Pioneers of electronic minimalism in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, Kraftwerk redefined pop music. When they split up in the early 1980s, founding member Wolfgang Flur discovered his name dropped from album credits and the drum machine of his own invention being patented by his bandmates. Kraftwerk: I Was a Robot documents the group's alternately inspiring and bitter story from its unsteady beginnings through worldwide fame to the legal battle in a Hamburg court that vindicated the author but left lasting scars on all. Color photographs are included.

    But Peel's influence goes much deeper than this. Whether he was championing punk, reggae, jungle or grime, he had a unique relationship with his audience that was part taste-maker, part trusted friend.The book focuses on some 300 shows between 1967 and 2004, giving a thorough overview of Peel's broadcasting career and placing it in its cultural and social contexts. Peel comes alive for the reader, as do the key developments that kept him at the cutting edge - the changes in his tastes; the changes in his thinking. Just like a Peel show, Goodnight and Good Riddance is warm, informative and insightful, and wears its enthusiasm proudly.

    He had no idea this little label, first run out of his solar powered cabin in the Northern California mountains, then a cramped room in the backstreets of Berkeley, would rise to international prominence, introducing the world to the likes of Green Day, Operation Ivy, and a host of other artists. How To Ru(i)n A Record Label documents the author’s experiences from Gilman Street to Bialystok, Poland, as he built Lookout from the ground up, only to find himself losing control of the label a mere ten years later, and abruptly walking away from the multi-million dollar company when it was at its peak of success. Throughout that time, however, he was central to the influential scene that gave birth to Gilman Street, Maximum Rocknroll, and a new generation of independent music that has had an everlasting effect on both the underground and mainstream. In the process, he just might even have found himself. Larry Livermore was the co-founder of Lookout Records, the editor and publisher of Lookout magazine, and a longtime columnist for Maximum Rocknroll and Punk Planet. His first memoir, Spy Rock Memories, was published in 2013 by Don Giovanni Records. He lives in Brooklyn.

    As a sideman, Hendrix played with the likes of Little Richard, Ike and Tina Turner, the Isley Brothers, and Sam & Dave—but none knew what to make of his spotlight-stealing rock guitar experimentation, the likes of which had never been heard before. From 1962 to 1966, on the rough and tumble club circuit, Hendrix learned to please a crowd, deal with racism, and navigate shady music industry characters, all while evolving his own astonishing style. Finally, in New York’s Greenwich Village, two key women helped him survive, and his discovery in a tiny basement club in 1966 led to Hendrix instantly being heralded as a major act in Europe before he returned to America, appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival, and entered the pantheon of rock’s greatest musicians. Becoming Jimi Hendrix is based on over one hundred interviews with those who knew Hendrix best during his lean years, more than half of whom have never spoken about him on the record. Utilizing court transcripts, FBI files, private letters, unpublished photos, and U.S. Army documents, this is the story of a young musician who overcame enormous odds, a past that drove him to outbursts of violence, and terrible professional and personal decisions that complicated his life before his untimely demise.

    It includes plenty of tips on bridging the cultural gap. It covers various Ethiopia's national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.

    the eighth edition of Total Baseball: the ultimate baseball encyclopedia is the most striking, compelling and comprehensive single volume ever devoted to America's pastime.

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    Elliott Smith's XO should not be one of them. Smith's 1998 major label debut defies the tortured singer-songwriter stereotype, and takes up this defiance as a central theme. At a time when Smith was being groomed for a particular (and particularly condescending) brand of stardom, he produced a record that eviscerated one of the central assumptions of singersongwriterdom: that pain is beautiful. XO insists that romanticizing personal tragedy can only leave you deaf and dumb and done. And it backs up this claim with some of the most artful and intelligent music of its day. Matthew LeMay writes an original take on a widely beloved album, steering clear of the sensationalist suicide angles that have dogged most analysis of Elliott Smith's extraordinary work.

    Yes have been on the rock circuit for almost 35 years and Chris Welch was there for the whole crazy journey, interviewing the changing band members many times over the years. Now he tells their complex and often hilarious story with the help of interviews with the band members past and present.

    Written in 1828, in the last months of the young Schubert's life, 'Winterreise' ("Winter's Journey"), has come to be considered the single greatest piece of music ever written for the male solo voice. Deceptively brief - the twenty-four short poems are performed uninterrupted in 70 minutes - it nonetheless has an emotional depth and power that no music of its kind has ever equalled. Originally intended to be sung to an intimate gathering, performances of 'Winterreise' now pack the greatest concert halls around the world. Drawing on his firsthand experience with this work (he has performed it more than one hundred times), on his musical knowledge, and on his training as a scholar, Ian Bostridge teases out the enigmas and subtle meanings of each song, exploring the world and the states of heart and mind in which Schubert created them, and the exquisite resonance and affinities that continue, even today, to move us so profoundly.

    This version of the Beatles legend smoothed the rough edges and filled in the fault lines, and for more than forty years this manicured version of the Beatles story has sustained as truth - until now.The product of almost a decade of research, hundreds of unprecedented interviews, and the discovery of scores of never-before-revealed documents, Bob Spitz's The Beatles is the biography fans have been waiting for -- a vast, complete account as brilliant and joyous and revelatory as a Beatles record itself. Spitz begins in Liverpool, a hard city knocked on its heels. In the housing projects and school playgrounds, four boys would discover themselves -- and via late-night radio broadcasts, a new form of music called rock 'n roll.Never before has a biography of musicians been so immersive and textured. Spitz takes us down Penny Lane and to Strawberry Field (John later added the s), to Hamburg, Germany, where -- amid the squalor and the violence and the pep pills -- the Beatles truly became the Beatles. We are there in the McCartney living room when Paul and John learn to write songs together; in the heat of Liverpool's Cavern Club, where jazz has been the norm before the Beatles show up; backstage the night Ringo takes over on drums; in seedy German strip clubs where George lies about his age so the band can perform; on the lonely tours through frigid Scottish towns before the breakthrough; at Abbey Road Studios, where a young producer named George Martin takes them under his wing; at the Ed Sullivan Show as America discovers the joy and the madness; and onward and upward: up the charts, from Shea to San Francisco, through the London night, on to India, through marmalade skies, across the universe...all the way to a rooftop concert and one last moment of laughter and music.It is all here, raw and right: the highs and the lows, the love and the rivalry, the awe and the jealousy, the drugs, the tears, the thrill, the magic never again to be repeated. Open this book and begin to read -- Bob Spitz's masterpiece is, at long last, the biography the Beatles deserve.

    Million Dollar Bash tells for the first time the whole story of the Basement Tapes, recorded in summer 1967 when Bob Dylan's career was at a crossroads. Recovering from a mysterious motorcycle crash, he gathered together a few musician friends in Woodstock, New York, and informally recorded a bunch of songs intended to be heard by no one but themselves. Instead, they changed music forever. In this new book, musician and author Sid Griffin examines the recordings in detail, demonstrating on every page a musician's insight into the Basement Tapes, the men who recorded them, and the times in which they were made. Every Dylan fan needs this book.

    Through the introduction of MTV and the alternative rock revolution, it's been many things. Rude. Brilliant. Soulful. Snotty. Angry. Delirious. In the past two decades, genres have spawned like mad, from goth, indie rock, and gangsta rap to emo and the garage rock revival. This twentieth-anniversary tribute celebrates the passion and fury of the music, with original essays, quotes, and photographs by contributors who are as hopelessly obsessed with it as you are. SPIN: 20 Years of Alternative Music features: Alan Light on Beastie Boys, Ann Powers on U2, Charles Aaron on R.E.M., Dave Eggers on The Smiths + Morrissey, Marc Spitz on Goth, Simon Reynolds on Depeche Mode + Synth-pop, Dave Itzkoff on ’80s Teen Movies, Chuck Klosterman on Weezer, Will Hermes on Radiohead, Neil Strauss on Nine Inch Nails + Industrial, Sacha Jenkins on Public Enemy, Andy Greenwald on Emo, RJ Smith on Gangsta Rap, Jon Dolan on The White Stripes, Chris Norris on Nirvana, Doug Brod on Oasis + Britpop, Jim DeRogatis on Smashing Pumpkins, Laura Sinagra on Courtney Love, Ta-Nehisi Coates on Tupac

    That's what preeminent baseball analyst Bill James and ESPN.com baseball columnist Rob Neyer realized over lunch more than a dozen years ago. Since then, they've been compiling the centerpiece of this book, the "Pitcher Census," which lists specific information for nearly two thousand pitchers, ranging throughout the history of professional baseball. The Guide also offers: A "dictionary" describing virtually every known pitchThe origins and development of baseball's most important pitchesTop ten lists: best fastballs, best spitballs, and everything in betweenBiographies of some of the great pitchers who have been overlookedMore knuckleballers and submariners than you ever thought existedAn open debate concerning pitcher abuse and durabilityA formula for predicting the Cy Young Award winnerSomething fresh and new: Bill James' "Pitcher Codes" The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers is about understanding pitchers, and baseball's action always starts with the pitchers. It's also about entertaining debates and having a great deal of fun with the history of a game that obsesses so many.

    278 color photos. 185 drawings.