Autobiography


Morrissey - 2013
    Singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Smiths (1982-1987), Morrissey has been a solo artist for twenty-six years, during which time he has had three number 1 albums in England in three different decades.Achieving eleven Top 10 albums (plus nine with the Smiths), his songs have been recorded by David Bowie, Nancy Sinatra, Marianne Faithfull, Chrissie Hynde, Thelma Houston, My Chemical Romance and Christy Moore, amongst others.An animal protectionist, in 2006 Morrissey was voted the second greatest living British icon by viewers of the BBC, losing out to Sir David Attenborough. In 2007 Morrissey was voted the greatest northern male, past or present, in a nationwide newspaper poll. In 2012, Morrissey was awarded the Keys to the City of Tel-Aviv.It has been said 'Most pop stars have to be dead before they reach the iconic status that Morrissey has reached in his lifetime.'Autobiography covers Morrissey's life from his birth until the present day.

Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag


Henry Rollins - 1994
    Rollins's observations range from the wry to the raucous in this blistering account of a six-year career with the band - a time marked by crazed fans, vicious cops, near-starvation, substance abuse, and mind numbing all-night drives. Rollins decided to revise this edition by adding a wealth of new photographs, a new foreword, and an afterword to include some "where-are-they-now" information on the people featured in the book. This new edition includes 40 previously unpublished black-and-white photographs from Rollins's private collection and show flyers by artist Raymond Pettibon. Called "a soul-frying experience not to be undertaken by lightweights" by Wired magazine, Get in the Van perfectly embodies what one critic called the "secular gospel" of one of punk and post-punk's most respected and controversial figures.

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood


Eric Burdon - 2001
    Burdon was ripped off by unscrupulous agents, accountants, and record labels, hounded by the police, and framed for a crime he didn't commit. Yet through it all, he never became bitter. He was the first rocker to play behind the Iron Curtain. He sang with Jimi Hendrix, chased Jim Morrison out of his house with a .44, and introduced John Lee Hooker to the toughest venue Hooker ever played. Eric Burdon explains how he became the "Egg Man" in the Beatles' "I am the Walrus." With the enthusiasm and good humor of his live shows, Burdon recalls the tense reunion between John Lennon and Lennon's long-estranged father; racing motorcycles across the California desert with Steve McQueen; picketing the offices of MGM Records for nonpayment of royalties; performing in wartime Sarajevo with a symphony orchestra; getting run out of Meridian, Mississippi for promoting black music, and singing his heart out year after year. A complete discography and fifty photographs, many never before published, are included in this unforgettable memoir. "Burdon has lived like a real rocker." -New York Times Book Review "Riveting and informative."-Los Angeles Times "These reminiscences will delight Burdon's fans . . . in general."-Library Journal

Life


Keith Richards - 2010
    Now, at last, the man himself tells us the story of life in the crossfire hurricane.

Who I Am


Pete Townshend - 2012
    is a Londoner and a Mod.... wanted The Who to be called The Hair.... loved The Everly Brothers, but not that "drawling dope" Elvis.... wanted to be a sculptor, a journalist, a dancer and a graphic designer.... became a musician, composer, librettist, fiction writer, literary editor, sailor.... smashed his first guitar onstage, in 1964, by accident.... heard the voice of God on a vibrating bed in rural Illinois.... invented the Marshall stack, feedback and the concept album.... once speared Abbie Hoffman in the neck with the head of his guitar.... inspired Jimi Hendrix's pyrotechnical stagecraft.... is partially deaf in his left ear.... stole his windmill guitar playing from Keith Richards.... followed Keith Moon off a hotel balcony into a pool and nearly died.... did too much cocaine and nearly died.... drank too much and nearly died.... detached from his body in an airplane, on LSD, and nearly died.... helped rescue Eric Clapton from heroin.... is banned for life from Holiday Inns.... was embroiled in a tabloid scandal that has dogged him ever since.... has some explaining to do.... is the most literary and literate musician of the last 50 years.... planned to write his memoir when he was 21.... published this book at 67.

The Beatles Anthology


The Beatles - 2000
    Together with Yoko Ono Lennon, they have also made available the full transcripts (including all the outtakes) of the television and video series The Beatles Anthology. Through painstaking compilation of sources worldwide, John Lennon's words are equally represented in this remarkable volume. Furthermore, The Beatles have opened their personal and management archives specifically for this project, allowing the unprecedented release of photographs which they took along their ride to fame, as well as fascinating documents and memorabilia from their homes and offices. What a book The Beatles Anthology is! Each page is brimming with personal stories and rare vintage images. Snapshots from their family collections take us back to the days when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Richard Starkey were just boys growing up in Liverpool. They talk in turn about those early years and how they came to join the band that would make them known around the world as John, Paul, George and Ringo. Then, weaving back and forth, they tell the astonishing story of life as The Beatles: the first rough gigs, the phenomenon of their rise to fame, the musical and social change of their heyday, all the way through to their breakup. From the time Ringo tried to take this drum kit home on the bus to their much anticipated audience with Elvis, from the making of the Sgt. Pepper album to their last photo session together at John's house, The Beatles Anthology is a once-in-a-lifetime collection of The Beatles' own memories.Interwoven with these are the recollections of such associates as road manager Neil Aspinall, producer George Martin and spokesman Derek Taylor. And included in the vast array of photographs are materials from both Apple and EMI, who also opened their archives for this project. This, indeed, is the inside story, providing a wealth of previously unpublished material in both word and image.Created with their full cooperation, The Beatles Anthology is, in effect, The Beatles' autobiography. Like their music has been a part of so many of our lives, it's warm, frank, funny, poignant and bold. At last, here is The Beatles' own story.

Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs


John Lydon - 1994
    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.

Shakey: Neil Young's Biography


Jimmy McDonough - 2002
    He has never granted a writer access to his inner life – until now. Based on six years of interviews with more than three hundred of Young’s associates, and on more than fifty hours of interviews with Young himself, Shakey is a fascinating, prodigious account of the singer’s life and career. Jimmy McDonough follows Young from his childhood in Canada to his cofounding of Buffalo Springfield to the huge success of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young to his comeback in the nineties. Filled with never-before-published words directly from the artist himself, Shakey is an essential addition to the top shelf of rock biographies.

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys


Viv Albertine - 2014
    Her memoir tells the story of how, through sheer will, talent, and fearlessness, she forced herself into a male-dominated industry, became part of a movement that changed music, and inspired a generation of female rockers.After forming The Flowers of Romance with Sid Vicious in 1976, Albertine joined The Slits and made musical history in one of the first generations of punk bands. The Slits would go on to serve as an inspiration to future rockers, including Kurt Cobain, Carrie Brownstein, and the Riot Grrrl movement in the 1990s. This is the story of what it was like to be a girl at the height of punk: the sex, the drugs, the guys, the tours, and being part of a brilliant pioneering group of women making musical history. Albertine recounts helping define punk fashion, struggling to find her place among the boys, and her romance with Mick Jones, including her pregnancy and subsequent abortion. She also gives a candid account of what happened post-punk, beyond the break-up of The Slits in 1982, including a career in film, surviving cancer, and making music again, twenty-five years later.A truly remarkable memoir told in Viv’s frank, irreverent, and distinctive voice, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. is a raw, thrilling story of life on the frontier.

Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota


Chuck Klosterman - 2001
    With a voice like Ace Frehley's guitar, Klosterman hacks his way through hair-band history, beginning with that fateful day in 1983 when his older brother brought home Mötley Crüe's Shout at the Devil. The fifth-grade Chuck wasn't quite ready to rock -- his hair was too short and his farm was too quiet -- but he still found a way to bang his nappy little head. Before the journey was over, he would slow-dance to Poison, sleep innocently beneath satanic pentagrams, lust for Lita Ford, and get ridiculously intellectual about Guns N' Roses. C'mon and feel his noize.

Kink: An Autobiography


Dave Davies - 1996
    of photos.

Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd


Nick Mason - 2004
    With 116 million albums sold worldwide and 25 years on the pop charts to their credit, Pink Floyd is one of the most successful rock groups in history, yet their storyuntil nowis one of the least known. The only continuous member of the band through its entire 40-year history, Nick Mason has witnessed every twist, turn, and sommersault from behind his drum kit. The journey begins with the band's origins as the darlings of London's late 1960s underground and the creation of the classic Pink Floyd sound, all the way through to The Wall and those legendary stadium shows. Here are the players who shaped the band's history and the story behind the storythe inside perspective on, for example, the deterioration and departure of Syd Barrett; the overwhelming success of The Dark Side of the Moon and the resulting pressures and conflicts within the band, including the rift with Roger Waters; and Nick and David Gilmour's decision to put their reputations on the line and continue as Pink Floyd. Packed with rare photographs and vintage Floyd graphics from Nick Mason's extensive private archive, Inside Out is an eye-opener for both veteran fans and those just discovering the group. And, in keeping with the classic Floyd style, the book's cover was designed by Storm Thorgerson, creator of such iconic images as the Dark Side pyramid. Always candid, by turns poignant and funny, Nick's own memories are augmented with extensive research and interviews, making Inside Out a comprehensive history of one of the most brilliant and imaginative bands the world has knownand a masterly memoir of rock and roll.

Moonage Daydream: The Life & Times of Ziggy Stardust


David Bowie - 2002
    Moonage Daydream is the most complete, detailed exploration of one of rock 'n' roll's greatest creations: Ziggy Stardust.Featuring more than 600 photographs from Mick Rock's vast archive, Moonage Daydream takes the reader from the early English Concerts where Ziggy and the Spiders from Mars made their names, to Ziggy's final swansong, the flamboyant 1980 Floor Show.Alongside Mick Rock's reflections on these incredible images, David Bowie adds his own thoughts: discussing Ziggy's origins ad giving an unprecedented insight into the stratospheric two-year career of his alter-ego.These include reflections on his collaboration with mime artist Lindsay Kemp; the breakthrough tour of the USA; the massive sell-out UK tour that culminated in Ziggy's official retirement; and the recording of Pin Ups in Paris.Mick Rock's camera caught more of the Ziggy legend than any other ad followed Bowie into hotel rooms and dressing rooms, on the road and socialising with musicians and friends including Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger.Also included are formal studio sessions for the Pin Ups album sleeve and the four pioneering music videos that Mick directed and filmed for Bowie.

Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life


Graham Nash - 2013
    Graham Nash's songs defined a generation and helped shape the history of rock and roll he s written over 200 songs, including such classic hits as "Carrie Anne," On A Carousel, "Simple Man," "Our House," Marrakesh Express, and "Teach Your Children." From the opening salvos of the British Rock Revolution to the last shudders of Woodstock, he has rocked and rolled wherever music mattered. Now Graham is ready to tell his story: his lower-class childhood in post-war England, his early days in the British Invasion group The Hollies; becoming the lover and muse of Joni Mitchell during the halcyon years, when both produced their most introspective and important work; meeting Stephen Stills and David Crosby and reaching superstardom with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and his enduring career as a solo musician and political activist. Nash has valuable insights into a world and time many think they know from the outside but few have experienced at its epicenter, and equally wonderful anecdotes about the people around him: the Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Dylan, and other rock luminaries. From London to Laurel Canyon and beyond, Wild Tales is a revealing look back at an extraordinary life with all the highs and the lows; the love, the sex, and the jealousy; the politics; the drugs; the insanity and the sanity of a magical era of music."

Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division


Deborah Curtis - 1995
    It contains a discography, gig list and a full set of lyrics.