Books 177 Items

Longtime music icon John Mellencamp’s artistic expression has never been limited to song.

The acclaimed singer-songwriter John Mellencamp has been an accomplished painter for more than four decades. This definitive survey—curated by Mellencamp himself—of his large-scale oil portraits and mixed-media assemblages documents America’s heart and soul, revealing unsettling but beautiful truths with an antiestablishment frown and a rich sense of narrative. “Although we may primarily know Mellencamp as a rock star, one of the highest-selling of all time and a Hall of Famer, he is also a great painter, as this book shows. Not a musician who also paints... No, John legitimately belongs in the modern art pantheon,” says Bob Guccione Jr. in his essay that delineates the connection of Mellencamp’s music and art, both imbued with the earnest voice of America’s heartland.

A collection of Guided BY Voices frontman Robert POLLARD’s fantastic collage art in a perfect bound book. 235 pages. The man never stops creating.

In 2021, the „Week-End Fest“ looked back on 10 years of encounters between over 100 international musicians. Since its beginning in 2011, the curators‘ own fanhood has been a central element – thus the idea arose to have the artists tell stories about musicians, places or encounters that have shaped them. In ‚I feel everything you say, I feel everything you hear.‘ (the title is borrowed from the song „I’m so Green“ by Can) they tell of decisive moments and memories that still resonate today and have shaped their own artistic identity. As with the festival program, the book succeeds in highlighting diverse lines and connections among them. Dub producers Adrian Sherwood and Scientist talk about their deep admiration for the two inventors of dub Lee „Scratch“ Perry and King Tubby. Electronic pioneer Suzanne Ciani talks about her first steps as a musician and her encounter with Don Buchla, to whom she owes her first job and her first synthesizer. The British avant-garde guitarist Fred Frith describes his first bizarre encounter with the Sun Ra Arkestra in New York in 1979, of which Marshall Allen is a member. The latter tells how today, at the age of 97, he creatively carries on the musical legacy of his master Sun Ra with pride and reverence. By focusing on the fan perspective of the participating artists, the book connects to the curatorial concept of the festival itself. And through their stories and anecdotes, building blocks of a new or different oral history of recent music history emerge at the best moments.

Pünktlich zu seinem 60. Geburtstag erscheint in der Ventil-Verlag-Reihe "Ausgewählte Songtexte" eine Ausgabe mit 100 Songtexten von Bernd Begemann: "Gib mir eine zwölfte Chance". "Ich bin besessen davon, ein Beobachter zu sein" sagte er einmal über sich selbst und so sind seine Texte präzise Beobachtungen des bundesdeutschen Alltags. Begemann schafft es in den wenigen für einen Liedtext zur Verfügung stehenden Zeilen ein ebenso präzises wie mitfühlendes, erklärendes und vor allem unterhaltsames Bild der Gesellschaft zu erschaffen. Seine Songs könnten und sollten Hits und/oder Volkslieder sein, sie sind es aber nicht. "Meine Aufgabe ist es Literatur zu schaffen, nicht meine Kundschaft zu maximieren" so Begemann einmal gegenüber dem Spiegel. Höchste Zeit also für vorliegende Textsammlung und eine eventuelle Maximierung der Kundschaft. Zusätzlich zu den Songtexten enthält das Buch Anmerkungen und Erläuterungen des Autors zu jedem Liedtext und eine Einführung. Bernd Begemann, geboren am 1.11.1962, war der erste Punk in Bad Salzuflen. Er gilt vielen als Erfinder der Hamburger Schule und schrieb deutschsprachige Lieder, als es noch beziehungsweise schon wieder uncool war. Mitte der 80er zog er nach Hamburg und veröffentlichte mit Die Antwort sein erstes Album. Sein späteres Solodebüt nahm er in der Küche seiner Wohnung im Hamburger Arbeiterstadtteil Rothenburgsort auf. Ein urbanes Folk-Album mit Elektronik namens "Rezession, Baby!". Also das, was alle machen, bevor man das machte. Er war nämlich oft als Erster auf dem Minenfeld. Er inspirierte eine Menge Leute, von Tocotronic bis Olli Schulz. Begemann hat über 20 Alben und über 400 Songs veröffentlicht. Er trägt gern smarte Anzüge und spielt, wenn es die Umstände zulassen, Hunderte Konzerte im Jahr.

A fascinating oral history of one of American indie rock's most enduring and influential acts. Slow, deliberate and deceptively simple, the music of Boston-based band Galaxie 500 was wonderfully at odds with the prevailing underground sounds of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Formed in 1987, the band split up in 1991 after releasing three acclaimed albums—Today, On Fire and This Is Our Music—as well as a Peel Sessions recording. The primary contributors to this long unavailable history of the band are the three band members—bassist/vocalist Naomi Yang, drummer Damon Krukowski and guitarist/vocalist Dean WAREHAM—but dozens of people were interviewed in all, including fellow musicians, record business folks, music critics and scenesters. Galaxie 500: Temperature’s Rising provides a complex, sometimes contentious account of the band’s rise to indie stardom and their acrimonious breakup. It also includes dozens of rare and never-before-seen photographs, as well as posters and other ephemera from the personal collection of Naomi Yang, who provides a running commentary to the images. This is the definitive book about Galaxie 500, and a crucial chapter in the story of indie rock.

A meditation on faith, art, music, grief and much more - from cultural icon and bestselling author Nick Cave Faith, Hope and Carnage is a book about Nick Cave's inner life. Created from over forty hours of intimate conversations with Sean O'Hagan, it is a profoundly thoughtful exploration, in Cave's own words, of what really drives his life and creativity. The book examines questions of faith, art, music, freedom, grief and love. It draws candidly on Cave's life, from his early childhood to the present day, his loves, his work ethic and his dramatic transformation in recent years. From a place of considered reflection, Faith, Hope and Carnage offers ladders of hope and inspiration from a true creative visionary.

A companion book to Damon & NAOMI’s new A Sky Record LP. “Every audio format has its strengths and weaknesses… but those without liner notes are really missing out. “We thought we’d take advantage of the persistence of physical media for words and images and print a booklet to accompany what will be, inevitably, a digital album for many. Richard Youngs was with us when this project began, like a screwball comedy, with a (largely harmless) fall down stairs. Michio Kurihara lent his wonderful electric guitar to all its tracks, and Soichiro Nakamura skillfully recorded those parts at his Peace Music studio in Tokyo. Susanne Sasic joined us on the trip to Japan that made those recordings possible, a tour sparked by an unusual invitation in 2019 to play a cultural festival in the small port town of Tsuruga, on the Sea of Japan. We asked the music writer Lindsay Zoladz to tell the story of what happened next, to this project and to all of us, in the unexpected events of 2020. And Jarvis Cocker explains an audio ritual that helped us through that year. We’ve added some short notes of our own, on the genesis of the music and words for these songs; and their lyrics. Thank you for listening, however you choose to do so. And welcome to our Sky Record.”—Damon & Naomi.

The poems in Novel are what happen when you teach a cat to type. They will lead you across a bridge made of bread, through a door in the forest, to a paddock containing stories. They will tell you that it’s not that the dead cannot tie their shoes, they just refuse to. That architects design the elements to withstand the structure. That loose ends are beautiful if not useless. If you’ve picked up this book because you like poems that know where they are going, hurry. Put the book down. You will need to run after them. "Please give Cati Porter’s new book Novel to people who say they don’t like poetry. Not because these poems are simple or straightforward, rather because they are deeply charming. They cast spells: each poem carries the reader on a carpet of words to a world furnished by Porter’s irresistible imagination."—Natasha Sajé, author of Windows and Doors: A Poet Reads Literary Theory

In Border/Between: A Symphony in Essays, Carol D. Marsh writes about death, addictions, and war while also exploring how written form and expression have a counterpart in music. Structured upon the 4-movement symphony and incorporating other forms such as the rock song and the Requiem, Border/Between seeks and finds its place in what lies between the sharp and unforgiving edges of ideology and judgment. In refusing to allow borders to govern her, Marsh is able to bring compassion and hope to what seems irredeemable.

»Queen Of Nowhere« is the result of the photographic works by Kourtney Roy and the musician Dayve Samek (Trance Farmers). Samek has recorded his first album in 2014 on Leaving Records (Stones Throw Records). His music ranges between sweaty, garage-born ballads brush shoulders with drifter anthems and gasoline drenched doo wop with at some points some beats close from the past Anticon works. The Canadian photographer Kourtney Roy was born in Northern Ontario in 1981. She conjures an intimate universe pervaded by both wonder and mystery. Her photographer’s eye is drawn to places and settings whose lyrical qualities underscore the sublime banality of everyday life.

The year 1972 brought together two legends of rock 'n' roll at the peaks of their careers: Jim Marshall and the Rolling Stones. Selected by Life magazine to photograph the Stones' Exile ON Main ST. tour, Marshall had a week of unlimited access. The results are his now-iconic images of the band, onstage in their full glory and backstage in moments of unguarded camaraderie. Marshall's ability to capture the essential spirit of an artist and the transformative power of music is matched only by the Stones' largerthan- life.

When Tim from Dagger Zine approached us about his book idea covering long-loved "spaces" held sacred for countless music fans, we knew it was a great project to get behind, Similar in its community effort to our last book release (The White Label Promo Preservation Society), Hinely organized an incredible list of contributors from all stripes of the underground music spectrum, each waxing their own warm recollections of wild nights seeing life-changing bands and/or terrible bathroom experiences. Chock full of photos, original newspaper ads, flyers, and long-lost monthly calendars of the pre-Internet age, Where The Wild Gigs Were illustrates how important these sacred spaces really are, and how much it's noticeable when we can't actually be AT these homes-away-from-home, spread all across the USA. From Stache's in Columbus, OH to Flynn's Ocean 71 in Miami, FL (the 'CBGB's on the beach'), back to The Brewery in Lansing MI (complete with previously unpublished Stooges photos!), to City Gardens in Trenton, NJ (staffed by Comedy Dentral's Jon Stewart) to Peter Aaron's sordid details on the mob-run Jockey Club in Newport, KY, you won't find many dull moments as each page bleeds into the next, oozing with recollections of blurry good times and endless excitement before the world changed, as we know it. Includes a foreword by Byron Coley and an afterword by Tesco VEE. 235 pages, paperback. First edition of 500 copies.

Featuring never-before-seen photographs of U2 on their first US Tour, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Danzig, The Descendants, Fugazi, The Damned, The U.K. Subs, and many, many more. Since 1981, Chris Barrows has taken pictures of bands at their concerts, backstage, and behind the scenes. From U2 during their first tour in 1982 to Captain Sensible of The Damned on his knees in an alley licking a dominatrixs thigh high vinyl boots, or Lee Ving standing on railroad tracks at night, Barrows' intimate and stirring portraits of bands stripped down and unguarded will be a wonderful addition to any music fan's collection.

After ten years, Deathbeds is finally available again as a paperback with the original cover. Deathbeds was first released in 2007, compiling the lyrical content of Wesley EISOLD’s work in renowned bands American Nightmare, Some Girls and the beginning of his current moniker, Cold Cave. Along with tour journals, poems and prose of early fanzines, Deathbeds is the comprehensive work of an artist in their twenties trying to connect with the outside world and their discontent, confusion and the existential within. The book celebrates the beauty that is the struggle of depression and growth in a poignant and foreword way that is rarely written down or documented coherently. These words came from a place of desperation and isolation but ended up inspiring others with how relatable not being able to relate is. First published in 2007, Heartworm has sold over 10,000 copies of this cult collection between three paperback and three hardcover editions. 3rd edition paperback.

Als Punk etwa im Jahr 1980 in der DDR ankam, verunsicherte er nicht nur die sogenannten Staatsorgane, auch die Spießer und Biedermänner, die bekanntlich im Osten die Mehrheit stellten, liefen Amok. Bereits optisch als Provokation gewollt und verstanden, bildete sich in einigen Zentren eine ganze Gegenkultur samt Lifestyle und Musik heraus, der es um Freiräume und Freiheit ging. Und genau wie Punk in der DDR eine von Stadt zu Stadt, von Kaff zu Kaff ganz unterschiedliche Szene jeweils mit ganz eigenen Protagonist:innen und Eigenheiten war, zeichnet sich dieser Sammelband durch Vielstimmigkeit aus, Stories stehen neben Anekdoten, sachliche Analysen neben ganz persönlichen Reflektionen. "Punk in der Ddr" versteht sich als eine Zeitklammer, die möglichst viel von dem wiedergeben will, was für zehn Jahre in diesem anderen deutschen Staat für zumindest etwas Farbe und Esprit sorgte. Mit Texten von Cornelia Schleime, Franziska Hause, Jan Müller, Anne Hahn, Tim Mohr, Alexander Pehlemann, Jan Off, Roland Galenza, Jochen Schmidt, Peter Wawerzinek, Heinz Havemeister, Iron Hennig und vielen anderen mehr. Einige der hier versammelten Texte sind bereits in vergriffenen Publikationen erschienen, einige wurden extra für dieses Buch verfasst. Gemeinsam ist ihnen allen, dass sie möglichst viel von der Lebenswirklichkeit made in GDR abbilden, die in die Geschichte einging. Broschur, mit Abbildungen ca. 264 Seiten

What a beautiful book...a great presentation and wonderful insight into these historic guitars." -Nils Lofgren on 108 Rock Star Guitars From the photographer of the critically acclaimed 108 Rock Star Guitars comes a new collection of guitar photos, including B.B. King, Kurt Cobain, and Prince as well as more than one hundred legendary rock icons. Lisa S. Johnson's journey into the world of rock and roll photography began more than seventeen years ago when she photographed the legendary Les Paul and his beloved Gibson during one of his famed.

If you're interested in the Microphones box set but maybe you don't actually enjoy music (or maybe you have the records, or maybe it's sold out), here you can buy just the book.

It's pretty fancy on its own. 12.5" x 12.5", 107 pages, perfect bound with huge french flaps, packed with beautiful photos and artwork, notebook spreads, studio track sheets, show posters, etc. These were made at the sustainability-award-winning Hemlock Printers in Burnaby, B.C., a splurge.

It works as either a semi-abstract aesthetic art thing or as an abundantly packed collection of background materials that should satisfy even the most curious Microphones music listener.

He is known as the Mark Twain of American songwriting, a man who transformed the everyday happenings of regular people into plainly profound statements on war, industrialization, religion, and the human condition. Marking the 50th anniversary of the album's release, John Prine chronicles the legendary singer-songwriter's Middle American provenance, and his remarkable ascent from singing mailman to celebrated son of Chicago.“Illegal Smile,” “Hello in There,” “Sam Stone,” “Paradise,” “Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore,” “Far from Me,” “Donald and Lydia,” and “Angel from Montgomery” are considered standards in the American Songbook, covered by legions of Prine's peers and admirers. Through original interviews, exhaustive research, and incisive commentary, author Erin Osmon paints an in-depth portrait of the people, places, and experiences that inspired Prine's landmark debut.

After exploring his roots in rural Western Kentucky and suburban Maywood, Illinois, the book takes readers on an evocative journey through John Prine's Chicago. Its neighborhoods, characters, and clubs of the 1960s and 70s proved a formative and magical period in Prine's life, before he was a figurehead of the new Nashville scene. It's both a journalistic inquiry and a love letter: to Prine's self-titled debut and the Midwestern city that made him.

Dolly Parton, Songteller - My Life In Lyrics is a landmark celebration of the remarkable life and career of a country music and pop culture legend. As told by Dolly Parton in her own inimitable words, explore the songs that have defined her journey. Illustrated throughout with rare photos and memorabilia from Dolly Parton's personal and business archives. Mining over 60 years of songwriting, Dolly Parton highlights 175 of her songs and brings readers behind the lyrics. This special edition includes: -A denim-wrapped foil-stamped clamshell box with Songteller inside -A 45 record on pink vinyl featuring two neverbefore-released demo songs, "I Don't Care" and "The Fall," encased in a printed sleeve and inserted into a folder. Folder contains lyrics to the two songs printed on the back. -Lifting ribbon -Individually shrink-wrapped

New York City in the 1970s was an urban nightmare: destitute, dirty, and dangerous. As the country collectively turned its back on the Big Apple, two musical vigilantes rose out of the miasma. Armed only with amplified AC current, Suicide's Alan Vega and Marty Rev set out to save America's soul. Their weaponized noise terrorized unsuspecting audiences. Suicide could start a riot on a lack of guitar alone. Those who braved their live shows often fled in fear--or formed bands (sometimes both). This book attempts to give the reader a front-row seat to a Suicide show.

Suicide is one of the most original, most misunderstood, and most influential bands of the last century. While Suicide has always had a dedicated cult following, the band is still relatively unknown outside their musical coterie. Arguing against the idea of the band's niche musical history, this book looks at parallels between Marvel Comics' antiheroes in the 1970s and Suicide's groundbreaking first album. Andi Coulter tells the origin story of two musical Ghost Riders learning to harness their sonic superpower, using noise like a clarion call for a better future.

In a bar called The Bucket of Blood, a man shoots the bartender four times in the head. In the small town of Millhaven, a teenage girl secretly and gleefully murders her neighbors. A serial killer travels from home to home, quoting John Milton in his victims' blood.

Murder Ballads, the ninth studio album from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, is a gruesome, blood-splattered reimagining of English ballads, American folk and blues music, and classic literature. Most of the stories told on Murder Ballads have been interpreted many times, but never before had they been so graphic or profane. Though earning the band their first Parental Advisory warning label, Murder Ballads, released in 1996, brought Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds their biggest critical and commercial success, thanks in part to the award-winning single, “Where the Wild Roses Grow,” an unlikely duet with Australian pop singer, Kylie Minogue.

Closely examining each of the ten songs on the album, Santi Elijah Holley investigates the stories behind the songs, and the numerous ways these ballads have been interpreted through the years. Murder Ballads is a tour through the evolution of folk music, and a journey into the dark secrets of American history.

Vs. is the sound of a band on fire. The same confluence of talent, passion, timing, and fate that made “grunge” the world's soundtrack also lit a short fuse beneath Pearl Jam. The band combusted between late 1992 and mid-1994, the span during which they planned, recorded, and supported their sophomore record. The spotlight, the pressure, the pace-it all nearly turned the thriving act to ash. Eddie Vedder, the reluctant public face of the band, responded by lashing out lyrically. Jeff Ament, Mike McCready, and Stone Gossard, who beheld success with varying degrees of anxious satisfaction, attacked their instruments in solidarity. Dave Abbruzzese welcomed the rock-star lifestyle, and left his mark on the record with more than just potent percussion. Vs. roils with fury-and at times, gently steams-over the trappings of fame, human faults, and societal injustice. The record is a thrashing testament to Pearl Jam's urgent creativity and greater-good interests, and the band's logistical calculations behind it drew a career-defining line in the sand. It promised the world that Pearl Jam would neither burn out nor fade away. This book weaves research, little-known details, and band members' memories into a definitive account of how Vs. set them on a path toward enduring integrity and relevance.

EAT 17 is a beautiful 237 page, perfect bound book filled with the brilliant collage art of Robert Pollard.

The pearls of the Gulf have stoked the imagination and desire of people around the world for centuries their magnificence matched only by the courage of the divers who found them. This project aims to honor the memory of these valiant free-divers, their culture and their music by the means of a transmedia object including: A 240 pages art book (Arabic – English) featuring the contributions from artist, writers and experts in this tremendously rich theme such as Monira al Qadiri, Toufik Kerbage and Talal Mattar.

Never-before-seen candids and ephemera of "the quiet Beatle" during his meteoric solo career, as captured by his friend and famed photographer Barry Feinstein.

On hand from 1970 to 1972 for Harrison's blockbuster "Triple Crown"--the release of All Things Must Pass; The Concert for Bangladesh; and Living in the Material World, which helped make Harrison the best-selling post-breakup Beatle, Barry became good friends with George during the three-plus years they worked together. Feinstein captured George Harrison at home, in his garden, onstage, and in the studio. Nearly all the images are previously unpublished.

The book contains never-before-seen ephemera related to these seminal releases during George's most richly creative time post-Beatles, including handwritten letters talking about album ideas, album-cover thoughts, and putting together the Concert for Bangladesh. This collection also features beloved performers that George convened for that Concert for Bangladesh--where Barry was the only sanctioned photographer onstage--including George's friends Bob Dylan, Ravi Shankar, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Leon Russell, and Billy Preston.

The book coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of All Things Must Pass. George Harrison: Be Here Now is a deeper visual dive that the significantly large and passionate Beatles/George Harrison fandom will want to add to their collection.

This unique history of rock tells the musical story in a new way: through infographics that illustrate the evolution, influences, and connections between different genres&;such as blues, pop, punk, progressive, and heavy metal. For each artist, including The Beatles, Dylan, Janis Joplin, Springsteen, Bowie, the Ramones, Amy Winehouse, and Nirvana, the powerful visual representation gives at-a-glance information on how many records sold, how much money was made, how long a record stayed on the charts, how many days was required to record a disc, how many followers on Twitter, and so much more&;plus a timeline of the artist&;s career. Full-page photographs and introductory text round out this fascinating volume.

Written in Japanese!

Story of CAN / Stockhausen and WDR Studio / Postwar German landscape that nurtured krautrock / Euro Free Jazz Mixture / CAN's Constituent molecules / CAN's DNA / Long interview for members / Disc Guide.

This book is a journey – a ride through the depths of Germany’s modern musical roots:

At the beginning of the 1970s, experimental and progressive music in Germany developed far from the mainstream. Although few initially noticed it, it is now internationally celebrated as a cult phenomenon called „Krautrock“. Today, bands like Kraftwerk, Can, Amon Düül II, NEU!, Cluster, and Tangerine Dream are considered pioneers of groundbreaking sound experiments.

In order to understand the Krautrock era and its impact, it’s worth delving deeper into the history of German rock music and taking a closer look at the overall picture.Times & Sounds offers a comprehensive insight into the mechanisms of post-war Germany’s music industry and sheds light upon its diverse musical styles, as well as their mutual influences and connections, which have received little attention until now: From the onset of German Jazz and Swing orchestras to the first Rock ‚n‘ Roll bands around Hamburg‘s Star Club and electronic synthesizer pioneers. From the intact world of Schlager to agitprop and left-wing protest songs. From the avant-garde compositions of Stockhausen and his presumed disciples of Krautrock to the Neue Deutsche Welle.

This book is a journalistic diary tracing Germany’s dynamic culture from the late 40s to the early 90s. Those who take this journey experience the ups and downs of five decades, thus developing an understanding deeper than any other of the Krautrock phenomenon.

– Foreword by Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Kluster/Cluster/Harmonia)
– Hardcover with coloured headband and ribbon
– 536 pages including coloured endpaper with infographics

Black & White & Weird ALL Over Highlights Rare Glimpses OF ''Weird Al'' Yankovic's Comic Genius

Book Featuring Unreleased Black-And-White Photographs Taken By Yankovic Drummer Jon ''Bermuda” Schwartz Due From 1984 Publishing October 27, 2020

''See funny music's greatest star as he bursts into fame! Weird Al's drummer takes you into the studio, backstage, and offstage for the making of a superstar. Hey, I was there too-but Bermuda brought his camera!'' - Dr. Demento

''This book will undoubtedly appeal to both Weird Al completists and those who enjoy black-and-white photographs taken by drummers.'' - ''Weird Al'' Yankovic

''Weird Al'' Yankovic is one of music's most beloved figures. A skilled accordion player and songwriter, the California native is known for his meticulous parodies of popular songs, hilarious originals, and, of course, for upbeat polkas!

For much of Al's career, one man has been by his side, photographing and documenting the fun and weirdness: longtime drummer Jon ''Bermuda'' Schwartz. Since meeting Al in 1980, Jon has taken more than 20,000 images of Al in his element: on tour, in the studio, and on video sets.

Black & White & Weird All Over presents hundreds of images of Al, culled from Jon's personal collection of black-and-white photography. These photos only existed on contact sheets - out of mind and out of sight - until now! From behind-the-scenes shots taken on the sets of Al 's iconic videos for ''Ricky,'' ''I Love Rocky Road,'' ''Eat It,'' and ''Living With A Hernia,'' to studio sessions for Al's Dare to Be Stupid and Polka Party! LPs, Black & White & Weird All Over is the ultimate photographic essay of Weird Al 's undisputed comedic genius.

Biographies Jon ''Bermuda'' Schwartz (author I photographer) has been the drummer with ''Weird Al'' Yankovic since 1980 and is seen and heard on all of Weird Al's albums, videos, and concert and television performances. He is also the group's archivist with an unmatched collection of memorabilia, audio & video releases from around the world, and photos.

''Weird Al'' Yankovic (foreword) is an American comedian and actor who is known for his music parodies and original songs that make light of popular culture. He has sold more than 12 million albums, performed more than 1,000 live shows, and earned five Grammy Awards. His last LP, Mandatory Fun, went to #1 on the Billboard 200, the first comedy album to do so since 1963.

Zwölf Tocotronic-Alben, zehn Künstler, zehn Songs. Titel wie Slogans für Häuserwände, harte aber melo­dische Gitarren, live noch energetischer und intensiver. Seit über 25 Jahren haben Tocotronic die deutschsprachige Popkultur geprägt wie kaum eine andere Band. Und das ohne musikalische oder politische Kompromisse. Statt den immer gleichen Sound zu bedienen, hat die Band sich immer wieder verwandelt, neue Konzepte und Ästhetik erprobt und politisch immer klar Position bezogen, gegen Deutschtümelei, Nationalismus oder die europäische Abschottungspolitik.

»Sie wollen uns erzählen« fängt die zahlreichen Facetten von Tocotronic ein: Zehn Songs aus der gesamten Schaffensphase werden von ausgewählten Comic­künstler*innen und Illustrator*innen interpretiert. Im gezeichneten Songbook von Tocotronic haben sich Jim Avignon, Julia Bernhard, Tine Fetz, Eva Feuchter, Anna Haifisch, Sascha Hommer, Katja Klengel/Piwi, Moni Port, Jan Schmelcher und Philip Waechter je einem Tocotronic-Song angenähert, mal mehr Comic-Strip, mal mehr im illustrativen Stil. Herausgeber Michael Büsselberg, selbst Musikkenner und Comicfan, hat die die Idee des illustrierten Band-Songbooks aus der angloamerikanischen und französischen Popkultur »importiert« und kongenial auf seine liebste deutschsprachige Band adaptiert.

Als Zugabe hat Tocotronic-Schlagzeuger Arne Zank einen Comic-Strip über das Kennenlernen der Band-Mitglieder beigesteuert. Und Sänger Dirk von Lowtzow hat die ausgewählten Songs mit exklusiven Statements und Anmerkungen versehen.

"If there’s a cultural artefact capable of withstanding the vagaries and fickleness of the digital age as well as the printed book, it’s the vinyl record . . .

In Listening to the Wind, Ian Preece (editor, and co-author of In The Heyday of The Football Annual) sets out on an international road trip to capture the essence of life for independent record labels operating in the twenty-first century. Despite it all – from algorithms and streaming to the death of the high street and the gutting of the music press – releasing a record to serve its ‘own beautiful purpose’, as 4AD’s Ivo Watts Russell once said, is a flame that still burns through these pages. With countless labels, albums and artists to be discovered, this book is for those who share that inextinguishable love for music.

Features extensive, original interviews with the likes of Analog Africa, Light in the Attic, Thrill Jockey, International Anthem, Dust-to-Digital, Pressure Sounds, Heavenly, Touch, Mississippi, Sublime Frequencies and more! [like Japan Blues for instance] "

"you can't help warming to his anti-populist folly, and soon acquire a shopping list as long as your arm" **** Mojo

"A garrulous, engaging and deeply informed travelogue" The Wire

Presented for the public’s perusal, a coffee table collection of film photos from 2009-2013 by Oh Sees frontman, Castle Face co-conspirator, and all around restless artistic presence John Dwyer. Dwyer seemed to always be pulling out a camera around then and these flicks function as a technicolor joyride through his universe in San Francisco and beyond, with his jackal’s smirk from behind the lens all but palpable in these pages. Tour snaps, blackmail fodder, candid camaraderie, and the ringing echo of maniacal laughter await one within. Originally printed in a limited quantity by San Francisco clothing shop and live music incubator Vacation, Castle Face has dusted it off for a wider release for those that never got the chance.

Vier Männer müssen eine Band gründen. Deshalb begeben sie sich aufs Land in Meeresnahe. Sie wollen dort in mehrtägigen Sessions gemeinsam Songs erarbeiten. Durch Umwelteinflusse (Wetter, Unterkunft, Küche, Wald und Tiere) entsteht etwas: Es ist unvorhergesehene Musik. Jeder der vier schreibt währenddessen heimlich eine Art Tagebuch, um die unerträglichen Spannungen im Bandgefüge abzuleiten. Das Buch versammelt diese illustrierten Aufzeichnungen. Eine absurde Welt, beherrscht von größenwahnsinnigen wie liebevollen Figuren. Es passiert viel, sogar unerklärliches. Doch lasst sich die Erde das alles gefallen?

The first book from the French band Phoenix, who helped define the sound of an era.

With one foot in the French electronic music sound of the late 1990s and the other in the world of indie Rock, Phoenix have evolved from an edgy French band to one of the most influential and beloved indie acts of the last twenty years.

The book draws on the band's personal archives, including photography of everything from their instruments to the notebooks in which every lyric and chord change were carefully notated. Accompanying this is an oral history of the Phoenix's journey in their own words. The book is a superfan's chronicle of the evolution of a band.

Published to coincide with a series of anniversaries for the band -- thirty years since their formation as teenagers in 1989; twenty since the release of their debut record in 1999; and ten since Grammy Award-winning Best Alternative Album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, in 2009 -- and with original interviews conducted with the band throughout, this book is an intimate celebration of a group whose particular brand of indie rock has struck a chord on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Jesus and Mary Chain's swooning debut Psychocandy seared through the underground and through the pop charts, shifting the role of noise within pop music forever. Post-punk and pro-confusion, Psychocandy became the sound of a generation poised on the brink of revolution, establishing Creation Records as a tastemaking entity in the process. The Scottish band's notorious live performances were both punishingly loud and riot-spurring, inevitably acting as socio-political commentary on tensions emergent in mid-1980s Britain. Through caustic clangs and feedback channeling the rage of the working-class who'd had enough, Psychocandy gestures toward the perverse pleasure in having your eardrums exploded and loudness as a politics within itself.

Yet Psychocandy's blackened candy heart center – calling out to phantoms Candy and Honey with an unsettling charm – makes it a pop album to the core, and not unlike the sugarcoated sounds the Ronettes became famous for in the 1960s. The Jesus and Mary Chain expertly carved out a place where depravity and sweetness entwined, emerging from the isolating underground of suburban Scotland grasping the distinct sound of a generation, apathetic and uncertain. The irresistible Psychocandy emerged as a clairvoyant account of struggle and sweetness that still causes us to grapple with pop music's relation to ourselves.

The Suburbs is an incredibly sentimental and nostalgic album, which generally moved critics but was jarring to others. But it also made a heavy impact on fans and – to the surprise of many – won Album of the Year at the 2011 Grammy Awards. This immensely visceral album triggers a sincere celebration of not formative years spent in a cookie-cutter development, but of feeling self-important, immortal, and desperate to escape. It examines youth and amplifies an innate sense of longing and remembrance.
Eric Eidelstein's The Suburbs explores this weird, utopic recollection of youth by comparing the album to suburban scenes in film and television, such as Blue Velvet, Mad Men, The Americans, and Spike Jonze's Scenes from the Suburbs. Through the close examination of film and televised depictions of the suburbs, both past and present, Eidelstein delves into the societal factors and artistic depictions that make the suburbs such a fascinating cultural construct, and uncovers why the album creates such a relatable and universal sense of reminiscence.

Transformer, Lou Reed's most enduringly popular album, is described with varying labels: it's often called a glam rock album, a proto-punk album, a commercial breakthrough for Lou Reed, and an album about being gay. And yet, it doesn't neatly fit into any of these descriptors. Buried underneath the radio-friendly exterior lie coded confessions of the subversive, wounded intelligence that gives this album its staying power as a work of art. Here Lou Reed managed to make a fun, accessible rock'n'roll record that is also a troubled meditation on the ambiguities-sexual, musical and otherwise-that defined his public persona and helped make him one of the most fascinating and influential figures in rock history. Through close listening and personal reflections, songwriter Ezra Furman explores Reed's and Transformer's unstable identities, and the secrets the songs challenge us to uncover.

Two and a half decades on, Jawbreaker's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (1993-94) is the rare album to have lost none of its original loyalty, affection, and reverence. 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.

By June 1993, when Washington, D.C.'s Fugazi released their third full-length album In on the Kill Taker, the quartet was reaching a thunderous peak in popularity and influence. With two EPs (combined into the classic CD 13 songs) and two albums (1990's genre-defining Repeater and 1991's impressionistic follow-up Steady Diet of Nothing) inside of five years, Fugazi was on creative roll, astounding increasingly large audiences as they toured, blasting fist-pumping anthems and jammy noise-workouts that roared into every open underground heart. When the album debuted on the now-SoundScan-driven charts, Fugazi had never been more in the public eye.

Few knew how difficult it had been to make this popular breakthrough. Disappointed with the sound of the self-produced Steady Diet, the band recorded with legendary engineer Steve Albini, only to scrap the sessions and record at home in D.C. with Ted Niceley, their brilliant, under-known producer. Inadvertently, Fugazi chose an unsure moment to make In on the Kill Taker: as Nirvana and Sonic Youth were yanking the American rock underground into the media glare, and “breaking” punk in every possible meaning of the word. Despite all of this, Kill Taker became an alt-rock classic in spite of itself, even as its defiant, muscular sound stood in stark contrast to everything represented by the mainstreaming of a culture and worldview they held dear.

This book features new interviews with all four members of Fugazi and members of their creative community.

From Alice Cooper to ZZ Top, the Rock ABC is a fun way to teach the next generation of rockers about the legends that paved the way.

The Rock ABC is dedicated to the future of rock, that is why a portion of each sale will be donated to youth music programs.

Made in Europe with 100% non-toxic inks, 158 mm x 158 mm x 26 mm, 56 pages of premium glossy card stock.

The world of hardcore is renowned for the preservation of its own history. The history has been well-documented in records that have all been reissued, websites devoted to its preservation, an oral history that has been passed down through generations of show-goers, and now, through books that explore even the most minute and obscure details of underground hardcore culture.
This book documents an incredibly important aspect of hardcore’s culture that has, until now, not been documented in any print format: hardcore band T-shirts through the diligent collecting and cataloging of hardcore enthusiast Orhun Öner. The 200 pages of Life.Love.Shirts. - A Collection Of Hardcore
Clothing features the colorful T-shirts that were bought and sold in the sweaty clubs of the ’80s and ’90s, many of which are extremely rare and fetch astronomical sums on the collector’s market. Many of the shirt photos are accompanied by stories from the bands, labels, and those who had a hand in the production and distribution, a glimpse of the rich tradition of hardcore band T-shirt production that continues on to this day!

Finally, a brilliant exploration of the German rock band Can's monumental 1971 album Tago Mago.
Tago Mago is a hugely unique and influential album that deserves close analysis from a fan, rather than a
musicologist. In this officially approved account of one of the most influential and powerful albums of the 1970s, Scottish novelist Alan Warner details the
concrete music we hear on the album as well as how it was composed,
executed and recorded—including the history of the album in terms of
its release, promotion and art work. Warner includes a backtracking of
the history of the band up to that point and also some description of Can's unique recording approach taking into account their home studio set up. Yet this tale of Tago Mago is more than just a history of the band; it is also the tale of a young man obsessed with record collecting
in the dark and mysterious period of pop music before Google.
Through a combination of Warner’s own experiences and interviews with the two surviving members of the band (drummer Jaki Liebezeit, keyboardist Irmin Schmidt and bassist Holger Czukay) Can’s Tago Mago
is a hilariously personal and illuminating picture of one of the biggest names in experimental rock.

160 pages, paperback.

Words like "inspiring," "expansive," and "moving" are
regularly used to describe Sigur Rós's ( ), and yet the
only words heard on the record itself are a handful of
meaningless nonsense syllables. The album has no
title—or rather, its title is no title: just an empty pair
of parentheses. The intention being that listeners will
fill in the parentheses with their own title, their own
interpretation of the sounds on the record. The CD
sleeve consists of twelve pages that are essentially blank, lacking song
titles, liner notes or production credits. Instead, it contains only semitranslucent
frosted images of abstract natural scenes (tree branches,
clouds, etc.), on which the listener is free to inscribe their own notes—
or no notes at all. And then there are the lyrics, sung in a deliberately
unintelligible tongue called "Hopelandic" which the band invites listeners
to interpret freely.
Ethan Hayden's book doesn't try to fill in the gaps between the album's
parentheses, but instead explores the ways in which listeners might
attempt to do so. Examining the communicative powers of asemantic
language, the book asks whether music can bring sense to nonsense.
What happens to the voice when it stops singing conventional
language: does it simply become another musical instrument, or is it
somehow more "human"? What role does space play on ( )? And how do
we interpret music that we cannot possibly understand, but feel very
deeply that we do?

168 pages, paperback.

The story of Jackson C. Frank is tragic. The victim of a school fire in his youth, struggling with homelessness and mental illness throughout his life, half-blinded in old age before his death in 1999, Frank met continuous obstacles. And yet he enjoyed a shining moment with the release of Jackson C. Frank on Columbia Records in 1965. The album would go on to be seen as one of the greatest folk albums of the decade—maybe of all time—and its opening track “Blues Run the Game” has become a standard covered by hundreds. Jim Abbott’s book is the result of years of research piecing together evidence, relations and apocryphal stories from Frank’s life. It is also part memoir, as Abbott cared for Frank through the final decade of his life. Their friendship was fraught with difficulties, which Abbott portrays with the honesty of a journalist. In doing so, he draws a portrait of a uniquely gifted songwriter, blessed with talent and besotted by demons. At 250 pages, Abbott’s memoir shows a flawed and caring individual whose struggle was best depicted in his songs. Following the release of Jackson C. Frank: The Clear, Hard Light of Genius, Ba Da Bing will release three volumes of Jackson C. Frank: The Complete Recordings in early 2015, compiling work from throughout his life, including unreleased material.