A fascinating combination of photograph album, scrapbook, and biography, Simple Plan's exclusive material consists of hundreds of pictures from tours all over the world and the band members' own memories and personal archives. Journalist Kathleen Lavoie has followed the band's career since their beginnings a decade ago. She has written a lively account of the fi ve young Quebecers' fl ourishing career, covering multiple facets of their life from their stage performances to their recording session and tours, on the road and by air. Her look at the personal lives of the band members and their life as a group allows readers to step into their world. This abundantly illustrated book will interest and please Simple Plan fans and music lovers in general. It is the story of an inspiring journey that proves, contrary to popular belief, that even happy stories deserve to be told.

    Along the way, Deadheads have built an original and authentic American subculture, with vivid jargon and rich love, and its own legends, myths, and spirituality.Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads is the first map of what Jerry Garcia calls "the Grateful Dead outback," as seen through the eyes of the faithful, friends, and family, including Bill Walton, Elvis Costello, Tipper Gore, Al Franken, Bob Bralove, Dick Latvala, Blair Jackson, David Gans, Bruce Hornsby, Rob Wasserman, and Robert Hunter. Skeleton Key puts you on the Merry Pranksters' bus behind the real Cowboy Neal, uncovers the origins of Cherry Garcia, follows the dancing bear on its trip from psychedelic artifact to trademarked icon, and unlocks the Dead's own tape vault.Informative reading for the new fan or the most grizzled "tourhead," Skeleton Key shines throughout with Deadheads' own stories, wit, insiders' knowledge, sincere appreciation of the music of the "band beyond description," and the diverse and soulful culture it inspires.

    Roy Orbison died in 1988 but he's hardly forgotten. Raised in rural Texas, Orbison became one of the pioneers of rock and roll in the 1950s, sharing the famed Sun Records with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash. He achieved superstar status in the 1960s, writing and releasing a series of smash singles, such as Oh, Pretty Woman, Only the Lonely, and Crying, plus many others that remain the most well-known songs of the era. IN DREAMS features rare memorabilia from Roy's career, much of it unseen for decades. This stunning biography, written by his sons along with Jeff Slate, tells the true story of their father's remarkable life, including his personal tragedies, reinventions, and untimely death.

    "This isn't strictly speaking an instructional manual, but a work of comedic philosophy."Elvis Costello—songwriter, singer, author, and Fender Jazzmaster known to his admirers as "The Little Hands of Concrete"—spins his tale with wit, grit, and spit to spare.How to Play the Guitar and Y, Costello’s new entry into Audible’s Words + Music series, combines recitation, impersonation, and musical illustration to show you how to turn a three-chord trick into a four-chord caper and let your curiosity take you where it will.Part madcap musical method, part comic chronicle, How to Play the Guitar and Y is accompanied by the author throughout on a number of different instruments with his 10 wandering fingers.So gather round your favorite listening device to hear a storyteller and musician at his most captivating as he reminds you not to be afraid to fail and to never forget to play.

    They're sexually active. And they play their own instruments.In a time when overproduced boy bands and teen sensations are saturating the music market, the boys of blink-182 are a breath of fresh air -- proving that sugarcoated acts aren't the only thing that can get nominated for MTV's "Video of the Year.""Blink-182 Tales from Beneath Your Mom" is chock full of the outrageous band's behind-the-scenes antics, juvenile sense of humor, and never-before-published photos. Bandmates Mark Hoppus, Tom Delonge, and Travis Barker join Mark's sister, Anne, in this exciting tell-all book about life on the road and backstage.From their early days jamming in Tom's garage, to dominating MTV's "TRL," to going multiplatinum with their album "Enema of the State" and being voted "The Sexiest Rock Band" by "Teen People," fans can at last get an inside look at the video-streaking, toilet-joke-living, self-styled punk/pop band that has all the kids asking, "What's My Age Again?"

    Rock stars from Elvis to Bruce Springsteen have been profoundly affected by his work. This insightful book examines the power of Orbison's music--from his pioneer days to his fantastic comeback--and the events that lead to his untimely death.

    Songwriter. Swamp child. Soul man. Tex Perkins is a true rock'n'roll animal. In this loud, uncut, no-holds-barred, laugh-out-loud and take-no-prisoners memoir, the enigmatic king of the Australian music underground lays bare an extraordinary life lived on the road, on the stage and on the edge.Raised a bible-thumping Catholic and beaten bloody on the streets of Brisbane for being a "cow-punk", skinny Gregory Perkins flees to Sydney and mutates into "Tex", rogue leader of the Dums Dums, Thug and Salamander Jim before finding a strange kind of success, celebrity, sex symboldom and icon status as Tex Perkins, snake-hipped, honey-voiced, often bloodied frontman of influential Aussie bands the Cruel Sea, Beasts of Bourbon and Tex, Don & Charlie... and inventor of "Zoneball".Gigs. Albums. Tours. Fights. Feuds. Arrests. Drugs. High times. Low roads. This is a wild ride of a life written loudly, proudly and full of punk energy.

    Top Forty jocks screamed and yelled and sounded mightier than God on millions of transistor radios. But on FM radio it was all spun out for only you. On a golden web by a master weaver driven by fifty thousand magical watts of crystal clear power . . . before the days of trashy, hedonistic dumbspeak and disposable three-minute ditties . . . in the days where rock lived at many addresses in many cities."–from FMAs a young man, Richard Neer dreamed of landing a job at WNEW in New York–one of the revolutionary FM stations across the country that were changing the face of radio by rejecting strict formatting and letting disc jockeys play whatever they wanted. He felt that when he got there, he’d have made the big time. Little did he know he’d have shaped rock history as well.FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio chronicles the birth, growth, and death of free-form rock-and-roll radio through the stories of the movement’s flagship stations. In the late sixties and early seventies–at stations like KSAN in San Francisco, WBCN in Boston, WMMR in Philadelphia, KMET in Los Angeles, WNEW, and others–disc jockeys became the gatekeepers, critics, and gurus of new music. Jocks like Scott Muni, Vin Scelsa, Jonathan Schwartz, and Neer developed loyal followings and had incredible influence on their listeners and on the early careers of artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Genesis, the Cars, and many others.Full of fascinating firsthand stories, FM documents the commodification of an iconoclastic phenomenon, revealing how counterculture was coopted and consumed by the mainstream. Richard Neer was an eyewitness to, and participant in, this history. FM is the tale of his exhilarating ride.

    Live shows were transformed into an ear-splitting redneck disco from hell, under the influence of a mind-boggling cocktail of every conceivable narcotic, with sleazy strippers and even reports of live cattle on stage.As well as Jourgensen and all the Wax Trax crew, the book features cameo appearances by Ogre of Skinny Puppy, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Killing Joke, Jah Wobble, and Cabaret Voltaire.Despite the unrelenting chaos, both Ministry and the Revolting Cocks have been immensely successful; Connelly appeared on two US gold albums ("The Land of Rape and Honey" and "The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste") and worked as songwriter on the million-plus selling platinum album "Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs."Connelly's superbly written, funny, irreverent, and sometimes downright scary memoir is one of the finest portrayals of a man trapped in the eye of a post-punk industrial storm this side of Armageddon.Chris Connelly was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and now lives in Chicago where he has pursued a successful solo career.

    This album marks the first time a British band topped the Billboard 200 chart with its debut release thanks in no small part to their blockbuster single "What Makes You Beautiful." Our matching folio features piano/vocal/guitar arrangements of all of their catchy songs, including that megahit and: Everything About You * Gotta Be You * I Want * I Wish * More Than This * One Thing * Same Mistakes * Save You Tonight * Stole My Heart * Taken * Tell Me a Lie * Up All Night.

    Based on first-hand interviews with surviving band members, this title tells the story of the chequered career of top 1960s band Creedence Clearwater Revival.

    Without radio play and virtually unnoticed by the press, the Dead forged a vast underground following whose loyalty survives to the present day. National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Carol Brightman returns to the band's roots—to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the acid tests and the heady days of Haight-Ashbury, the free concerts in Golden Gate Park and the formative shows of New York's Fillmore East—to uncover the secrets of the band's longevity. Drawing on exclusive interviews With band members, staff and crew, Deadheads, other musicians, journalists—and her own experience as a '60s activist—Brightman shows us how, amid the turbulent Free Speech Movement and antiwar rallies, the Grateful Dead's abandonment to music, drugs, and dance offered the faithful a shelter in the storm. Her riveting, in-depth portrait of Jerry Garcia, the "nonleader leader" who held to a vision of the Grateful Dead's destiny even as he recoiled from the juggernaut it became, shows us how it was that a Dead concert become something halfway between a revival meeting and a family reunion. An absorbing and exhilarating exploration, Sweet Chaos offers, at last, a complete understanding of the Dead phenomenon and its place in American culture.

    As musicians across Canada prepare for the nation's biggest folk festival, held on Toronto Island, a series of events unfold that will transform the country politically, psychologically--and musically. As Bidini explores the remarkable week leading up to Mariposa, he also explores the life and times of one of the most enigmatic figures in Canadian music: Gordon Lightfoot, the reigning king of folk at the height of his career. Through a series of letters, Bidini addresses Lightfoot directly, questioning him, imagining his life, and weaving together a fascinating, highly original look at a musician at the top of his game. By the end of the week, the country is on the verge of massive change and the '72 Mariposa folk fest--complete with surprise appearances by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and yes, Lightfoot--is on its way to becoming legendary.

    I've written 1,000 of them and it's really just another one.' Jimmy Webb 'When I heard it I cried. It made me cry because I was homesick. It's just a masterfully written song.' Glen CampbellThe sound of 'Wichita Lineman' was the sound of ecstatic solitude, but then its hero was the quintessential loner. What a great metaphor he was: a man who needed a woman more than he actually wanted her.Written in 1968 by Jimmy Webb, 'Wichita Lineman' is the first philosophical country song: a heartbreaking torch ballad still celebrated for its mercurial songwriting genius fifty years later. It was recorded by Glen Campbell in LA with a legendary group of musicians known as 'the Wrecking Crew', and something about the song's enigmatic mood seemed to capture the tensions in America at a moment of crisis. Fusing a dribble of bass, searing strings, tremolo guitar and Campbell's plaintive vocals, Webb's paean to the American West describes a telephone lineman's longing for an absent lover, who he hears 'singing in the wire' - and like all good love songs, it's an SOS from the heart.Mixing close-listening, interviews and travelogue, Dylan Jones explores the legacy of a record that has entertained and haunted millions for over half a century. What is it about this song that continues to seduce listeners, and how did the parallel stories of Campbell and Webb - songwriters and recording artists from different ends of the spectrum - unfold in the decades following? Part biography, part work of musicological archaeology, The Wichita Lineman opens a window on to America in the late-twentieth century through the prism of a song that has been covered by myriad artists in the intervening decades.'Americana in the truest sense: evocative and real.' Bob Stanley

    INXS singer/songwriter Michael Hutchence was the celebrated frontman of a band that was the biggest in the world. Michael's big sister, Tina, adored him from the start. From a twelve-year-old holding him in her arms as a newborn, to being his teenage nanny, Tina remained Michael's trusted confidant until his sudden death. Tina's intimate and detailed telling of her brother's story-from faltering teenager with a lisp to raging rock star-blazes with love and adventure, and includes the acquired brain injury that changed everything for Michael; the risky schemes that saw him named in the Paradise Papers expose of 2017; his secret philanthropy in support of East Timor; and his bliss at the birth of his only child, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily. 'My brother roamed the world with a book in his hand and one in his suitcase,' Tina writes, and throughout Michael a paper trail of the literature he loved gives clues to the man many see as an enigma. A cry from the heart celebrating the 'lost boy of INXS', Michael Hutchence, this personal and heartfelt biography reveals the incredible, rollercoaster life of Australia's most enduring superstar and shares the private moments of an adored brother, son and father.'Lost boy Michael, who was my dear friend, and who is very much missed. All respect and thanks to Tina for sharing these stories and keeping the memory alive.' Simon le Bon, songwriter / singer, Duran Duran