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An officially licensed Standard Patch featuring The Beatles 'Drop T Logo' design motif. This is an iron-on woven patch, made from polyester, with standard backing and an overlocked edge. Size Guide for standard patches... Rectangular 100mm x 50mm.

An officially licensed Standard Patch featuring The Beatles 'Sgt Pepper Drum' design motif. This is an iron-on woven patch, made from polyester, with standard backing and an overlocked edge. Size Guide for standard patches... Circular 90mm diameter.

Original English Edition, translated from the Italian.
192 pp., with over 250 pictures in color and b/w.
Hardcover with extra strong boards. 16,5 x 24 cm

Marco Crescenzi, an expert about everything concerning the story of the Fab Four, traces the first years of the most famous band in the world, a period often missing in official biographies. He explores the Beatles path of fate and fortune, their struggles and inspired talent. This journey is enriched by an impressive mosaic of rare photos, rediscovered documents, and many details of concerts and appearances of these early days.The Beatles, the most renowned band in the history of music, didn‘t just spring into existence. Their journey began in the mid1950s when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe, and Pete Best formed a group known as the Silver Beatles. They were simply four teenagers from Liverpool with a shared enthusiasm for American music and a dream to make it big.

Before they became the Beatles, they were the Quarrymen, a band started by John Lennon in 1956. The name change to „The Beetles“ was suggested by Sutcliffe, in honor of Buddy Holly‘s band, The Crickets. By August 1960, they had evolved into The Beatles we know and love today.

Their early years were filled with struggles and moments of both luck and genius. Playing gigs in places like Liverpool‘s Cavern Club and Hamburg‘s red-light district, they worked tirelessly, honing their craft. Their break came when they met Brian Epstein, who would become their manager, leading them to a contract with EMI.

This is the extraordinary story of the Beatles before they became The Beatles - a tale of determination, passion, and the will to succeed against all odds. As we mark the 60th anniversary of their first explosive hit „Love Me Do“, we celebrate not just the success they achieved, but the journey they took to get there.

As of today, The Beatles continue to make headlines, with the release of their final song ‚Now And Then‘ and a documentary shedding light on the full story behind it.

About the author:
Marco Crescenzi is an obsessive collector of anything concerning The Beatles. He currently works with the official Italian fan club “The Official Beatles Fan Club Pepperland”. He is also a contributor to its official publication, the magazine “Nothing’s Gonna Change Our Feeling”. The author has also written for the music collector’s magazine “RARO” and acted as consultant on many occasions to television programmes.

The best of Harry Benson’s era-defining Beatles portfolio captures them on the road, performing, relaxing, composing and acting in A Hard Day’s Night. From their famous pillow fight in Paris to their first U.S. tour, Benson’s luminous black-and-white photographs show intimate glimpses of George, John, Paul, and Ringo during peak Beatlemania.

With the Beatles

Backstage pass to the Fab Four

In early 1964, photographer Harry Benson received a call from the photo editor of London’s Daily Express, who asked him to cover the Beatles’ trip to Paris. It was the beginning of a career-defining relationship, which would both make Benson’s name and produce some of the most intimate photographs ever taken of the Beatles.

In Paris, Benson captured the Fab Four in the midst of a pillow fight at the George V Hotel, a spontaneous moment which came to epitomize the spirit of the band—Benson himself has called it the best shot of his career. Later that year, he followed the group on the road for their debut U.S. tour, documenting their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, their surprising encounter with Cassius Clay, and the hysteria of New York Beatlemania. Benson also photographed George Harrison’s honeymoon in Barbados, documented the Beatles on the set of their debut movie A Hard Day’s Night, and was present on the now infamous 1966 tour when John Lennon said that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.”

Previously out-of-print, this re-edition brings back the best of Benson’s luminous black-and-white Beatles portfolio. Complemented by quotes and newspaper clippings from the period, an introduction by the photographer himself adds exciting personal testimony to these iconic images of the greatest band in musical history.

The photographer
Glasgow-born Harry Benson has photographed every US President since Eisenhower, the Civil Rights movement, and was next to Robert Kennedy when he was assassinated. As well as The Beatles, he has shot some of the biggest personalities of the last 50 years, including Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Her Majesty The Queen. In 2009, he was made Commander of the British Empire (CBE).

Hardcover, 23.6 x 33.3 cm, 2.34 kg, 272 pages

The definitive exploration of John Lennon’s first major solo album after the break-up of the Beatles.

Described by Lennon as ‘the best thing I’ve ever done’, and widely regarded by critics as his best solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was released alongside the remarkable Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band on 11 December 1970. With first-hand commentary by John & Yoko, members of the Plastic Ono Band and other key figures in their lives, and packed with evocative and revealing letters, artworks and photographs, this incisive volume offers new insights into the raw emotions and open mindset of Lennon after marriage to Ono and the break-up of the Beatles.

Following their wedding in March 1969, Lennon and Ono decided that their future musical endeavours should be credited to a conceptual vehicle, the Plastic Ono Band. The band featured an ever-changing line-up of musicians, including Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Ringo Starr, Alan White, George Harrison, Billy Preston and Jim Keltner, all of whom played live with Lennon and Ono, and contributed to their recordings. The fearless honesty that John & Yoko inspired in one another in their search for truth, meaning and peace had a huge impact on Lennon’s song writing, resulting in the creation of tracks that are intensely personal and unlike anything previously heard in popular music, including ‘Mother’, ‘Working Class Hero’ and ‘God’. This book takes those lyrics as a starting point and explores Lennon’s life, relationships and world view during this transformative period.

'A comprehensive, fascinating, well-produced, and finely printed publication that captures a moment of contemporary culture with breadth and depth. It brings then into now – and shows how similar and different life is today' Will Gompertz

'A handsome tome… never less than fascinating… The album was a high point in an astonishing career and the book does it justice' The Sun

'A hardback compendium of first-hand accounts about the band drawn from interviews over the years… It contains photos, lyrics, drawings and letters, and will be as interesting to Lennon completists as The Beatles Anthology was to general fans 20 years ago' Daily Telegraph

'A fine tribute to this intensely creative time in the couple’s joined-at-the-hip lives… A sumptuous and lovingly created example of the bookmakers’ art, an encyclopaedic extravaganza of reminiscences and memorabilia' The Budapest Times

About the Author: John Lennon (1940–1980) was an English singer, songwriter and peace activist who co-founded the Beatles, the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music. Yoko Ono is a globally renowned multimedia artist, singer, songwriter and activist. She married John Lennon in 1969 and became his creative partner and muse. She continues to work to preserve his legacy, funding, among other projects, Strawberry Fields in Manhattan’s Central Park, the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland and the ‘Imagine There’s No Hunger’ campaign.

Format:PLC Size:30.8 x 24.0 cm Extent:288 pp Publication date:29 October 2020 ISBN:9780500023433

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.

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.

The great British-American-male-female-old-new-blues-rock-ballad band: Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks‘ arrival to Fleetwood Mac, which transformed a British blues band into a major rock force, selling more than 100 million albums. The books captures the early blues era with founder Peter Green and the magic of Buckingham‘s and Nick‘s personalities, Mick Fleetwood‘s creativity, and John and Christine McVie‘s musicianship.One of the enduring rock bands in music history, Fleetwood Mac has been entertaining fans at sold-out performances for decades. Since their early days as a blues band, Fleetwood Mac propelled itself to pop relevance with the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in 1974. In Fleetwood Mac: Everywhere, musician and writer, Mike Evans, explores the story of the band and offers a celebration of their success with over 150 photos, song reviews, and interviews from over five decades of coverage.

The definitive inside story – told in revelatory detail – of the making of the legendary album and all that surrounded it: the locations, the artworks, the film, the documentary and the people who were there.

In 1971, John Lennon & Yoko Ono conceived and recorded the critically acclaimed album Imagine at their Georgian country home, Tittenhurst Park, in Berkshire, England, in the state-of-the-art studio they built in the grounds, and at the Record Plant in New York. The lyrics of the title track were inspired by Yoko Ono’s ‘event scores’ in her 1964 book Grapefruit, and she was officially co-credited as writer in June 2017.

Imagine John Yoko tells the story of John & Yoko’s life, work and relationship during this intensely creative period, featuring 80% exclusive, hitherto-unpublished archive photos and footage sequences of all the key players in situ, together with lyric sheets, Yoko’s art installations, and exclusive new insights and personal testimonies from Yoko and over 40 of the musicians, engineers, staff, celebrities, artists and photographers who were there – including Julian Lennon, Klaus Voormann, Alan White, Jim Keltner, David Bailey, Dick Cavett and Sir Michael Parkinson. It transports readers to home and working environments showcasing Yoko’s closely guarded archive of photos and artefacts, using artfully compiled narrative film stills, and featuring digitally rendered maps, floorplans and panoramas that recreate the interiors in evocative detail. John & Yoko introduce each chapter and song; Yoko also provides invaluable additional commentary and a preface.

All the minutiae is examined: the locations, the key players, the music and lyrics, the production techniques and the artworks – including the creative process behind the double exposure polaroids used on the album cover.

With a message as universal and pertinent today as it was when the album was created, this landmark publication is a fitting tribute to John & Yoko and their place in cultural history.

'Tells their love story like never before' Rolling Stone

'A luxurious scrapbook … Beatles geeks will salivate over it' Observer

'Deeply desirable … especially for [those] who covet the rare and beautiful … to see how this avant-garde duo lived and created art is powerfully inspiring' Harper's Bazaar Australia

'A Lennon fan could hardly ask for more' Washington Post

'Fans will be particularly enchanted' USA Today

'This book is near perfect' Spill

'Here, in a new book of interviews past and present, we see how their love affair, the making of the album and their pacifism intertwined' Financial Times

About the Author: John Lennon (1940–1980) was an English singer, songwriter and peace activist who co-founded the Beatles, the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music.

Yoko Ono is a globally renowned multimedia artist, singer, songwriter and activist. She married John Lennon in 1969 and became his creative partner and muse. She continues to work to preserve his legacy, funding, among other projects, Strawberry Fields in Manhattan’s Central Park, the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland and the ‘Imagine There’s No Hunger’ campaign.

Format:PLC (no jacket) Size:30.8 x 24.0 cm Extent:320 pp Illustrations:1362 Publication date:9 October 2018 ISBN:9780500021842

The Impossible Dream – Smart Books for musical Minds! The Walker Brothers were the US counter-strike to the British invasion of the mid-60s. While The Beatles, the Stones and many others were busy colonising the US charts, three tall, handsome American men went into voluntary exile in a freezing London bedsit and launched their quest for pop stardom.

Not actually brothers, John (Maus), Gary (Leeds) and Scott (Engel) succeeded against the odds, becoming one of world’s biggest bands of 1966/67. With that came hit records – including two British chart-toppers, ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’ and ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’ – and all that success entails: screaming girls, package tours, and intense interest in their private lives. The pressure of success eventually caused them to split, and the Walkers went their separate ways. Of the three, Scott is now the most prominent, having embarked on a mysterious solo career that has since become the stuff of myth, but Gary and John have recorded varied and interesting work, too. All three drifted into obscurity before reforming in 1976 and releasing the classic ‘No Regrets’ single. They concluded their recording career with one of the decade’s most influential records, 1978’s Nite Flights, about which Brian Eno recently exclaimed: “We haven’t got any further than this. It’s a disgrace.”

The Impossible Dream is an in-depth biography that traces the career of one of the most successful bands in pop history. In addition to assessing and analysing the talent and appeal of the enigmatic Scott, the author also covers the history and contributions of the other ‘brothers’, John and Gary, and provides a thorough analysis of all three men’s careers both as individual artists and as a group, from 1963 to 1978.

Drawing on decades of archive interviews with the band (some previously unpublished), and many new interviews with backing musicians, record label staff and producers, The Impossible Dream is the definitive telling of The Walker Brothers’ story.

Anthony Reynolds is a musician and a writer. He has released eight critically acclaimed albums, the first of which, contributed essays and critiques to many US and UK magazines, and has published a biography of Jeff Buckley.

As seen in Harper’s Bazaar UK, Guitar World, and Design Week

The 100 most iconic guitars from around the globe, from early modern beginnings to cutting-edge electric models

The guitar is the iconic instrument at the heart of all popular music. From Delta blues on acoustics to electric rock & roll, and all that came in its wake, the guitar has proven the most versatile and emotive conduit for musical expression and experimentation.

Across more than 300 years, master guitar-makers have striven continually for new sculptural and aural peaks, yet the guitar's immediacy and intimacy endures, however loud the volume controls on the amplifiers are turned.

With 100 of the finest and most innovative models of guitar from the 17th century to the present day alongside the players who changed the face of popular music, Guitar includes fascinating stories behind iconic models from an eclectic mix of brands, including Alden, D'Angelico, Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, Ibanez, Kay, Martin, Millimetric Instruments, Mosrite, Greg Smallman, and Stauffer.

The book also includes a wealth of fascinating and lesser known information about enigmatic performers including the Beatles, Woody Guthrie, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, Pat Metheny, Joni Mitchell, St Vincent, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Jimi Hendrix, and Neil Young. A delight for design enthusiasts and music aficionados alike, Guilfoyle's latest book charts the development of this pillar of popular music and the charismatic performers who have used the guitar to transform our lives.

About the author:
Ultan Guilfoyle is an award-winning producer, director, and writer, whose films include Sketches of Frank Gehry (2006) and Making Space, Five Women Architects (2015). His books include The Motorcycle, Design, Art, Desire (Phaidon, 2020).

Reviews:
‘A feast for the eyes that is sure to pull at the heartstrings of any guitar fan.’ – Library Journal

‘Guitar: The Shape of Sound highlights 100 of the most innovative guitar models and the performers who played them. Would Jimi Hendrix have been the same without his favorite Fender Stratocaster?’ – Fast Company

‘A delight for design enthusiasts and music aficionados alike, Guilfoyle's latest book charts the development of this pillar of popular music and the charismatic performers who have used the guitar to transform our lives’ – Acquire

Specifications:
Format: Hardback Size: 270 × 205 mm (10 5/8 × 8 1/8 in)
Pages: 280 pp
Illustrations: 250 illustrations

Tape Leaders is a richly illustrated A-Z compendium featuring over 100 composers active with tape and electronics in the analogue era. Containing information never previously uncovered, it shines a fresh light on many sound experimenters unacknowledged in the history of British electronic music. First published by Sound On Sound Magazine in 2016, this is the first time it’s been available outside their shop.

Tape Leaders is available as a hardback and the 224 pages are printed and bound on heavyweight 130gsm paper. The specially compiled 15 track CD of mainly unreleased early British tape and synthesizer works is exclusive to the Velocity Press shop.

In the form of a richly illustrated compendium, Tape Leaders: A Compendium Of Early British Electronic Music Composers is an indispensable reference guide for anyone interested in electronic sound and its origins in the UK. For the first time, a book sets out information on practically everyone active with experimental electronics and tape recording across the country to reveal the untold stories and hidden history of early British electronic music.

With an individual entry for each composer, it covers everyone from famous names like William Burroughs, Brian Eno and Joe Meek to the ultra-obscure such as Roy Cooper, Donald Henshilwood and Edgar Vetter. There are sections for EMS and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and amateurs, groups and ensembles that experimented with electronics, including The Beatles, Hawkwind and White Noise. Author Ian Helliwell draws on his experience and extensive research into electronic music. After six years and dozens of interviews, he has amassed information never before brought to light on this fascinating subject.

Included with the book is a specially compiled 15 track CD of mainly unreleased early British tape and synthesizer works (exclusively available to the Velocity Press shop), making this an essential book for anyone interested in electronic music history during the 1950s and 60s.

This hardback book is 22.7cm x 17.7cm, and the 224 pages are printed and bound on heavyweight 130gsm paper.

Quotes:
“Until now, the Radiophonic Workshop has somewhat eclipsed other players in British early electronic music history. The extent of this is laid bare in the revelatory book Tape Leaders – a landmark survey by the composer, film-maker, instrument-builder and researcher Ian Helliwell, who has uncovered hitherto unacknowledged independent electronic music composers.” Fortean Times

“For anyone with an interest in the early years of electronic music, Ian Helliwell’s book takes the reader on an enthralling tour of the pioneering British contributors to this genre.” Sound On Sound

“The work of computer music pioneer Peter Zinovieff, home-build guru FC Judd, UFO-believer and Spitfire pilot Desmond Leslie, and Tristram Cary – have all been reissued. Ian Helliwell’s new book, Tape Leaders, A Compendium of Early British Electronic Music Composers, goes further. It reveals that these figures collectively represent the tip of a hitherto unimaginably vast iceberg submerged for decades. Profiling dozens of composers, amateur and professional, and augmented by a 15 track CD of electronic music… it truly is a portal into a lost world.” Shindig