Book picks similar to
Willie and Dwike: An American Profile by William Zinsser
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Nick Cave: Sinner Saint: The True Confessions, Thirty Years of Essential Interviews
Mat Snow - 2011
This revealing collection of interviews tells the story of his 30-year career in his own words. Including his debauched years with the Birthday Party, the global success of the Bad Seeds and their ragged gospel-rock, Cave's addictions and artistry, and the roots of the barbed gothic romanticism that suffuses his lyrics. Displaying provocative intelligence and enigmatic vision, Cave offers valuable insight into the risks and gains of surrendering oneself to the rock’n’roll myth.
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.
Alfred's Basic Piano Library Lesson Book, Bk 1a
Willard A. Palmer - 1981
Lesson Book Level 1A begins by teaching basic keyboard topography and fluent recognition of white key names in relation to black keys. It focuses on simple rhythms and prepares students for intervallic reading with entertaining songs that focus on same, stepping up and stepping down. It then introduces lines and space notes in treble and bass clefs, melodic and harmonic intervals of 2nds, 3rds, 4ths and 5ths, and graduates to reading on the grand staff. It also introduces the flat and sharp signs. This course is most effective when used under the direction of a piano teacher or experienced musician. Songs Include: Balloons * Batter Up! * The Donkey * A Friend Like You * Hand-Bells * A Happy Song * Horse Sense * Totem Pole Song * It's Halloween! * Jingle Bells! * Jolly Old Saint Nicholas * July the Fourth! * Just a Second! * Love Somebody * Merrily We Roll Along O'er the Deep Blue Sea * Mexican Hat Dance * My Clever Pup * My Fifth * My Robot * Old MacDonald * Old Uncle Bill * Play a Fourth * Raindrops * Rain, Rain! * Rockets * Rockin' Tune * Rock Song * Sailing * Sea Divers * See-Saws * Skating * Who's on Third? * Willie and Tillie * Wishing Well * The Zoo
Sez Who? Sez Me
Mike Royko - 1982
More than a decade's worth of essays by the Pulitzer Prize winning syndicated columnist capture the essence of big city American life, from neighborhood taverns to backroom politics.
Memphis Mafia Princess: Living in the Elvis World
Shirley Dieu - 2017
Shirley was the girlfriend of Elvis's Road Manager and Best Friend "Joe Esposito's" Shirley lived with Joe for 6 years. She writes about the positive side of Elvis and how he and the Memphis Mafia. with their girlfriends and the wives, all vacationed and toured and played together. Shirley manages to bring the reader inside the walls of Graceland as she writes about all of the fun that they had at Elvis's home and while on tour, vacationing, or just hanging out. Foreward written by Joe Esposito, and testimonials by Joe Esposito, Sam Thompson, Dr, Nichopoulos and Miss Texas, Bellinda Myrick. This is a book that will answer so many of those unanswered questions about Elvis that you always wondered about. You are sure to laugh and at times even cry, as you relive what life was really like while "Living in the Elvis World"
Doomed to Fail
J.J. Anselmi - 2020
Anselmi covers the bands and musicians that have impacted those styles most―Black Sabbath, Candlemass, Melvins, Eyehategod, Godflesh, Neurosis, Saint Vitus, and many others―while diving into the cultural doom that has spawned such music, from the bombing of Birmingham and hurricane devastation of New Orleans to glaring economic inequality, industrial alienation, climate change, and widespread addiction. Along the way, Anselmi interweaves the musical experiences that have led him to proudly identify as one of the doomed.
Original Rockers
Richard King - 2015
We live in an age when the most beautiful of recording formats, vinyl, is back in vogue and thriving. In the early 90s, with the march of the cd and record company disinterest oin the format, vinyl was looking like an anachronism. And with its demise came the gradual erosion of a once beautiful and unique landscape known as the independent record shop.
Richard King, author of How Soon is Now, blends memoir and elegiac music writing on the likes of Captain Beefheart, CAN and Julian Cope, to create a book that recalls the debauched glory days of the independent record shop. Chaotic, amateurish and extravagantly dysfunctional, this is a book full of rare personalities and rum stories. It is a book about landscape, place and the personal; the first piece of writing to treat the environment of the record shop as a natural resource with its own peculiar rhythms and anecdotal histories.
Morrissey in Conversation: The Essential Interviews
Paul A. Woods - 2006
Collating classic music press and glossy magazine articles, Morrissey in Conversation describes the rocker's crazy-quilt career in his own words. It’s all here — how the Smiths created 1980s indie rock; the anti-rock credentials, feminist sympathies, and militant vegetarianism; Morrisey’s obsession with pop culture and girl groups, his (a)sexuality, and sardonic salvos against the mediocre. This is the story of how one man bewitched the ‘80s, peaked in the ‘90s, and triumphed in the new millennium.
Michael Jackson: The Visual Documentary
Adrian Grant - 1995
Illustrated with hundreds of photographs, this visual documentary of Michael Jackson presents all the facts and includes his records, concerts, videos and awards, his public appearances and performances, memorabilia and records you never knew existed.
Hüsker Dü: The Story of the Noise-Pop Pioneers Who Launched Modern Rock
Andrew Earles - 2010
Here's the first book to dissect the trio that countless critics and musicians have cited as one of the most influential bands of the 1980s. Author Andrew Earles examines how Hüsker Dü became the first hardcore band to marry pop melodies with psychedelic influences and ear-shattering volume. Readers witness the band create the untouchable noise-pop of LPs like New Day Rising, Flip Your Wig, and Candy Apple Grey, not to mention the sprawling double-length Zen Arcade. Few bands from the original American indie movement did more to inform the alternative rock styles that breached the mainstream in the 1990s. Hüsker Dü truly were visionaries.
Walk Like a Man: Coming of Age with the Music of Bruce Springsteen
Robert J. Wiersema - 2011
He's a genuine voice of the people, the bastard child of Woody Guthrie and James Brown, and an elder statesman who has inspired generations of bands. He's won twenty Grammy Awards, an Oscar, two Golden Globes, and is a member of two Halls of Fame.There are dozens of books about Springsteen. What's left to say? Nothing objective, perhaps. But when it comes to music, objectivity is highly overrated. Robert Wiersema has been a Springsteen fan since he was a teenager, following tours to see multiple shows in a row, watching set lists develop in real time via the Internet, ordering bootlegs from shady vendors in Italy. His attachment is deeper than fandom, though: he's grown up with Springsteen's songs as the soundtrack to his life, beginning with his youth in rural British Columbia and continuing on through dreams of escape, falling in love, and becoming a father.Walk Like a Man is the liner notes for a mix tape, a blend of biography, music criticism, and memoir. Like the best mix tapes, it balances joy and sorrow, laughter seasoning the dark-night-of-the-soul questions that haunt us all. Wiersema's book is the story of a man becoming a man (despite getting a little lost along the way), and of Springsteen's songs and life that have accompanied him on his journey.
Peter Grant: The Man Who Led Zeppelin
Chris Welch - 2001
The book reveals the facts about his suspended prison sentence, his dispute with the group over unpaid royalties and his retiring from the music industry, and his rumoured heroin addiction.Written with the full co-operation of Grant's family and friends to give a unique access into the most fabled and feared man in the music business.
Rock Stars Stole My Life!
Mark Ellen - 2014
He dreamt that music was a rich meadow of possibility, a liberating leap to a sparkling future, an industry of human happiness - and he wanted to be part of it. Thus began his 50-year love affair with rock and roll. From his time at the NME and Smash Hits to Radio One, Old Grey Whistle Test, Live Aid, Q, Select, Mojo and The Word magazines, he's been at the molten core of its evolution, and watched its key figures from a unique perspective. This funny and touching personal memoir maps out his eventful journey. It tells stories and settles scores. It charts the peaks and disappointments. It flags up surprising heroes and barbecues the dull and self-deluded. It puts a chaotic world to rights and pours petrol on the embers of a glorious industry now in spiralling decline.
The Traveling Wilburys: The Biography
Nick Thomas - 2017
The five seasoned musicians – Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison – had gathered to write and record what was intended as a throwaway B-side track. After Harrison submitted the completed song to his record company, he was told that it was too good to be hidden away on the flip side of a European single. Instead, he was instructed to regroup with his fellow musicians and to record an entire album of songs. But for the newly formed supergroup, there was no roadmap, no detailed plan, no record company involvement and no expectation of success. Nicknamed the Billion Dollar Quintet, the five musical legends could all speak of their own individual achievements, their own musical triumphs, as well as their own extended periods of fan indifference. Some of the members had already establishment close knit relationships, while others barely knew each other. This book chronicles how the Traveling Wilburys were formed, what went into the making of their two hit albums and why they never toured. The book also examines how the careers and personal lives of these five men overlapped as well as how they influenced one another. Lastly, this book looks at the group’s musical legacy.
Kids in the Riot: High and Low with The Libertines
Pete Welsh - 2005
Released early and reconciled with Barat, The Libertines confounded the critics by rounding off 2003 with three triumphant sold-out shows at London's Forum and kicking off 2004 with the prestigious Best UK band gong at the NME awards. For the first time, the full, extraordinary story of the most gifted yet nihilistic London band since The Sex Pistols is told. With the complete co-operation of the major players in their gloriously destructive ascent. A documentation of the break-ins, break-ups, punch-ups and make-ups of the first two phenomenal years of The Libertines. Illustrated with many unseen photographs from the authors archive.