Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner, Fall Out Boy’s Joe Trohman and Kraftwerk’s Karl Bartos spill the tea. Alice Cooper, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and blues OG Charlie Patton get the bio treatment. Bruce Springsteen, Rodney Crowell and Belle & Sebastian get lyrical. That would be plenty of reading material for any week. But next week, that’s just the beginning — with books about Islamic metal, Taiwanese rap, Scottish pop, Greenwich Village folk and plenty more, you’ve got a whole world of choices. Read all about ’em:
Like A Rolling Stone: A Memoir
By Jann S. Wenner
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Jann Wenner has been called the greatest editor of his generation. His deeply personal memoir vividly describes and brings you inside the music, the politics, and the lifestyle of a generation, an epoch of cultural change that swept America and beyond. The age of rock ’n’ roll in an era of consequence, what will be considered one of the great watersheds in modern history. Wenner writes with the clarity of a journalist and an essayist. He takes us into the life and work of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Bono and Bruce Springsteen, to name a few. He was instrumental in the careers of Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and Annie Leibovitz. His journey took him to the Oval Office with his legendary interviews with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, leaders to whom Rolling Stone gave its historic, full-throated backing. From Jerry Garcia to the Dalai Lama, Aretha Franklin to Greta Thunberg, the people Wenner chose to be seen and heard in the pages of Rolling Stone tried to change American culture, values, and morality. Like A Rolling Stone is a beautifully written portrait of one man’s life, and the life of his generation.”
None of This Rocks: A Memoir
By Joe Trohman
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Joe Trohman cofounded Fall Out Boy with Pete Wentz in the early aughts, and he’s been the sticky element of the metaphorical glue-like substance holding the band together ever since, over the course of a couple decades that have included massive success, occasional backlashes, and one infamous four-year hiatus. Trohman was, and remains, the emotive communicator of the group: The one who made sure they practiced, who copied and distributed the flyers, and who took the wheel throughout many of the early tours. As soon as he was old enough to drive, that is — because he was all of 15 years old when they started out. That’s part of the story Trohman tells in this memoir, which provides an indispensable inside perspective on the history of Fall Out Boy for their legions of fans. But Trohman has a great deal more to convey, thanks to his storytelling chops, his unmistakable voice, and his unmitigated sense of humor in the face of the tragic and the absurd. None Of This Rocks chronicles a turbulent life that has informed Trohman’s music and his worldview. His mother suffered from mental illness and multiple brain tumors that eventually killed her. His father struggled with that tragedy, but was ultimately a supportive force in Trohman’s life who fostered his thirst for knowledge. Trohman faced anti-Semitism in small-town Ohio, and he witnessed all levels of misogyny, racism, and violence amid the straight edge hardcore punk scene in Chicago. Then came Fall Out Boy. From the guitarist’s very first glimpses of their popular ascension, to working with his heroes like Anthrax’s Scott Ian, to writing for television with comedian Brian Posehn, Trohman takes readers backstage, into the studio, and onto his couch. He shares his struggles with depression and substance abuse in a brutally honest and personal tone that readers will appreciate. Not much of this rocks, perhaps, but it all adds up to a fascinating music memoir unlike any you’ve ever read.”
The Sound Of The Machine: My Life In Kraftwerk & Beyond
By Karl Bartos
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Whether in Kraftwerk or as an acclaimed solo artist, Karl Bartos has had an extraordinary impact on electronic music. In The Sound Of The Machine, Bartos’ recollections include his childhood in postwar Germany, the early musical encounters that led him to Kraftwerk, and fascinating insights from his time with the group, such as the genesis of monumental songs like The Robots, The Model and Tour de France, and candid accounts of his relationships with the other bandmembers.”
Alice Cooper Confidential: Confessions! Secrets! Fan Mail!
By Jeffrey Morgan
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In 1992, veteran Creem Magazine rock critic Jeffrey Morgan was chosen to write the authorized biography of Alice Cooper, which appeared in the Warner Bros. box set The Life And Crimes Of Alice Cooper. Now, decades later, Morgan unseals his confidential Coop files in this full color hard cover coffee table size book to reveal previously unpublished interrogations, rare incriminating photographs, and hysterical fan letters-plus other ghastly horrors too shocking to mention here. No wonder Alice doesn’t look happy. He’s read Alice Cooper Confidential!”
Nightfly: The Life of Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen
By Peter Jones
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Donald Fagen will forever be associated with Steely Dan, the band he formed with Walter Becker and four other musicians in 1972. The smooth, radio-friendly veneer of the duo’s songs made Steely Dan internationally popular and famous in the 1970s, but the polish glossed over the underlying layers of anger, disappointment, sleaze, and often downright weirdness lurking just beneath the surface. The elliptical lyrics were — and continue to be — an endless source of fascination. What kind of person was capable of writing such songs? Fagen has always kept his true self hidden behind walls of irony, confounding most journalistic enquiries with a mixture of obscurity and sarcasm. Nightfly cracks open the door to reveal the life behind the lyrics and traces Fagen’s story from early family life in suburban New Jersey, to his first encounter with Becker at Bard College, their long struggle for recognition as songwriters, and the formation of Steely Dan. The band’s breakup in 1981, re-formation in 1993, and Fagen’s parallel solo career are covered in detail. Author Peter Jones seeks to explain the public’s continuing fascination with Fagen’s music, both in collaboration with Becker and as a solo artist.”
King Of The Delta Blues: The Life And Music Of Charlie Patton
By Edward Komara & Gayle Dean Wardlow
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Born 130 years ago in the heart of Mississippi, Charlie Patton (c. 1891–1934) is considered by many to be a father of the Delta blues. With his bullish baritone voice and his fluid slide guitar touch, Patton established songs like Pony Blues, A Spoonful Blues and High Water Everywhere in the blues lexicon and, through his imitators, in American music. But over the decades, his contributions to blues music have been overshadowed in popularity by those of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and other mid-century bluesmen and women who’ve experienced a resurgence in their music. King Of The Delta Blues, originally published in 1988, began a small renaissance in Patton and blues research. And now, with the wide availability of Patton’s complete discography on CD and as digital downloads, this completely revised second edition continues the story of Patton’s legacy. Gayle Dean Wardlow and the late Stephen Calt (1946–2010) originally probed Patton’s career in the Mississippi Delta, his early performances and recordings, and his musical legacy that continues to influence today’s guitarists and performers, including such musicians as Jack White and Larkin Poe. For this second edition, Wardlow and Edward Komara refined the text and rewrote major sections, updating them with new scholarship on Patton and Delta blues. And finally, Komara has added a new afterword bringing Patton into the contemporary blues conversation and introducing numerous musical examples for the modern researcher and musician. The second edition of King Of The Delta Blues will further cement Patton’s legacy among important blues musicians, and it will be of interest to anyone absorbed in the beginnings of the Delta blues and music biographies.”
Rancid: Every Album Every Song
By Paul Matts
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In the 1990s, there was only one real punk rock band still standing: Rancid. Other so-called punk acts had bent the term so much they were unrecognisable as punk or had become a caricature of the expression. Or worse of themselves. Childhood friends Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman formed Rancid in 1991. Heralding from the punk scene in Gilman Street, Berkeley, they were members of the ground-breaking outfit Operation Ivy. After Op Ivy’s demise, the duo recruited Brett Reed on drums and by the release of their second LP in 1994, the enigmatic Lars Frederiksen on guitar and vocals. In 1994 came the inspirational, platinum-selling …And Out Come The Wolves. The band were soon on MTV, radio and even Saturday Night Live. At this point, many would have disappeared into the stratosphere, but not Rancid. They worked tirelessly in the punk network, giving plenty back and keeping true to those crucial two elements of punk — liberation and unity. In 2021, they remain the most credible punk band on the planet. Rancid: Every Album, Every Song describes their nine studio albums, track by track, and covers compilations, stand-alone singles, splits, rarities, and unofficial releases.”
Hungry Beat: The Scottish Independent Pop Underground Movement (1977-1984)
By Douglas MacIntyre & Grant McPhee
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The immense cultural contribution made by two maverick Scottish independent music labels, Fast Product and Postcard, cannot be underestimated. Bob Last and Hilary Morrison in Edinburgh, followed by Alan Horne and Edwyn Collins in Glasgow, helped to create a confidence in being Scottish that hitherto had not existed in pop music (or the arts in general in Scotland). Their fierce independent spirit stamped a mark of quality and intelligence on everything they achieved, as did their role in the emergence of regional independent labels and cultural agitators such as Rough Trade, Factory and Zoo. Hungry Beat is a definitive oral history of these labels and the Scottish post-punk period. Covering the period 1977-1984, the book begins with Subway Sect and The Slits’ performance on the White Riot tour in Edinburgh and takes us through to Last shepherding The Human League from experimental electronic artists on Fast Product to their triumphant No. 1 single Don’t You Want Me. Largely built on interviews for Grant McPhee’s Big Gold Dream film with Last, Morrison, Paul Morley and members of The Human League, Scars, The Mekons, Fire Engines, Josef K, Aztec Camera, The Go-Betweens and The Bluebells, Hungry Beat offers a comprehensive overview of one of the most important periods of Scottish cultural output and the two labels that changed the landscape of British music.”
Music + Revolution: Greenwich Village In The 1960s
By Richard Barone
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Even before the Beatnik Riots of 1961, New York City’s Greenwich Village was the epicenter of revolutionary movements in American music and culture. But in the early 1960s and throughout the decade, a new wave of writers and performers inspired by the folk music revival of the 1950s created socially aware and deeply personal songs that spoke to a generation like never before. These writers — Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Janis Ian and Phil Ochs, to name a few — changed the folk repertoire from traditional songs to songs sprung from personal, contemporary experiences and the nation’s headlines, raising the level of political self-expression to high art. Message and music merged and mirrored society. In Music + Revolution: Greenwich Village In The 1960s, Richard Barone unrolls a freewheeling historical narrative, peppered with personal stories and insights from those who were there. Illustrated with contemporaneous portraits of the musicians by renowned photographer David Gahr, it celebrates the lasting legacy of a pivotal decade with stories behind the songs that resonate just as strongly today.”
The Cricket: Black Music in Evolution, 1968-69
By A. B. Spellman, Larry Neal & Amiri Baraka
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Edited by poets and writers Amiri Baraka, A.B. Spellman and Larry Neal between 1968 and 1969, and published by Baraka’s New Jersey–based JIHAD productions around the time of the Newark Riots, this experimental music magazine ran poetry, position papers and gossip alongside concert and record reviews and essays on music and politics. Over four mimeographed issues, The Cricket laid out an anticommercial ideology and took aim at the conservative jazz press, providing a space for critics, poets and journalists (including Stanley Crouch, Haki Madhubuti, Ishmael Reed, Sonia Sanchez and Keorapetse Kgositsile) and musicians (including Cecil Taylor, Milford Graves, Sun Ra, Mtume, Albert Ayler and Black Unity Trio) to devise new styles of music writing. The publication emerged from the heart of a political movement — “a proto-ideology, akin to but younger than the Garveyite movement and the separatism of Elijah Mohammed,” as Spellman writes in the book’s preface — and aimed to reunite advanced art with its community, “to provide Black Music with a powerful historical and critical tool” and to enable avant-garde Black musicians and writers “to finally make a way for themselves.” This publication gathers all issues of the magazine with an introduction by poet and scholar David Grundy.”
Breaks In The Air: The Birth Of Rap Radio In New York City
By John Klaess
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In Breaks In The Air, John Klaess tells the story of rap’s emergence on New York City’s airwaves by examining how artists and broadcasters adapted hip hop’s performance culture to radio. Initially, artists and DJs brought their live practice to radio by buying time on low-bandwidth community stations and building new communities around their shows. Later, stations owned by New York’s African American elite like WBLS reluctantly began airing rap even as they pursued a sound rooted in respectability, urban sophistication, and polish. At the same time, large commercial stations like WRKS programmed rap once it became clear that the music attracted a demographic that was valuable to advertisers. Moving between intimate portraits of single radio shows and broader examinations of the legal, financial, cultural, and political forces that indelibly shaped the sound of rap radio, Klaess shows how early rap radio provides a lens through which to better understand the development of rap music as well as the intertwined histories of sounds, institutions, communities, and legal formations that converged in the post-Civil Rights era.”
Boogie Down Predictions: Hip-Hop, Time, and Afrofuturism
By Roy Christopher
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Through essays by some of hip-hop’s most interesting thinkers, theorists, journalists, writers, emcees, and DJs, Boogie Down Predictions embarks on a quest to understand the connections between time, representation, and identity within hip-hop culture and what that means for the culture at large. Introduced by Ytasha L. Womack, author of Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, this book explores these temporalities, possible pasts, and further futures from a diverse, multilayered, interdisciplinary perspective. From the introduction: “This book, edited by Roy Christopher, is a moment. It is the deconstructed sample, the researched lyrical metaphors, the aha moment on the way to hip-hop enlightenment. Hip-hop permeates our world, and yet it is continually misunderstood. Hip-hop’s intersections with Afrofuturism and science fiction provide fascinating touchpoints that enable us to see our todays and tomorrows. This book can be, for the curious, a window into a hip-hop-infused Alter Destiny–a journey whose spaceship you embarked on some time ago. Are you engaging this work from the gaze of the future? Are you the data thief sailing into the past to U-turn to the now? Or are you the unborn child prepping to build the next universe? No, you’re the superhero. Enjoy the journey.”
Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, And The Struggle For The Soul Of Islam
By Mark LeVine
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “An 18-year-old Moroccan who loves Black Sabbath. A 22-year-old rapper from the Gaza Strip. A young Lebanese singer who quotes Bob Marley’s Redemption Song. Heavy metal, punk, hip-hop, and reggae are each the music of protest, and are considered immoral by many in the Muslim world. As the young people and subcultures featured in Mark LeVine’s Heavy Metal Islam so presciently predicted, this music turned out to be the soundtrack of countercultures, uprisings, and even revolutions from Morocco to Pakistan. Originally published in 2008, the book explores the influence of Western music on the Middle East and North Africa through interviews with musicians and fans, introducing us to young people struggling to reconcile their religion with a passion for music and a thirst for change. The result is a revealing tour de force of contemporary cultures across the Muslim majority world through the region’s evolving music scenes that only a musician, scholar, and activist with LeVine’s unique breadth of experience could narrate. Heavy Metal Islam is a surprising, wildly entertaining foray into a historically authoritarian region where music reveals itself to be a true democratizing force — and a groundbreaking work of scholarship that pioneered new forms of research in the region. This updated reissue brings this groundbreaking portrait of the region’s youth cultures to a new generation. Featuring a new preface by the author in conversation with the band The Kominas about the problematic connections between extreme music and Islam.”
We’ll Play Till We Die: Journeys Across A Decade Of Revolutionary Music In The Muslim World
By Mark LeVine
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In his iconic musical travelogue Heavy Metal Islam, Mark LeVine first brought the views and experiences of a still-young generation to the world. In We’ll Play Till We Die, he joins with this generation’s leading voices to write a definitive history of the era, closing with a cowritten epilogue that explores the meanings and futures of youth music from North Africa to Southeast Asia. We’ll Play Till We Die dives into the revolutionary music cultures of the Middle East and larger Muslim world before, during, and beyond the waves of resistance that shook the region from Morocco to Pakistan. This sequel to LeVine’s celebrated Heavy Metal Islam shows how some of the world’s most extreme music not only helped inspire and define region-wide protests, but also exemplifies the beauty and diversity of youth cultures throughout the Muslim world. Two years after Heavy Metal Islam was published in 2008, uprisings and revolutions spread like wildfire. The young people organizing and protesting on the streets — in dozens of cities from Casablanca to Karachi — included the very musicians and fans LeVine spotlighted in that book. We’ll Play Till We Die revisits the groundbreaking stories he originally explored, sharing what has happened to these musicians, their music, their politics, and their societies since then. The book covers a stunning array of developments, not just in metal and hip hop scenes, but with emo in Baghdad, mahraganat in Egypt, techno in Beirut, and more. LeVine also reveals how artists have used global platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud to achieve unprecedented circulation of their music outside corporate or government control. The first collective ethnography and biography of the post-2010 generation, We’ll Play Till We Die explains and amplifies the radical possibilities of music as a revolutionary force for change.”
Renegade Rhymes: Rap Music, Narrative, And Knowledge In Taiwan
By Meredith Schweig
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Like many states emerging from oppressive political rule, Taiwan saw a cultural explosion in the late 1980s, when nearly four decades of martial law under the Chinese Nationalist Party ended. As members of a multicultural, multilingual society with a complex history of migration and colonization, Taiwanese people entered this moment of political transformation eager to tell their stories and grapple with their identities. In Renegade Rhymes, ethnomusicologist Meredith Schweig shows how rap music has become a powerful tool in the post-authoritarian period for both exploring and producing new knowledge about the ethnic, cultural, and political history of Taiwan. Schweig draws on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, taking readers to concert venues, music video sets, scenes of protest, and more to show how early MCs from marginalized ethnic groups infused rap with important aspects of their own local languages, music, and narrative traditions. Aiming their critiques at the educational system and a neoliberal economy, new generations of rappers have used the art form to nurture associational bonds and rehearse rituals of democratic citizenship, making a new kind of sense out of their complicated present.”
Bruce Springsteen: Like A Killer In The Sun: Selected Lyrics 1972-2017
By Leonardo Colombati
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Like A Killer In The Sun, originally published in Italian, is the definitive book on the work of Bruce Springsteen, showing his unique narrative talent and offering an accurate critical examination of his poetics. It presents 117 among his best lyrics, expounded and annotated with the philological care used for the classics of literature. In his introduction, Leonardo Colombati draws the attention to the fact that Springsteen is an author grafted on the line that goes from Whitman to Steinbeck, from Flannery O’Connor to Raymond Carver. The book also contains Springsteen’s biography and discography, plus an exclusive interview with Bruce Springsteen. With forewords by Academy Award-winner Ennio Morricone and music critic Dave Marsh, a committee member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Springsteen’s biographer. Like A Killer In The Sun is a book for anyone who wants to listen to a powerful and inspired voice coming from the heart of America.”
Word for Word
By Rodney Crowell
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “From growing up in Texas, to living in his car, to landing his first publishing deal, to writing 15 No. 1 songs, Word For Word is a lavishly illustrated look at the lyrics of an icon among songwriting giants. Emmylou Harris — who once employed Rodney Crowell as the guitarist, harmony singer, and arranger in her Hot Band — introduced many listeners to his finely crafted songs, including Til I Gain Control Again, Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight, I Ain’t Living Long Like This, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Ashes by Now. They all went on to be become hits for other performers, while Crowell went on to carve out a career as the first country singer to earn five No. 1 singles from one album. Rodney continued writing and recording classics, while other artists continued to take his songs to the top of the charts, including Bob Seger’s recording of Shame On The Moon, Tim McGraw’s recording of Please Remember Me, and Keith Urban’s cover of Making Memories of Us. In this disarmingly intimate look at Crowell’s songs, he shares pages from his lyric notebooks, personal photographs, and scribbles that reveal the heart of one of this generation’s finest songwriters.”
Belle & Sebastian: Illustrated Lyrics
By Stuart Murdoch & Pamela Tait
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “From the imagined lives of the passengers riding Glasgow buses in the early 1990s to questions raised about the status quo and musings on the meaning of religion, Stuart Murdoch, front man of Scottish indie-pop band Belle and Sebastian, has written some of the most captivating lyrics of the past two decades. Belle and Sebastian recorded their first critically acclaimed album Tigermilk in three days in 1996, and over the course of their career have played a sold-out show at the Hollywood Bowl with the L.A. Philharmonic, and famously forgot their drummer, dressed in his pajamas, outside a Walmart. Their songs have animated many film soundtracks, developing a cult following that has helped to define the sound of music as we know it today. Belle and Sebastian: Illustrated Lyrics combines words selected from over 24 years of Belle and Sebastian songs with specially commissioned illustrations from Scottish artist Pamela Tait, whose intricate and whimsical characters Murdoch stumbled upon and fell in love with when he rediscovered old fan email Pamela had sent to him over a decade ago. Set with expressive typography, and with notes on the illustrations from Tait at the back of the book, this is an exceptional publication that will seduce even the most devoted fans into “seeing” these wonderful songs afresh.”
Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever: Completely Ridiculous Edition
By Tom Neely
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Two men.Two myths. One legend. The greatest love story every told has finally been released in graphic novel form. This epic tome features 20 short stories about the domestic life of “Henry” and “Glenn” and sometimes their neighbors “Daryl” and “John.” Digging beneath Glenn’s bricks in the front yard, Henry uncovers Glenn’s mother. Freshly unearthed, she moves in with him and Henry. Glenn’s issues come to the surface as she critiques his art, replaces his wardrobe, scrubs their dungeon, and recalls his childhood. Later, Glenn tries to sell his signature to a UPS driver, takes a punch, and has some daydreaming adventures with a plunger. Henry, “a loud guy with a good work ethic,” shows his darker side and indifference to a fan as he drinks black coffee and bonds with Glenn over their distaste for their own bands. These are two men who truly suffer best alone together. Among other hijinks, Henry and Glenn go to therapy together, battle an evil cult in the forest, and profess their love for each other, all while dealing with jealousy and other normal relationship problems and trying to figure out if their soft-rocking neighbors are actually Dungeons and Dragons-playing Satanists. The saga of Henry and Glenn is a true testament to the power of love to overcome even the biggest, manliest egos of our time. This ridiculously complete edition collects four serialized comics, the trade paperback, the original 6×6″ book, and adds stories, pin up art, and full color covers from the original series.”
