Despite long-term addiction to alcohol and drugs, which contributed to his death in January 2009, he produced a string of matchless albums. Loved by fans and critics, loathed by ex-managers, he survived the music business he despised for forty years. With contributions by Martyn, many of his lovers and over twenty musicians who knew him well, this book documents his upbringing in Glasgow and rise through the Scottish and London folk scene of the 1960s, his many highs and lows, and his friendships with the great lost souls of British rock music—Nick Drake and Paul Kossoff.

    Nearly two decades on, though, Aaron "Gene Ween" Freeman and Mickey "Dean Ween" Melchiondo preside over one of the most devoted cult fan bases in American music. So how exactly did Ween manage to transcend joke-band oblivion?One answer is that, in the years following their MTV breakthrough, Ween gradually polished their output, turning their staunchly primitive musical sketches into hi-fi paintings. Chocolate and Cheese, released in 1994, marked Freeman and Melchiondo's first crucial steps in this direction. Based on new, in-depth interviews with both members of Ween, as well as producer Andrew Weiss and associates ranging from Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) to Spike Jonze, this book explores the song-by-song creation of Chocolate and Cheese and how the album served as a bridge between Ween's original two-guys-and-a-4-track incarnation and the rich, virtuosic rock & roll force they would later become.

    "By turns moving, funny, appalling, disturbing. . . . There has never been anything like it".--"Rolling Stone". 80 b&w photos. 16-page color insert.In his twenty-nine years, rock idol Manson has experienced more than most people have (or would want to) in a lifetime. Now, in his shocking and candid memoir, he takes readers from backstage to gaol cells, from recording studios to emergency rooms, from the pit of despair to the top of the charts, and recounts his metamorphosis from a frightened Christian schoolboy into the most feared and revered music superstar in the country.

    Jimmy Nail has been a household name since Auf Wiedersehen, Pet hit our screens in the 1980s. since then, his career as an actor and a musician has put on him on the silver screen alongside Madonna and given him a No. 1 hit single. Success on this astonishing scale was beyond the wildest dreams of the working class lad whose harsh childhood and brutal schooling put him on a collision course with Strangeways. But a short spell in prison helped propel Nail onwards and upwards. With the support of his friends and family, it wasn't long before Jimmy's unique talents and single-minded determination brought him attention of a different kind - and changed his life for ever. In A Northern Soul, Jimmy Nail tells his own vivid story in this intriguing, inspiring and sometimes confounding account of how one man rose to fame and fortune by refusing to be anything but himself.

    This Is Gonna Hurt is part photo, part journal - but all Nikki Sixx. It is a collection of compelling snapshots and stories that capture the rage, love, optimism, darkness,and determination that shape his work. Told with the raw authenticity that defined his New York Times bestseller The Heroine Diaries , This Is Gonna Hurt chronicles Sixx's experience, from his early years filled with toxic waste to his success with Motley Crue, his death from an OD and rebirth to his addictions to music, photography, and love. Love story, bad-ass rock tell-all, social commentary, family memoir, This Is Gonna Hurt offers the compelling insights of an artist and a man struggling to survive, connect, and find a happy ending-a search that fuels Sixx's being. 'I want to take you on the journey I am on, in real time', Sixx writes. If you don't deal with your demons, they will deal with you, and it's gonna hurt.

    If anything, today, the cult of Jawbreaker-in their own words, "the little band that could but would probably rather not"-is now many times greater than it was when they broke up in 1996. Like the best work of Fugazi, The Clash, and Operation Ivy, the album is now is a rite of passage and a beloved classic among partisans of intelligent, committed, literary punk music and poetry.Why, when a thousand other artists came and went in that confounding decade of the 90s, did Jawbreaker somehow come to seem like more than just another band? Why do they persist, today, in meaning so much to so many people? And how did it happen that, two years after releasing their masterpiece, the band that was somehow more than just a band to its fans-closer to equipment for living-was no longer?Ronen Givony's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy is an extended tribute in the spirit of Nicholson Baker's U & I a passionate, highly personal, and occasionally obsessive study of one of the great confessional rock albums of the 90s. At the same time, it offers a quizzical look back to the toxic authenticity battles of the decade, ponders what happened to the question of "selling out," and asks whether we today are enriched or impoverished by that debate becoming obsolete.

    Dubbed the 'man in black', guitarist Ritchie Blackmore found fame with Seventies rock giants Deep Purple, then walked away from them to create Rainbow, only to abandon them and form another band in 1997 - Blackmore's Night.

    He not only wrote extensively and evocatively of the “mood, atmosphere and ephemeral terror” that enveloped the group and their doomed front man, Ian Curtis, but he was present when Curtis suffered his life-changing epileptic seizure following a London concert in April 1980 and was the only journalist permitted to view Curtis’ corpse. Joy Division: Piece By Piece encompasses his complete writings on the group, both contemporary and retrospective. In addition to collecting all of Morley’s classic works about the band, the book includes his eloquent Ian Curtis obituary and hindsight pieces on the group’s significance, framed by an extensive retrospective essay, as well as his reviews of the films 24 Hour Party People and Control. Morley, who emerged from Manchester at the same time as Joy Division, effortlessly evokes that city’s zeitgeist and psycho-geography to tell the story of this uniquely intense group.

    The fab five became one of the most successful music acts in history, with more than 85 million record sales world-wide and nine UK number one singles.Throughout the years, their lives have garnered unprecedented levels of media interest and fans have keenly followed their ups and downs – the personal conflicts, celebrity break-ups, controversies and parenthood. One thing’s for sure: they are never boring.In 2019, the prospect of their reunion tour has led to an outpouring of adoration and excitement, proving that the Spice Girls truly are an enduring cultural phenomenon.

    He has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide. His music has been the soundtrack to the lives of millions of people who grew up in the '70s, '80s and '90s. This celebratory, personal volume includes hundreds of photographsmany never-before-publishedas well as a selection of memorabilia from Petty's personal archives, all of which help to illustrate the songwriter's own description of his amazing life and career. Publication of this book coincides with the theatrical release of a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers film documentary by Peter Bogdanovich and a four disc DVD/CD set. The fall of 2007 belongs to Tom Petty.

    Its goal is to inspire photographers of all levels who wish to improve their work, as well as readers interested in deepening their understanding of the art of photography. Each book features the creative process and core thinking of a photographer told in their own words and through pictures of their choosing, and is introduced by a well-known student of the featured photographer. In this book, Todd Hido explores the genres of landscape, interior and nude photography, with emphasis on creating images from a personal perspective and with a sense of intimacy. Through words and photographs, he also offers insight into his own practice and discusses a wide range of creative issues, including mining one's own memory and experience as inspiration; using light, texture and detail for greater impact; exploring the narrative potential activated when sequencing images; and creating powerful stories with emotional weight and beauty.Todd Hido (born 1968) is a San Francisco Bay Area-based artist. He is well known for his photography of urban and suburban housing across the United States, and for his use of detail and luminous color. His previous books include House Hunting (2001), Outskirts (2002), Roaming (2004) and Between the Two (2007). He is a recipient of a Eureka Fellowship and a Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Visual Arts Award, and is represented by Stephen Wirtz Gallery in San Francisco. He is an adjunct professor at California College of the Arts.Gregory Halpern received a BA in history and literature from Harvard University and an MFA from California College of the Arts. His third book of photographs, entitled A, is a photographic ramble through the streets of the American Rust Belt. His other books include Omaha Sketchbook and Harvard Works Because We Do. He currently teaches at the Rochester Institute of Technology and is the coeditor of The Photographer's Playbook (Aperture 2013).

    By turns hilarious, cautionary, poignant and powerful, the Stop Me...stories collected here include encounters with some of rock's most iconic stars, including David Bowie, Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Elvis Costello, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Smiths, R.E.M. and Pearl Jam. From backstage brawls and drug blow-outs, to riots, superstar punch-ups, hotel room confessionals and tour bus lunacy, these are stories from the madness of a music scene now long gone. Allan Jones is an award-winning British music journalist and editor. In 1974, he applied for a job on the UK's best-selling music paper as a junior reporter, signing off his application with "Melody Maker needs a bullet up the arse. I'm the gun, pull the trigger†?. He was editor of Melody Maker from 1984 to 1997 and until 2014 editor of music and film monthly Uncut.

    This irreverent and hilarious guide to all that's loud, vulgar, fast, violent, pissed-off, and adolescent in the music of the last forty years—the first book to prefigure the emerging "alternative" culture of the 1990s—has now been updated with the hundred best metal albums of the decade.

    OK, maybe the shoes were new, but it struck me that he hardly ever sets foot in the street. It's all hotel, limousines, sterilized airports—the life I was about to lead. I shivered, feeling poised at the top of a rollercoaster about to sweep across the world. In 1978, Sean Mayes toured the world with David Bowie. Traveling first class and performing each night with one of the world's greatest rock stars at the height of his fame was an amazing experience—fortunately, Sean had the foresight to document it. Here, for the first time in complete book form, Sean's tour diary is presented; a blow-by-blow record of how it felt to be part of a real rock circus, from rehearsals in Dallas through shows across the US, UK, Europe, Australasia, and Japan to recording in London and Switzerland. Providing page after page of fascinating insight into life on the road with Bowie, Sean's account is a unique travelogue, a must for any Bowie fan or, indeed, anyone interested in life on a sell-out world tour. Also included is a full tour chronology and previously unpublished photos from Sean's personal archive.

    Chris Evans, Chris Moyles, Rob Brydon and Steve Wright have all cited Kenny as a huge influence on their work - even the great Spike Milligan called him a genius. It was Kenny who developed the radio show format with which we are so familiar today: a mix of music, jingles, funny voices and sound effects. When he seamlessly made the move to television in the seventies, he created unforgettable characters such as Sid Snot, Cupid Stunt and Marcel Wave. Rarely seen without a smile on his face in public, in reality, Kenny was a deeply insecure man who suffered severe bouts of depression. He also struggled with his sexuality, only coming out to the public in 1985. Diagnosed with HIV in 1987, Kenny died in 1995. This in-depth and affectionate biography has been fully authorised by Kenny's family and contains original interviews with Kenny's sister, Kate and with his former wife, Lee, as well as entertainment figures such as Barry Cryer, Cliff Richard, Chris Tarrant and Paul Gambaccini. Packed with fabulous stories about the highs and lows of Kenny's life, his great friendships with The Beatles and Freddie Mercury, this is a book that any fan of comedy and entertainment must read.