Pink Floyd, Public Enemy, the Allman Brothers Band, New Order and Van der Graaf Generator: If next week’s music books were a festival, I’d buy a ticket. Read all about ’em:
Pink Floyd and The Dark Side of the Moon: 50 Years
By Martin Popoff
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Take a deep dive into one of the best-selling albums ever on the 50th anniversary of its release with this beautifully produced and authoritatively written slipcased edition. Veteran rock critic Martin Popoff leaves no stone unturned in taking apart Pink Floyd’s generation-spanning masterpiece The Dark Side Of The Moon, while exploring each of the album’s 10 tracks and their themes of madness, anxiety, and alienation. Chapters cover: The state of Pink Floyd as of 1972, with special emphasis on deposed founder Syd Barrett; the recording sessions at famed Abbey Road Studios, including techniques used and the roles of personnel such as engineer Alan Parsons; song-by-song studies of each album side, including analyses of lyrics and the guitars, drums, keyboards, and synthesizers employed by members David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright; the ground-breaking art and packaging created by design firm Hipgnosis and its founder Storm Thorgerson; the continent-hopping tours that supported the album and also introduced the songs before its release; the group’s trajectory post-Dark Side, including notable albums, tours, and the departure of Waters. Popoff also takes you on side journeys examining each band member, session players, prog rock, the Live at Pompeii concert and film, Waters’ singular writing technique, Dark Side collectibles, awards, and more. There’s even a brief discography and complete LP tour dates.”
Livin’ Loud: ARTitation
By Chuck D
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “I was raised with an artist’s mentality; my first 25 years were spent as somebody who wanted to live among graphics and artwork and illustration, and then for the next 30 years it was all music,” says Chuck D. “Recently, I’ve reverted into the arts, combining all these elements in my work, still trying to change the world. This is truly what I want to do. My deepest thanks to Genesis for giving me a place to be able to display all of this through my artwork.” In his first fine art book, Livin’ Loud, Public Enemy founder, hip-hop pioneer and revolutionary activist Chuck D presents a body of artworks which continue to address the social and politically conscious issues of his lyrics. His artworks reveal his visual dexterity as he explores a diverse range of subjects paying homage to his musical influences and peers from James Brown and Woody Guthrie to Def Jam labelmates Run-DMC and Beastie Boys; a host of the most influential hip-hop artists from Ice Cube to Run The Jewels; his twin passions of baseball and basketball; creating a collection of landscapes on tour with Prophets Of Rage, and a range of sociopolitical pieces that explore the issues continuing to shape our culture. Chuck D has been creating musical and cultural observations that challenge public opinion since 1985 and his visual compositions continue to interpret and question the world around us. His written commentary traces his musical and artistic trajectory from his early roots and the central figures that critically shaped him and his voice, the formation of Public Enemy through to their Rock And Roll Hall of Fame induction. With a foreword by Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, Livin’ Loud is a visual experience of over 250 artworks, each piece reflective of the man behind the music.”
King: Life, Death and Hip Hop
By Christopher Riley & Hau Latukefu
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The son of first-generation Tongan immigrants, Hau Lātūkefu drew on the legacy of his name (which means King) to become one of the nation’ s most influential musical artists. But the best stories often come from the humblest beginnings. A promising junior rugby player, Hau decided in his teens to trade in the footy boots for Hammer pants, soaking up every bar and breakbeat of the new sound and culture exploding out of urban America: DJ Kool Herc and LL Cool J, mix-tapes and graffiti, velour Kangols and Beat Street. Determined to be more innovator than imitator, the rhymes that eventually burst from his volumes of notebooks and epic freestyle sessions with friends and co-conspirators would express what was happening in his backyard, in his community, in his voice. Along with DJ Danielsan, Hau would form Koolism, one of the seminal acts in Australian hip-hop and winner of the ARIA’s inaugural Best Urban Release award in 2004. This bolt from the blue began a professional journey that would evolve over decades and play out over iconic albums, reflecting the simple joys of life, the love of family, the loss of faith and the tragedy of lives cut short.”
Where Are the Elephants?
By Leon Rosselson
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Fierce and funny, this memoir in essay and song is full of wonderful tales of art and protest. Leon Rosselson’s Where Are the Elephants? is a rare behind-the-scenes look at the life and times of one of England’s foremost songwriters. This clear-eyed portrait of a creative activist who never gave up and whose talent, wit, and verve brought the world into finer focus provides a model for a whole new generation of radicals. Filled with glimpses of the stories and events that inspired his songs, Rosselson’s story of becoming a modern troubadour up against the barricades is a tale for the ages. The book concludes with an intimate and wide-ranging interview by Rosselson’s longtime friend and collaborator Robb Johnson.”
Van der Graaf Generator in the 1970s: Decades
By Steve Pilkington
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “There were a lot of very different bands peddling their wares in the progressive rock ‘golden age’ of the 1970s – some tending toward symphonic grandeur, other towards jazz fusion, and others still ploughing the more immediate end of the spectrum. There were the left-field eccentrics and the tricky ‘difficult’ bands. Apart from it all, however, there were Van der Graaf Generator. In a decade stuffed with a wild array of influences, styles and instrumental line-ups, there can be few tending quite so near to the definition ‘unique’ as the four musicians who made up the ‘classic’ lineup of Van der Graaf. For a start, there was the astonishing songwriting and vocals of generally accepted leader Peter Hammill, but there was much more behind that to set these men apart. Their unparalleled instrumental make-up saw little or no guitar and no bass guitar, while organist Hugh Banton handled the bass parts on pedals, David Jackson pioneered an astonishing saxophone style, playing two instruments at once, electric rather than miked up, and using a full effects pedalboard. Drummer Guy Evans filled in … well, everything else. It was and remains a sound quite like no other. This book documents their incredibly influential first decade as prog’s ultimate outsiders. It’s quite a ride.”
The Allman Brothers Band: Every Album, Every Song
By Andrew Wild
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In 1973, The Allman Brothers Band were one of the most popular in America: they headlined the Watkins Glen Summer Jam, attended by an estimated 600,000 people and their album Brothers and Sisters was No. 1 for five weeks on the Billboard listings that summer. The single Ramblin’ Man hit No. 2 in October. The group made the cover of Newsweek. Rolling Stone named them Band Of The Year. Their story can only be described as volatile. Always a strong live draw since forming in 1969, in the two years prior to Watkins Glen they had released one of the greatest live albums of all time and lost two founding members — guitar genius 24-year-old Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakley — in near-identical motorcycle accidents. Increased drug use and a ruinous 1976 court case forced the band apart. A three-album reunion between 1978 and 1982 rekindled some of the old fire, but it was their 20th anniversary and second reformation in 1989 that provided a degree of stability and acclaim. The passing of founder members Butch Trucks and Gregg Allman in 2017 definitively ended the band’s story. Their legacy of 11 studio albums, six contemporaneous live albums and several box sets includes classics such as their self-titled debut, the sophomore Idlewild South (their artistic and commercial breakthrough), the definitive live document At Fillmore East and the astounding final album Hittin’ The Note from 2003.The music of the Allman Brothers is the pure distillation of the four main ingredients of American music: blues, rock, jazz and country. At their best, they transcended genre: They just were.”
New Order: Every Album, Every Song
By Dennis Remmer
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “New Order have produced some of the most influential popular music of the last 40-plus years. A unique vision of alternative electronic rock, forged in Manchester and exported to the world; connecting with the alternative-minded as well as the club-centric, the football fan and the artist, the boffin and the aesthete. The journey of New Order from Salford and Macclesfield to the world has been nothing short of incredible: their punk-ignited founding as Warsaw; the eternally astonishing Joy Division; the rise and fall of Factory Records and The Haçienda; Martin Hannett, Peter Saville, Tony Wilson, Rob Gretton, Arthur Baker, Michael Shamberg and many other remarkable associations; side hustles as BeMusic, Electronic, Revenge, The Other Two, Monaco, Bad Lieutenant and The Light; their tragic losses, their unholy messes, their resilience, and, most importantly, the magnificent leftfield music written by band members past and present: Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, Gillian Gilbert, Phil Cunningham and Tom Chapman. This book reviews every song New Order have officially released to date, from Ceremony to Be A Rebel, across every album from Movement to Music Complete, plus the many singles, compilations, and soundtracks. This book is ‘remixed’, with additional information and references, from the author’s hugely popular and band-endorsed New OrderTracks blog.”
69 Exhibition Road: Twelve True-Life Tales from the Fag End of Punk, Porn & Performance
By Dorothy Max Prior
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “A vibrant, wry, and engaging account of life as an adventurous, queer young person in late 1970s London discovering themselves as an artist, and an individual. While working as a photographer’s model, gallery usher, and exotic dancer, Dorothy “Max” Prior witnessed the births of Adam And The Ants, The Monochrome Set, The Sex Pistols and Throbbing Gristle, as well as drumming in her own cult band Rema Rema and recording with Industrial Records. Her exuberant commentaries, each presented as a stand-alone episode, illustrate the multilayered nature of the London music, art, and fashion worlds of the late 1970s, and the overlap between the early punk scene with the city’s rapidly evolving club and queer cultures.”
