Book picks similar to
The Romantic Generation by Charles Rosen
music
non-fiction
history
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Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone!
Craig Schuftan - 2009
HEY, NIETZSCHE! is the first book to uncover the hidden roots of rock and roll in the romantic movement. Schuftan picks up a clue in My Chemical Romance's 'Welcome the Black Parade', and follows it into a world where Keats meets the Cure, Wordsworth hangs with Weezer, and Byron exchanges haughty glances with Bowie. From Schopenhauer's darkest days to Queen's greatest hits, HEY, NIEtZSCHE! is a wild ride through the nineteenth century with the best mix-tape in the world on the car stereo.
Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound
Tara Rodgers - 2009
The collection is an extension of Pinknoises.com, the critically-acclaimed website founded by musician and scholar Tara Rodgers in 2000 to promote women in electronic music and make information about music production more accessible to women and girls. That site featured interviews that Rodgers conducted with women artists, exploring their personal histories, their creative methods, and the roles of gender in their work. This book offers new and lengthier interviews, a critical introduction, and resources for further research and technological engagement.Contemporary electronic music practices are illuminated through the stories of women artists of different generations and cultural backgrounds. They include the creators of ambient soundscapes, “performance novels,” sound sculptures, and custom software, as well as the developer of the Deep Listening philosophy and the founders of the Liquid Sound Lounge radio show and the monthly Basement Bhangra parties in New York. These and many other artists open up about topics such as their conflicted relationships to formal music training and mainstream media representations of women in electronic music. They discuss using sound to work creatively with structures of time and space, and voice and language; challenge distinctions of nature and culture; question norms of technological practice; and balance their needs for productive solitude with collaboration and community. Whether designing and building modular synthesizers with analog circuits or performing with a wearable apparatus that translates muscle movements into electronic sound, these artists expand notions of who and what counts in matters of invention, production, and noisemaking. Pink Noises is a powerful testimony to the presence and vitality of women in electronic music cultures, and to the relevance of sound to feminist concerns.Interviewees: Maria Chavez, Beth Coleman (M. Singe), Antye Greie (AGF), Jeannie Hopper, Bevin Kelley (Blevin Blectum), Christina Kubisch, Le Tigre, Annea Lockwood, Giulia Loli (DJ Mutamassik), Rekha Malhotra (DJ Rekha), Riz Maslen (Neotropic), Kaffe Matthews, Susan Morabito, Ikue Mori, Pauline Oliveros, Pamela Z, Chantal Passamonte (Mira Calix), Maggi Payne, Eliane Radigue, Jessica Rylan, Carla Scaletti, Laetitia Sonami, Bev Stanton (Arthur Loves Plastic), Keiko Uenishi (o.blaat)
Heretics!: The Wondrous (and Dangerous) Beginnings of Modern Philosophy
Steven Nadler - 2017
With masterful storytelling and color illustrations, Heretics! offers a unique introduction to the birth of modern thought in comics form--smart, charming, and often funny.These contentious and controversial philosophers--from Galileo and Descartes to Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Newton--fundamentally changed the way we look at the world, society, and ourselves, overturning everything from the idea that the Earth is the center of the cosmos to the notion that kings have a divine right to rule. More devoted to reason than to faith, these thinkers defended scandalous new views of nature, religion, politics, knowledge, and the human mind.Heretics! tells the story of their ideas, lives, and times in a vivid new way. Crisscrossing Europe as it follows them in their travels and exiles, the narrative describes their meetings and clashes with each other--as well as their confrontations with religious and royal authority. It recounts key moments in the history of modern philosophy, including the burning of Giordano Bruno for heresy, Galileo's house arrest for defending Copernicanism, Descartes's proclaiming cogito ergo sum, Hobbes's vision of the "nasty and brutish" state of nature, and Spinoza's shocking Theological-Political Treatise.A brilliant account of one of the most brilliant periods in philosophy, Heretics! is the story of how a group of brave thinkers used reason and evidence to triumph over the authority of religion, royalty, and antiquity.
Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination
Robert Jourdain - 1997
In clear, understandable language, Jourdian expertly guides the reader through a continuum of musical experience: sound, tone, melody, harmony, rhythm, composition, performance, listening, understandingand finally to ecstasy. Along the way, a fascinating cast of characters brings Jourdian's narrative to vivid life: "idiots savants" who absorb whole pieces on a single hearing, composers who hallucinate entire compositions, a psychic who claims to take dictation from long-dead composers, and victims of brain damage who can move only when they hear music. Here is a book that will entertain, inform, and stimulate everyone who loves musicand make them think about their favorite song in startling new ways.
Bowie's Bookshelf: The Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie's Life
John O'Connell - 2019
Now imagine that friend is David Bowie. Three years before he died, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award-winning artist David Bowie shared a list of the hundred books that changed his life—a wide-ranging and eclectic selection that spans beloved classics like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and George Orwell’s 1984, to more esoteric gems like Fran Lebowitz’s Metropolitan Life and Hubert Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, and even cult comic strips like Beano and Raw.Bowie’s Bookshelf celebrates each of Bowie’s favorite books with a dedicated mini-essay, exploring each work within the context of Bowie’s life and its role in shaping one of the most versatile, avant-garde, and cutting-edge musicians of the twentieth century. A fresh approach to celebrating the enduring legacy of David Bowie, Bowie’s Bookshelf is a resounding tribute to the power art has to change our lives for the better.
Heroes of Blues, Jazz, and Country
Robert Crumb - 2006
Crumb's work as an illustrator knows of his passion for music. And all those who collect his work prize the "Heroes of the Blues, Early Jazz Greats," and "Pioneers of Country Music" trading card sets he created in the early to- mid-1980s. Now they are packaged together for the first time in book form, along with an exclusive 21-track CD of music selected and compiled by Crumb himself (featuring original recordings by Charley Patton, "Dock" Boggs, "Jelly Roll" Morton, and others). A bio of each musician is provided, along with a full-color original illustration by the cartoonist. A characteristically idiosyncratic tribute by an underground icon to the musical innovators who helped inspire him, "R. Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country" is a must-have collection for Crumb aficionados, comics fans, and music lovers alike.
Swim Through the Darkness: My Search for Craig Smith and the Mystery of Maitreya Kali
Mike Stax - 2016
His future success seemed assured, until an unexpected turn of events plunged him into a terrifying darkness. Clean-cut Craig Smith became Maitreya Kali, the self-proclaimed psychedelic Messiah. He laid out his poignant, disturbing schizophrenic vision on a sprawling self-released double-album before disappearing completely. Author Mike Stax spent fifteen years piecing together the mystery of Maitreya Kali, uncovering one of the strangest and most tragic untold stories of the 1960s and ‘70s.Swim Through the Darkness reveals author Stax's fifteen year quest in tracking down this strange saga of American pop culture. Included in the story are Smith's close ties to the Monkees, particularly Mike Nesmith, who produced and promoted Smith's band, Penny Arkade. Also covered are the bizarre self-released albums he made as Maitreya Kali, which now command thousands of dollars among psychedelic music collectors.Purchasers of this book will also receive a code to be able to download Smith's music in all its obscure and variant styles.
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991
Michael Azerrad - 2001
This sweeping chronicle of music, politics, drugs, fear, loathing, and faith has been recognized as an indie rock classic in its own right. Among the bands profiled: Mission of Burma, Butthole Surfers, The Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Black Flag, Big Black, Hüsker Dü, Fugazi, Minor Threat, Mudhoney, The Replacements, Beat Happening, and Dinosaur Jr.
The Riot Grrrl Collection
Lisa Darms - 2013
Against the backdrop of the culture wars and before the rise of the Internet or desktop publishing, the zine and music culture of the Riot Grrrl movement empowered young women across the country to speak out against sexism and oppression, creating a powerful new force of liberation and unity within and outside of the women's movement. While feminist bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile fought for their place in a male-dominated punk scene, their members and fans developed an extensive DIY network of activism and support."The Riot Grrrl Collection" reproduces a sampling of the original zines, posters, and printed matter for the first time since their initial distribution in the 1980s and '90s, and includes an original essay by Johanna Fateman and an introduction by Lisa Darms.Lisa Darms is senior archivist at the Fales Library & Special Collections at New York University, where she has created the Fales Riot Grrrl Collection.Johanna Fateman is a writer, musician, record producer, and member of the post-punk band Le Tigre. She, along with Kathleen Hanna and several other key Riot Grrrls, recently donated her zines and early writings to the Fales.
David Bowie: Starman
Paul Trynka - 2011
He wrote and recorded with everyone from Iggy Pop to Freddie Mercury to John Lennon, sold 136 million albums, has one of the truly great voices, and influenced bands as wide-ranging as Nirvana and Franz Ferdinand. Paul Trynka illuminates Bowie's seemingly contradictory life and his many reinventions as an artist, offering over 300 new interviews with everyone from classmates to managers to lovers. He reveals Bowie's broad influence on the entertainment world, from movie star to modern-day icon, trend-setter to musical innovator. This book will define Bowie for years to come.
Shout! The Beatles in Their Generation
Philip Norman - 1981
Now brought completely up to date, this epic tale charts the rise of four scruffy Liverpool lads from their wild, often comical early days to the astonishing heights of Beatlemania, from the chaos of Apple and the collapse of hippy idealism to the band's acrimonious split. It also describes their struggle to escape the smothering Beatles’ legacy and the tragic deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison. Witty, insightful, and moving, Shout! is essential reading not just for Beatles fans but for anyone with an interest in pop music.
She's A Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll
Gillian G. Gaar - 1992
Gaar’s critically acclaimed, breakthrough book, the first full history of women in rock and pop ever written, became an instant classic upon its publication in 1992. Arranged chronologically and told with impassioned detail, She’s A Rebel charts a half century of women performers from the early R and B singers of the 1950s, to the girl groups, Motown acts, folksingers, and rock chicks of the 1960s, to the punk rebels and pop divas of the 1970s, to the brash all-girl bands, rappers, and riot grrls of the 1980s and 1990s. This expanded ten-year anniversary edition features over 75 photos and includes three all-new chapters on all the major artists of the last decade as well as an insider’s look at the music industry and the emerging power of women rock stars. With new preface by Yoko Ono and dozens of new profiles and interviews with performers—such as Courtney Love, L7, Bikini Kill, the Breeders, Sarah McLachlan, Ani di Franco, Sheryl Crow, Sleater Kinney, Alanis Morrisette, Lucinda Williams, Mariah Carey, Destiny’s Child, Lauryn Hill, Christina Aguilera, Nelly Furtado, Bjork, and many others— this book captures the amazing explosion of women’s voices and talent in the music world. “[She’s A Rebel] is as thoroughly entertaining as it is researched ... It’s exhaustive and exhilarating.”—Billboard
The Last of the Hippies - An Hysterical Romance
Penny Rimbaud - 1982
The Hatred of Music
Pascal Quignard - 1996
As a musician he organized the International Festival of Baroque Opera and Theatre at Versailles in the early 1990s, and thus was instrumental in the rediscovery of much forgotten classical music. Yet in 1994 he abruptly renounced all musical activities. The Hatred of Music is Quignard’s masterful exploration of the power of music and what history reveals about the dangers it poses. From prehistoric chants to challenging contemporary compositions, Quignard reflects on music of all kinds and eras. He draws on vast cultural knowledge—the Bible, Greek mythology, early modern history, modern philosophy, the Holocaust, and more—to develop ten accessible treatises on music. In each of these small masterpieces the author exposes music’s potential to manipulate, to mesmerize, to domesticate. Especially disturbing is his scrutiny of the role music played in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Quignard’s provocative book takes on particular relevance today, as we find ourselves surrounded by music as never before in history.
The Recording Angel: Music, Records and Culture from Aristotle to Zappa
Evan Eisenberg - 1986
In a new Afterword, Evan Eisenberg shows how digital technology, file trading, and other recent developments are acceleratingor reversingthese trends. Influential and provocative, The Recording Angel is required reading for anyone who cares about the effect recording has hadand will haveon our experience of music.