. Journalist Stephen Witt traces the secret history of digital music piracy, from the German audio engineers who invented the mp3, to a North Carolina compact-disc manufacturing plant where factory worker Dell Glover leaked nearly two thousand albums over the course of a decade, to the high-rises of midtown Manhattan where music executive Doug Morris cornered the global market on rap, and, finally, into the darkest recesses of the Internet.Through these interwoven narratives, Witt has written a thrilling book that depicts the moment in history when ordinary life became forever entwined with the world online — when, suddenly, all the music ever recorded was available for free. In the page-turning tradition of writers like Michael Lewis and Lawrence Wright, Witt’s deeply-reported first book introduces the unforgettable characters—inventors, executives, factory workers, and smugglers—who revolutionized an entire artform, and reveals for the first time the secret underworld of media pirates that transformed our digital lives.An irresistible never-before-told story of greed, cunning, genius, and deceit, How Music Got Free isn’t just a story of the music industry—it’s a must-read history of the Internet itself.

LDS Hymns and Children's Songbook


The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - 2009
    This book only contains the text of the hymns.Included Content:Songs:• Hymns (includes optional verses)• Children's Songbook (includes actions)For more information, visit our website at: StandardWorksApp.com/Kindle

Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece


Michael Streissguth - 2004
    The concert and the live album, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, propelled him to worldwide superstardom. He reached new audiences, ignited tremendous growth in the country music industry, and connected with fans in a way no other artist has before or since.Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison is a riveting account of that day, what led to it, and what came after. Scrupulously researched, rich with the author's unprecedented access to Folsom Prison's and Columbia Records' archives, illustrated with more than 100 photos, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison shows how Johnny Cash forever became a champion of the downtrodden, as well as one of the more enduring forces in American music.