Paperback Books 100 Items

Shorty’s Ark is a book for young readers, a collaborative effort between singer Will Oldham and graphic artist Lori Damiano, based on work by Oldham and musician Matt Sweeney. Drawing inspiration from the story of Noah, Shorty’s Ark names and pictures a wild variety of species to inform and engage an equal variety of young minds with the diversity that can be found around this great planet of ours. The flood stands as metaphor for current impending changes in our planet, and the story works as a springboard for understanding concepts of interdependency, diversity and extinction. Colorfully illustrating as many creatures and their places as possible, Shorty’s Ark is an earth-affirmative vision meant to stimulate the curiosity and passion of those who encounter it.

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.

Recent winners of Royal Photographic Society Award for Photographic Publishing. All books 36 pages, printed in England, staple bound, 14cm x 20cm.

Recent winners of Royal Photographic Society Award for Photographic Publishing. All books 36 pages, printed in England, staple bound, 14cm x 20cm.

»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.

In the early ‘70s, Detroit was the musical hub of America. Everything from the chart-topping sounds of Motown Records to the vicious proto-punk of THE Stooges and MC5 was being brewed out there and it seemed like there was no end in sight. But by the early ‘80s, the city was both a physical and cultural wasteland due to major-label buyouts of the artists as well as the crippling drug habits of some of the others. Detroit’s most known musical export at the time was the vapid sounds of new wave heartthrobs THE Romantics; this wasn’t good. It took a gaggle of suburban skateboarders, a grade school teacher, and a census bureau clerk to wake this city up from its slumber and start one of the first hardcore punk scenes in America. Why Be Something That You’re Not chronicles the first wave of Detroit hardcore from its origins in the late ‘70s to its demise in the mid ‘80s. Through a combination of oral history and extensive imagery, the book proves that even though the Southern California beach towns might have created the look and style of hardcore punk, it was the Detroit scene— along with a handful of other cities across the country—that cultivated the music’s grassroots aesthetic before most cultural hot spots around the globe even knew what the music was about. The book includes interviews with members of THE FIX, Violent Apathy, Negative Approach, Necros, Pagans, Bored Youth, and L-seven, along with other people who had a hand in the early hardcore scene like Ian MacKaye (minor Threat), Tesco Vee, and Dave Stimson (Touch & Go Fanzine).

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.

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.

Recent winners of Royal Photographic Society Award for Photographic Publishing. All books 36 pages, printed in England, staple bound, 14cm x 20cm.

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.

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.

Eat Volume 19: 240 page full color journal of Robert POLLARD’s gorgeous collage art.

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

“Raghunath’s transformation shows how one person’s choice to evolve can change the lives of so many. This book is real, funny, and inspirational.” – Jay Shetty The heartfelt memoir of Ray Raghunath Cappo, a legendary hardcore-punk musician-turned-monk—and pioneer of the straight-edge movement—told with warmth, candor, and humor. Ray Cappo was a hardcore-punk singer and pioneer of the straight-edge movement living on the Lower East Side of New York City in the ’80s, where his band Youth OF Today played to packed clubs and touched thousands of people across the globe. But despite the accolades from fans, the popularity of his records, and the positivity he’d brought to the punk music scene, none of this success gave Ray joy. He felt stagnant, and he yearned for something more. This, along with his father’s untimely death, led him to abruptly quit the band and buy a one-way ticket to India in pursuit of the answers to life’s great mysteries. Living as a monk in the sacred city of Vrindavan and traveling across the country on a series of train trips, Ray embraced the rich, spiritual culture he discovered there. As his unusual adventure unfolded, he encountered extraordinary characters, witnessed deep acts of devotion, and experienced profound moments of divine connection, leading to a radical transformation that was ego-crushing and blissful all at once. Inspired to write music again, Ray returned to the US, where he and other monks founded Shelter, a band dedicated to spreading a message of faith, hope, and love. Told with warmth, candor, and humor, this heartfelt memoir chronicles Ray’s emotional and

Join the author as he journeys back to those mutant rockin’, venue wreckin’, snakebite sodden days of the Psychobilly/neo-Rockabilly scene of the 80’s. His fanzine ‘The Crazed’ was right there, reporting on the scene as it grew and writing about bands such as The Meteors, GuanaBatz, Demented Are Go, King Kurt, Long Tall Texans and Restless.

Travel back through those articles and interviews and revisit the experience. Enjoy noisy nights at The Klub Foot, mecca of all things Psychobilly, where many of these interviews were conducted after sweaty gigs. Read the bands own words, full of enthusiasm, excitement and optimism about what the future might hold, and discover what it was like to produce and edit a fanzine back then.

The scene meant so much to so many and ‘The Crazed’ was there to document it. This book recaptures how it felt at the time. After lying dormant for over 30 years ‘The Crazed’ has now been resurrected.

Foreword by Craig ‘Bracko’ Brackenridge of Vintage Rock magazine. Klub Foot cover art by Paskal Millet.

The history of India’s first electronic music studio founded in 1969 at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad by David Tudor.

A book companion to the compilation album The NID Tapes: Electronic Music in India 1969-1972 released by State51.

Subcontinental Synthesis explores the history of India’s first electronic music studio, founded in 1969 at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad with the support of the composer David Tudor. The essays and writings unravel the narrative and context surrounding the studio as well as the work of the Indian composers who created groundbreaking recordings during its four years of activity.

The texts reflect on the role of electronic music within a post-independence India, considering its interconnections with experimental design, radical pedagogies, and the international avant-garde, as well as the encircling conditions of Western ideological soft power within the global expansion of Modernism.

In 1999, Modest Mouse struck out for Chicago to record their major-label debut for Epic Records. Amid indie circle cries of “sellouts,” a largely untested producer, and a half-built studio, the trio recorded the instrumental basics of The Moon & Antarctica … and then singer/songwriter Isaac Brock got his face smashed by a hooligan in a park.

With barely any vocals recorded, Brock emerged from the hospital with his jaw completely wired shut, and returned to a mostly empty studio. And there, on a diet of painkillers, in a neighborhood that wanted to purge the band from its borders, a creative alchemy took place that would redefine Modest Mouse and indie rock at large.

The fact that the band finished the album at all is surprising. The fact that it is now considered by critics as “hands-down one of the greatest records ever made” (NME) is perhaps an utter miracle.

The Moon & Antarctica is an album so strange and enigmatic, from those sweet opening notes, to the plunging depths of the middle, to the shocking, furious end, that you almost hesitate to listen to it again for fear of it losing its chaotic magic. But then you do, and you discover all-new sounds-a lost harmonic here, a stray percussion element there, a fresh interpretation of a lyric that leaves you thunderstruck.

And that ever-looming question, years on: How the hell did Modest Mouse pull this off?!

Between 1978 and 1983, Great Britain spawned a DIY uprising of over 500 heavy metal bands. Many soon became the household names of the 1980s metal invasion…many others did not. For the first time, author Michael Hann captures the whole nose-to-tail story of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in all its power and glory, exploring the bands, clubs, radio, magazines, festivals, and the majesty and misfires of the Nwobhm in over 100 interviews with members of Venom, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Diamond Head, Angel Witch, Samson, UFO, Tygers of Pan Tang, Vardis, Judas Priest, Saxon, Whitesnake, Girlschool, Witchfynde, Demon, Thin Lizzy, Rainbow, Gillan, Led Zeppelin, and more. 432 lavishly illustrated pages plus 16pp glossy color section.

Four our 15th book release, we present Wicked Game: The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey by author Michael Goldberg. Another incredibly in-depth look into the dark side of San Francisco in the 1970s & 80s, and the dark side of rock ‘n roll in general, through the wild life of one Jimmy Wilsey. From his vantage point on bass in SF Punk legends THE Avengers in 1977, through his quick trip with Belfast Cowboys (with Rozz Rezabek from Negative Trend) and on into his next phase of real guitar virtuosity in Silvertone (the early band fronted by Chris Isaak which also included John Silvers from The Dils), Wilsey’s life unfolded sadly as many others of his era and from this scene. Full of amazing and previously unseen photos from the Michael Goldberg, Hugh Brown. Bruce CONNER,JAMES Stark, SUE Brisk and Chester Simpson archives, and complimented with intimate interviews from his past relationships with Claudia Summers and Jennifer Rubin (Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Bad Dreams, The Crush, etc), everything looked so promising, until it wasn’t…"

San Francisco rock’n roll bleeds through Michael Goldberg – an innovative, inspiring figure who always has been quietly pioneering something interesting for the past 50+ years. Hozac Books is thrilled to present the first-ever collection of his photographs in Jukebox, featuring an impressive array of underground figures and outcast luminaries captured in their natural habitat, most seen here for the first time anywhere. Also the author of our critically acclaimed Wicked Game book, Michael’s body of work extends farther out than we’d ever imagined, and we’re so excited to get his first major photography collection out into the world. Bridging the gaps between the late ‘60s psychedelic era, primitive first-wave ‘70s punk and soul & reggae, as well as never-before seen images of country & folk iconoclasts and rule-breakers across the spectrum of all that is captivating, and even including some modern artists still making waves, Jukebox is a riveting photography collection that truly feels as good as it looks. Addicted To Noise founder and former Rolling Stone senior writer Michael Goldberg’s new book, Jukebox, is a book of distinctive, full-page photographs of musicians taken between 1967 and 2023. Goldberg is best known as a writer, but for over 50 years he’s also been photographing musicians and the photos in Jukebox are drawn from the thousands he’s taken over the years. Included are photos of the Sex Pistols, Crime, the Ramones, the Avengers, Devo, the Nuns, the Clash, Tom Verlaine, Lou Reed, John Cale and the Dils as well as Tom Waits, Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile, Janis Joplin, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Muddy Waters, Toots and the Maytals, Patti Smith, Bettye LaVette, the Who, Neil Young, Jonathan Richman, Townes Van Zandt, the Flamin’ Groovies, and many many more. Softcover First edition of 400 10″ x 9″ – 252 pages

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.

A crossroads of reggae and punk; a travelogue of Jamaica, UK, and Japan from 1982 to 2023, written and photographed. To resist is to live. 1982-2023. Jamaica, UK, Japan. The intersection of reggae and punk. There are photographs that take on new meaning as time passes. The lifework of photographer Masataka Ishida, who has been following the world's rebel music. A record of his 41-year journey in search of true freedom. The first product from Type Slowly.

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.

Koji Takahashi, who loves The Clash, shares his love on the Clash and over 250 items from his vast collection of items from around the world! This is a book that can be enjoyed as a reading material, a buyer's guide, or a collection book, all wrapped up in the love of The Clash! Koji Takahashi says, "I always liked to collect movie flyers, so I had a habit of collecting them," but it is obvious that he is no longer at that level. The contents are overwhelming just looking at the photos of these items, including original albums, singles, country-specific discs, merchandise, apparel, posters, and more. Some of the items are one-of-a-kind.

Very limited edition document to accompany the Various Artists - Noho EP: Turning THE Crank EP. 68 page, A5 size 'Zine' Printed with Risograph in grey scale.

Northampton, Massachusetts. The Five Colleges. Hampshire College. Forward-thinking education. Electronic Music studies. A vast student population created and sustained a vibrant cultural scene. This is but a snapshot of a fraction, but a fertile and significant one that impacted the lives of many who came in contact with it. The book follows a tight group of people who got together, made music, promoted and released it, created the conditions for others to record and release music, booked bands and then scattered throughout the Midwest and East Coast.

First person memories and memorabilia from Christopher Vine, Craig O'Donnell, Elliott Sharp, James Whittemore, Nicholas Brown, Sean Elias and others, patch up a story of joyous action, firm and enthusiastic DIY endeavours to make things happen as they would like them to happen. It is about a local scene and some key protagonists and it communicates values and methods that are still current — and probably will always be in some form or another among young people with a serious drive to act upon their artistic inclinations. This is also a depiction of what was in fact a model of a music scene. A complete ecosystem was in place during this period. Northampton, sure, but extended across the whole of Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts. Bars, music and record stores, live music, College radio, electronic music studios, written press and a lot of energy going into creative work. The immediate "punk effect" motivated the appearance of numerous bands, many short lived, others evolving into New Wave / Power Pop territory, eventually crossing into Post-Punk experimentation.

Turning The Crank is also a companion to an EP of the same title, including music played, produced and recorded in Northampton between decades (1970s going into the 1980s) by different combinations of individuals resulting in The Higher Primates, The Scientific Americans and Human Error. Music in turns mechanical and austere, gorgeously loose, in love with Dub.

Lennon and McCartney – Together Alone This is the definitive book on the solo recordings of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, two of popular music’s greatest writers and performers.

The story is told chronologically, starting with their first work outside The Beatles: McCartney’s soundtrack for The Family Way film and Lennon’s Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins with Yoko Ono. The book details Lennon and McCartney’s creative highs and lows in an authoritative, complete, and engagingly critical fashion. Information for collectors includes release dates, catalogue numbers, composer credits, recording personnel, recording studio, and producer credits, and there is a keyed index to help trace each song and the albums it appears on. Blaney’s perceptive style makes this a fascinating read as well as a work of reference, and the book includes illuminating archive quotes from Lennon, McCartney, and others. Together Alone tells the stories behind the songs of two giants of modern music. John Blaney is a passionate fan of The Beatles who brings to his writing the expertise and rigor of a professional historian. Born in Devon, England, he trained as a graphic designer before starting a career in music retail. He subsequently studied History of Art at Camberwell College of Arts and Goldsmith College (both in London) before taking up his present post as curator of a museum of technology. He is the author and publisher of previous books on both Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

The first book to chronicle the alternative music, art, and club scenes of a particularly amazing time and place: the 1980s in South Florida. Comprehensive in its approach, Punk Under the Sun documents the bands, venues, galleries, and scenesters who started and sustained the groundswell of activity that made Miami and nearby beaches a progressive hotspot, setting the stage for South Florida to become the international cultural destination it is today. Authors Joey Seeman and Chris Potash were there, participating in and documenting the first, second, and subsequent waves of musicians, indie labels, DJs, retail stores, publications, and players who came together to create a unique cultural moment and movement in South Florida history. This essential document of a powerfully expressive decade features never-before-seen photographs by Jill Kahn, Debbie Baylis Sunshine, Laurie Alaimo, and others, plus dozens of fliers, posters, and other souvenirs from that heady time. Punk Under the Sun includes a discography of 1980s albums and singles, along with an 11-page index that’s a valuable Who’s Who of people and places that created South Florida’s alternative culture. First edition of 600 copies. 224 pages.

To Live is to Die — The Life And Death Of Metallica’s Cliff Burton This is the revised and updated new edition. Metallica, the seventh-biggest recording act in American history, are consummate musicians—but it wasn’t always that way. A significant proportion of their playing expertise was acquired from a pivotal three-year period in their history—1983 to 1986—during which their music, a potent variant of thrash metal, evolved from garage level to sophisticated, progressive heights thanks to the teachings of their bass player, Cliff Burton.

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.

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.

"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

The second issue of the Heartworm Reader poetry journal, featuring 100 entries by 25 different contributors. Jeffrey Lee Pierce graces the cover as photographed by Laura Levine.

Contributor List: Blixa Bargeld - Steven Jesse Bernstein - D. Randall Blythe - Simon & Bronwyn Bonney - Parker Love Bowling - Richard Denner - Craig Dyer - Wesley Eisold - Shannon Funchess - Kurt Heasley - Kristin Hersh - Harry Huntington - David Coppin Lanegan - Mark Lanegan - Amy Lee - Thurston Moore - Daniel Moro - Jeffrey Lee Pierce - William Pym - Geoff Rickly - Jim Ruland - Emma Ruth Rundle - Jeremy Szuder - Colin H. Van Eeckhout - Steve Von Till.

Photographer and road warrior Hannah Verbeuren presents a vivid, lurid, rabid history of mysterious heavy metal animals Midnight. Captured in live, portrait, and candid settings, the hooded band plays with fire, swords, and sex in settings ranging from European castles to the the smutty back alleys of their native Cleveland. Essays by Verbeuren and Midnight main man Athenar ring the bells and keep everything street. You will believe a band can fly… “Hannah Verbeuren’s photojournalistic odyssey of and about Ohio’s own king cult band, Midnight, will hit home with even the hardest of souls. The visual essence is raw and sensual—Midnight is so down and dirty! This is a definite must for hardcore, hard rock, punk, and metal fans.”—Jeff Becerra, Possessed

Shredders! – The Oral History of Speed Guitar (and more)
“How fast can you play?”
“What guitar do you have?”
“Who is better, Van Halen or Steve Vai?”

For metal fans in the 80’s these where commonand important questions. Tune in to MTV, pick up a magazine, or walk into an instrument store, and more than often you’d be exposed to what is now known as shredding – the fast, virtuoso soloing popularized by musicians like Vai and Van Halen, Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen, Randy Rhoads and Dimebag Darrell.

Drawing on more than seventy exclusive interviews with key shredders past and present, author and guitarist Greg Prato has assembled the definite guide to the fasted players of them all.

“Well, one person’s shred is another person’s slow hand …”
— GEORGE LYNCH

Touched by Grace – My time with Jeff Buckley Touched By Grace is an up-close-and personal account by the legendary guitarist and songwriter Gary Lucas of the time he spent with his friend and collaborator, Jeff Buckley, during Jeff ’s early days in New York City. It describes their magical performance together at the Greetings From Tim Buckley concert at the Church of St Ann in 1991—the event that first introduced Jeff to the world at large; the creation of their songs ‘Mojo Pin’ and ‘Grace,’ which started life as guitar instrumentals by Gary and would later become integral to Jeff ’s debut album, Grace; and their plan to take on the world together in Gary’s band Gods & Monsters. Just as the band was set to soar, however, Jeff pulled the plug, opting instead to sign a solo deal with Columbia Records—the very label that had recently cut short its recording contract with the original incarnation of Gods & Monsters.

Gary Lucas (www.garylucas.com) is a world-class guitarist and Grammy-nominated songwriter. Dubbed “the greatest living electric guitarist” by Daniel Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain In Music, Lucas has recorded more than 20 acclaimed solo albums spanning everything from psychedelic rock to Chinese pop. He was a key member of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band during the 80s, and is currently working on a variety of new projects, including a collaboration with Van der Graaf Generator front man Peter Hammill.

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.

At long last, we’re got the massive biography on THE Bangles and it is nothing short of a whopper. This monumental project, started by author and unofficial band historian Eric Shade back in the 1990s has had quite a journey from start to finish. This insane overview of the early days of the members’ obscure early groups, as well as an amazing snapshot of the sorely-undocumented Paisley Underground scene of early 80s LA, all the way up through the core band members’ current projects, is a feat we never though we’d see fulfilled. For a band as huge and omnipresent as The Bangles still in are 2023, the revelation of their earlier efforts, such as the mind-blowing story of Micki Steele in the first lineup of the fledgling Runaways, while the Peterson sisters were rocking out in bands such as THE Muze, Hollywood Girls, and THE Fans right around the same period is the legendary stuff mostly outside of public knowledge. The intertwining stories of Susanna Hoffs meeting David Roback (later of The Rain Parade) and getting inspired by The Last, with Vicki & DEBBI’s growing interest in garage bands like The Unclaimed around town, All Over The Place shows how many moving parts were swirling around, generating a indescribable electricity around Los Angeles as the hardcore scene raged on the other side of the coin. As the Paisley Underground scene evolved during its short window, bands such as Salvation Army/the Three O’clock, Long Ryders, and Dream Syndicate are given their long-overdue historical appreciation here. 438 page softcover book. First edition of 600 copies.

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?

Recent winners of Royal Photographic Society Award for Photographic Publishing. All books 36 pages, printed in England, staple bound, 14cm x 20cm.

Recent winners of Royal Photographic Society Award for Photographic Publishing. All books 36 pages, printed in England, staple bound, 14cm x 20cm.

Recent winners of Royal Photographic Society Award for Photographic Publishing. All books 36 pages, printed in England, staple bound, 14cm x 20cm. The East End that I found when I arrived in 1970 was a different world to today's bustling, regulated prosperity. Bombsites and tumbledown, near derelict housing were the unremarkable norm. Walking home from my truck driving job to my rented slum room in Chicksand Street I would step carefully over gutters running with blood from the Lewcopak Kosher Chicken slaughterhouse emptying its tanks at the end of each day.

Residents' main source of income had evaporated as the docks and their many supporting trades closed down. Racism festered among the older population of white workers whose community was being destroyed by a lack of jobs and resentment stoked by their crumbling council estates. The area was abandoned, poverty and hopelessness hung in the air. Empty shells of buildings sheltered the most desperate homeless, mostly alcoholics, crazed by drinking meths and surgical spirit. Violence was common.

Tumbledown, leaky old houses made for easy squats or cheap rents and began to attract impoverished students, artists, political activists and young Bangladeshi men working in the rag trade. Slowly a younger, more able population emerged and the little corner shops and cafés became busier. Life started to return to the streets.

These books document aspects of that metamorphosis, capturing the lives that set the scene for what was on the brink of becoming just another anodyne, bustling, gentrified, high value inner-city district.

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 extended play recording. Not quite an album. More than a single. And not only an artifact of the vinyl era—the EP has survived and even thrived at every turn of the music industry’s evolution, from vinyl to tape to CD to stream. This definitive book unearths the EP’s origins, history and cultural impact and enlists nearly 50 music-industry veterans (musicians, scribes, producers, executives, superfans) to create a list of the 200 Best EPs ever recorded and shapes these opinions into a book that seeks to trace the arc of the EP’s development and, in so doing, chart the history of the music industry writ large. From Dangerhouse to Touch & Go to Sub Pop to Flying Nun, and all roads in between, savvy labels have used the EP to great effect and its been the way to introduce bands in a less risky mid-sized format for decades. This super-interesting guide shows how the format developed and how it took on a life of its own, from early jazz & rock’n roll through the beat & psychedelic rock era, right on through punk, new wave, and post-punk, and into the alternative/indie rock era, right up to the modern age. This rousing guide through the mid-sized mindset features a huge swath of guest writers galore, each offering up their enthusiastic opinions on which EPs deserve your attention, divided by decade, along with all of their details on long-forgotten B-sides and extras that couldn’t fit on the 7” version, yet easily pad out a 12”. 202 pages, softcover. First edition of 600 copies.

Mit den Büchern von Christiane Rösinger, Bernd íBegemann und Carsten Friedrichs starten wir eine Reihe, in der die Texte deutscher Musiker:innen erstmals in Buchform zugänglich gemacht werden. Texte von Musiker:innen, die die hiesige (Sub-)Kultur mit ihren íSongtexten in der Retrospektive ebenso geprägt haben wie die ausschließlich schreibende Zunft. Eine längst íüberfällige Würdigung außergewöhnlicher Songwriter:innen, deren Texte nicht bloße Anhängsel ígroßartiger Musik sind, sondern ebenso auch für sich stehen. Christiane Rösinger, geboren 1961, zog 1985 aus dem íBadischen nach West-Berlin, wo sie mit Almut Klotz und Funny van Dannen die Lassie Singers gründete. Nach deren Auflösung war sie Kopf der Band Britta. Rösinger war zudem eine der Betreiberinnen der legendären Flittchen Bar und betrieb das Label Flittchen Records. Sie veröffentlichte zwei Soloalben, mehrere Bücher und schrieb zahlreiche Theatermusiken. 2019 hatte ihr erstes Musical "Stadt unter Einfluss" Premiere im Hebbel am Ufer. "Was jetzt kommt" ist die Würdigung einer außergewöhnlichen Songwriterin. Ob Lassie Singers, Britta, Solo: das Buch enthält Lyrics aus allen Schaffensphasen, Geschichten und ein exklusives Christiane-Rösinger-Glossar.

Five young men in their early twenties, carrying backpacks and guitars, climbed onto the bus in Mendoza, Argentina, that was to take them over the Andes to Santiago de Chile, where they would play the last show of their South American tour, and then board a plane the day after back to their home country of Germany. In spite of the South American winter, the weather in Mendoza was bright and sunny. The ride was supposed to take six hours, after three of which they would cross the border to Chile at a post called Cristo Redentor, at more than 3000 meters above sea level. Not long after the bus had left the station, the weather started to change for the worse. It started raining, and as the road wound itself higher up the Andes, rain soon turned to snow, and before long, white drifts were growing larger on either side of the road. When they finally reached the border crossing, a long line of trucks and cars was standing ahead of them, not moving an inch... Starting a band is a lot like a romantic relationship. You spend time together, find that common spark, and live through emotions and experiences. You create music together. Songs, lyrics, entire records. You find a name for your band. Each member contributes to creating something uniquely your own. Then there's also the other side of the medal: fights, breakups, broken hearts. The entire emotional bandwidth of a relationship is contained within the complicated inner workings of a band. ‘This Is My Everything’ is about one forgotten screamo band's travels into and out of the worldwide DIY hardcore scene in the late nineties and early noughties, with guest appearances by Against Me!, Shelter, Refused, Ink&Dagger, Yaphet Kotto, Snapcase and many more.

Recent winners of Royal Photographic Society Award for Photographic Publishing. All books 36 pages, printed in England, staple bound, 14cm x 20cm. The London Borough of Waltham Forest’s West Indian Supplementary Service was an intervention to support children from families of Caribbean origin in the borough’s primary and secondary schools. Bernard Coard’s critique “How the West Indian Child is made Educationally Sub-Normal in the British School System” (1971) made a significant contribution to debates around the apparent relative failure of black children to thrive in mainstream education. Though not simply a response to Coard’s publication, the Supplementary Service aimed to enable black children to negotiate the demands of the school curriculum more successfully — by explicitly encouraging an understanding of language variation (dialects in relation to ‘standard’ English) and by teaching about Caribbean culture and black history. Most supplementary teachers worked with very small groups of children withdrawn from mainstream classes for short periods each day. With older students, provision was more flexible and could become more innovative, especially when mainstream classes were reduced following exams.

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

Moon Pix was conceived during a hallucinatory waking nightmare in the South Carolina home of Chan Marshall one fateful day in 1997. Spirits violently swam up around her house, looming at the windows, beckoning her to join them. Her and her acoustic guitar warded them off song after song, nearly the entire album rushed forth onto a tape recorder that night. Facts, fictions and visions ripple throughout the accounts of Moon Pix from every angle- memories of screaming at an audience, spirals of drunkenness, swimming with sharks in Australia, intense, resonant lyrics and thunderstorms ringing through speakers. Like all legends, the aura surrounding them is an impression, a sensory feeling of unreliable memories: layers of stories become histories.

Through interviews with key players, audience member accounts, fictional narrative imaginings, a collection of record reviews and other explorations of truth, this book, like Moon Pix itself, is an ode to the myth within the music and the music within the myth.

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.

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.

Moby Grape are a genuine cult phenomenon. Their story, a mixture of myth and truth, is a cautionary tale, a triumph, and a tragedy all at once. Though they are seen as a symbol of 1960s San Francisco, Moby Grape were never actually a part of the city’s counterculture movement. Yet they were immersed in it, sharing stages with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and many more. Moby Grape’s five members came together from very different backgrounds, bursting onto the San Francisco scene in the fall of 1966. With their diverse pedigree, they were nothing less than musical alchemists, yet they were also rebels. Their blending of genres within a tight songwriting framework contrasted sharply with that of many of their SF peers.

Moby Grape heralded by countless luminaries of rock music and rock criticism, from Robert Plant to Robert Christgau, Tom Waits to Greil Marcus.

Although some define hardcore as a specific sound, most believe it’s more than that: a set of varying ideas, ethics, principles, attitudes, and yes, music, that converge to form a community. So, what draws people to this underground scene, and why are so many able to find their “home” within its invisible walls? Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound by Brian Peterson provides some answers, but also brings up a whole new set of questions for those who‘ve been drawn to the scene’s political, social, ethical, and spiritual ideas amidst the screamed vocals and abrasive chords. Beginning in 2003, Peterson tracked down some people who were a part of ’90s hardcore. Over the course of five years, the idea spread into a project that included over 150 interviews with many band members, fanzine writers, show promoters, and others involved in hardcore during the ’90s from all around the country. “I decided to focus the book on the debates surrounding straight edge, animal rights, politics/activism, and spirituality,” Peterson said. “It seemed like you couldn’t go to a show in the early ’90s without getting into a discussion with someone about one of these topics. Obviously, there were many other important issues, ideas, and, of course, bands from this era, but I also realized I couldn’t write an encyclopedia. So, I went with the topics and bands that seemed to resonate most with the people I interviewed.” Burning Fight draws upon the memories of many who played influential roles in the ’90s-hardcore era to understand what made this scene so unique in its ability to synthesize music, politics, social issues, and spirituality into what many felt was a powerful counter-cultural movement where change was just around the corner.

Bill Direen is a legend of the New Zealand underground. He has given us poetry, novels and a catalog of important and challenging underground music. Weaned on a garage band youth in the late '60s, Direen started producing 7" records in the early '80s, all of them total stunners. These releases—Six Impossible Things, Die Bilder, Soloman's Ball and High Thirties Piano—were self-financed and distributed through Flying Nun. 100 Years Of Darkness, his latest book, is a homage to a century of films and film music. The front cover boxes represent film aspect ratios (1.17:1 up to 2.35:1) as used worldwide between 1888 and the present. The films are drawn from many countries, such as Japan, U.S.A., France, Germany, Russia/Ukraine, Vietnam, Sweden, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Lebanon. Since some of the films may not have been commercially distributed in all countries, the chosen films are carefully listed in a detailed index of sources at the close, which corresponds to the order of the poems as listed in the contents. This makes it easy for film and music lovers to find the films' directors and years of first appearance, and eventually see them for themselves. It is very limited in an edition of 200 and beautifully printed with textured jackets in the spirit of vintage Black Sparrow Press books.

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.