Performing night after night - from his early teens to his tragic death at age thirty-five, in tiny pass-the-hat clubs and before thousands in huge arenas - Stevie Ray Vaughan fused blazing technique with deep soul in a manner unrivaled since the days of Jimi Hendrix. The genuineness and passion of his music moved millions. It nearly saved his life. Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire is the first biography of this meteoric guitar hero. Emerging from the hotbed of Texas blues, Stevie Ray Vaughan developed his unique style early on, in competition with his older brother, Jimmie Vaughan, founder of the Fabulous Thunderbirds - a competition that shaped much of Stevie's life. Fueled by drugs and alcohol through a thousand one-night stands, he lived at a fever pitch that nearly destroyed him. Musically exhausted and close to collapse, in his final years Stevie Ray mustered the courage to overcome his addictions, finding strength and inspiration in a new emotional openness. His death in a freak helicopter crash in 1990 silenced one of the great musical talents of our time. Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire reveals Stevie Ray Vaughan's life in all its remarkable, sometimes unsavory detail. It also brings to life the rich world of Texas music out of which he grew, and captures the staggering dimensions of his musical legacy. It will stand as the definitive biographical portrait of Stevie Ray.

    Enjoy or die..." --John LydonPunk has been romanticized and embalmed in various media. An English class revolt that became a worldwide fashion statement, punk's idols were the Sex Pistols, and its sneering hero was Johnny Rotten.Seventeen years later, John Lydon looks back at himself, the Sex Pistols, and the "no future" disaffection of the time. Much more than just a music book, Rotten is an oral history of punk: angry, witty, honest, poignant, crackling with energy. Malcolm McLaren, Sid Vicious, Chrissie Hynde, Billy Idol, London and England in the late 1970s, the Pistols' creation and collapse...all are here, in perhaps the best book ever written about music and youth culture, by one of its most notorious figures.

    It began in a bedroom in Naples, Florida, when a misbehaving punk teenager named Tom Gabel, armed with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a headful of anarchist politics, landed on a riff. Gabel formed Against Me! and rocketed the band from its scrappy beginnings-banging on a drum kit made of pickle buckets-to a major-label powerhouse that critics have called this generation's The Clash. Since its inception in 1997, Against Me! has been one of punk's most influential modern bands, but also one of its most divisive. With every notch the four-piece climbed in their career, they gained new fans while infuriating their old ones. They suffered legal woes, a revolving door of drummers, and a horde of angry, militant punks who called them "sellouts" and tried to sabotage their shows at every turn. But underneath the public turmoil, something much greater occupied Gabel-a secret kept for 30 years, only acknowledged in the scrawled-out pages of personal journals and hidden in lyrics. Through a troubled childhood, delinquency, and struggles with drugs, Gabel was on a punishing search for identity. Not until May of 2012 did a Rolling Stone profile finally reveal it: Gabel is a transsexual, and would from then on be living as a woman under the name Laura Jane Grace. Tranny is the intimate story of Against Me!'s enigmatic founder, weaving the narrative of the band's history, as well as Grace's, with dozens of never-before-seen entries from the piles of journals Grace kept. More than a typical music memoir about sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll-although it certainly has plenty of that-Tranny is an inside look at one of the most remarkable stories in the history of rock.

    There is so much that I have never said, so many incidents I have never spoken of and so many feelings I have never expressed: great love on one hand; pain, torment, and humiliation on the other. Only I know what really happened between us, why we stayed together, why we parted, and the price I have paid for being John’s wife. —From the Introduction

     It is 1975, Watford, and two teenagers, George and Andrew, meet for the first time. Bonding over their love for singing, song writing and pop music, together they set out to follow an impossible dream. They didn't know it then, but they were taking their first steps towards forming Wham!, a band that was to become one of the biggest in the world.Wham! were the soundtrack of the 80s; whether it was choosing life or Live Aid, the decade of flamboyance and fun was a party that seemed like it would never end. But it had to stop somewhere - and that was in front of tens of thousands of tearful fans at Wembley Stadium in 1986.In Wham! George and Me, Andrew Ridgeley tells the story of Wham! - from the day they met to that iconic final concert. For the first time, he reveals what it was like being at the centre of a pop hurricane and talks of his love for and friendship with George. It's a story only he can tell. AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW

    Combining muscular guitars and driving rhythms with an irresistible pop sensibility, their blistering live show and endlessly dynamic front woman Hayley Williams has taken them from club shows in their hometown to sell-out arena dates across the world - and earned them a fiercely dedicated fan-base along the way. But with their success has come the pressure of growing up under the media's scrutiny. Small-town kids from Tennessee thrust into international stardom, they have had to negotiate their adolescence alongside the demands of a gruelling tour schedule and numerous line-up changes. This test of character brought them to the brink of collapse. And yet, from this adversity Paramore returned with their most confident, accomplished and deeply personal album to date - Brand New Eyes. This unauthorised book is the first to tell their story and details the early years forming the band, their explosive debut record, the strident, platinum-selling follow-up Riot! and their status in late 2009 as the 'next major rock act' in the world.

    The best of the interviews given by the late Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and his wife, Courtney Love, one of rock's most controversial couples.

    A final chapter details the last year of Kurt Cobain's life.From their early days in rural Aberdeen, Washington, to their domination of the world music scene in the early 90's, Come As You Are tells the Nirvana story as no other book does, candidly and first-hand: the allegations of heroin use; the soul-crushing pressures of sudden success; the burden of their unasked-for role as spokesman for a generation; and the tragic spiral that culminated in Kurt Cobain's death in April 1994.With close analyses of every song on each of the band's three major albums, a comprehensive discography and more than one hundred rare and never before-seen photographs, posters and original lyric sheets, Come As You Are is by far the most intimate look ever at one of rock's most influential and significant groups.

    . . and beyond.From the Hardcover edition.

    As the band enters its fourth decade, Fleetwood and Davis ( Hammer of the Gods ) recount the fun, turmoil and triumphs that shaped and, at times, threatened to destroy the group. Despite numerous personnel changes over the years, involvement with drugs, grueling road trips, divorces and reconciliations, the core members of the group--Fleetwood, John McVie and Christine McVie--seem to have the same enthusiasm for music they displayed together as a raunchy blues band playing in London pubs. Anecdotes about the group and its sometimes outrageous performances (on and off the stage) abound, as does commentary about rock stars who pop in and out of the text at unexpected places. Fleetwood emerges as hip and flip and the book is written in an assured, essentially happy tone.

    Candid autobiography of the great rock diva of Jefferson Airplane & Jefferson Starship revealing her wildly outlandish life in the Sixties & the Seventies.

    As an adopted child, Linda Carroll created a magical world of her own, made up of dramatic adventures and the abiding fantasy that her real mother would come and take her away. When she finds herself pregnant at the age of eighteen, she is determined to have the perfect understanding with her child that she lacked with her adoptive mother. But readers will know better, for that baby grows up to be Courtney Love, desperately attention-seeking, deeply troubled, and one of the most talented women in rock. Even as a baby, Courtney is beset by mood swings that no doctor can explain or cure. Her dark moods and paranoia escalate as she grows up, driving mother and daughter apart. When Courtney has a daughter of her own, Linda finally decides to find her own biological mother, and end the estrangement of generations of first-born daughters. Her Mother's Daughter is Linda Carroll's story of self-discovery as an adopted daughter, a childlike hippie mother and a woman determined to find herself before finding her roots. Set apart from the typical celebrity memoir by Carroll's gifted storytelling, Her Mother's Daughter gives a fresh perspective on the elusive yet enduring connections between mothers and daughters, and reveals the true history of the wildly confabulatory Courtney Love. LINDA CARROLL was adopted at birth, raised in San Francisco and only later discovered that her biological mother is the writer Paula Fox. Married at eighteen, and twice more before she was thirty, she is now the mother of five grown children, including singer/songwriter Courtney Love. She is a therapist and writer and lives in Corvallis, Oregon with her husband of seventeen years. Advance Praise for Her Mother's Daughter "Even if you start reading Linda Carroll's memoir out of curiosity about her famous daughter and biological mother, you'll keep reading to find out more about Linda herself. This is no celebrity potboiler, but a fascinating, beautifully written work of narrative nonfiction; Carroll unites the intimate perspective of a psychologist, the contextual sense of a historian, and the clarity of a fine biographer in one absorbing package. One of her central themes is what she calls the "curse of the first-born daughter," and it does seem that a tendency to live fascinating but difficult lives runs in these women's veins. But so, apparently, does the talent of drawing, holding, and rewarding our attention. Bravo, Linda Carroll!" --Martha Beck, author of Expecting Adam and Finding Your Own North Star "There is a delicious fictional quality to this true-life story that I found riveting. In Carroll's deft telling, the book is a kind of resurrection of a family.... I think I loved Her Mother's Daughter most for the devotion that Linda Carroll has for her unusual family through decades of separations and unconventional journeys." --Terry Ryan, author of The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio "Looking backward and forward in time, this haunting memoir tells the story of a young woman's journey to finding herself, her birth mother, and her daughter, Courtney Love. The candor and power of these pages illuminates the difficulties of all mother-daughter relationships, but offers a rare glimpse into that elemental relationship when it is shadowed by the temperamental features of early-onset bipolar disorder. Linda Carroll has grit and grace, and writes like her mother's daughter." --Demitri F. Papolos, M.D. and Janice Papolos, authors of The Bipolar Child

    He is responsible for bringing Hole, Pavement, Soundgarden, and a host of other bands to international attention. He introduced Kurt Cobain to Courtney Love, performed on stage with Nirvana on numerous occasions, and famously pushed Kurt onto the stage of the Reading Festival in 1992 in a wheelchair. Nirvana: The Biography is an honest, moving, incisive, and heartfelt re-evaluation of a band that has been misrepresented time and time again since its tragic demise in April 1994 following Kurt Cobain's suicide. True captures what the band was really like. He also discusses the music scene of the time -- the fellow bands, the scenes, the seminars, the countless live dates, the friends and allies and drug dealers. Drawn from hundreds of original interviews, Nirvana: The Biography is the final word on Nirvana, Cobain, and Seattle grunge.

    In these frank, honest, passionate, and often funny pages is the tale of one woman's eventful and radical journey to the age of thirty. Ani's coming of age story is defined by her ethos of fierce independence--from being an emancipated minor sleeping in a Buffalo bus station, to unwaveringly building a career through appearances at small clubs and festivals, to releasing her first album at the age of 18, to consciously rejecting the mainstream recording industry and creating her own label, Righteous Babe Records. In these pages, as in life, she never hesitates to challenge established rules and expectations, maintaining a level of artistic integrity that has impressed many and antagonized more than a few. Ani continues to be a major touring and recording artist as well as a celebrated activist and feminist, standing as living proof that you can overcome all personal and societal obstacles to be who you are and to follow your dreams.

    Since finding their love of music and performing as teenagers in Seattle, Washington, Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson, have been part of the American rock music landscape. From 70s classics like “Magic Man” and “Barracuda” to chart- topping 80s ballads like “Alone,” and all the way up to 2012, when they will release their latest studio album, Fanatic, Heart has been thrilling their fans and producing hit after hit. In Kicking and Dreaming, the Wilsons recount their story as two sisters who have a shared over three decades on the stage, as songwriters, as musicians, and as the leaders of one of our most beloved rock bands. An intimate, honest, and a uniquely female take on the rock and roll life, readers of bestselling music memoirs like Life by Keith Richards and Steven Tyler’s Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? will love this quintessential music story finally told from a female perspective.