Fab films, jazz journeys, hair-metal heroes, studio stories, ’80s excesses, goth greats and more musical matters for your to-do list. Read all about ’em:
Act Naturally: The Beatles on Film
By Steve Matteo
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The five films The Beatles worked on during their time together (A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, Let It Be) all represent key phases in the group’s career — some successful, some not. Subsequent reissues of the films have provided a deeper understanding of the group with bonus material, and the recent release of Get Back marks the return of Beatlemania since Let It Be was last available on VHS in 1981. A new documentary of the Let It Be film footage had been turned into a documentary by Peter Jackson, culling through 50 hours of raw footage to piece together a companion documentary to the original film. The Beatles have never done anything like this before. In this most up-to-date deep dive into the band’s cinematic output, author and longtime music journalist Steve Matteo follows the fan frenzy around their films from the 1964 premiere of A Hard Day’s Night through 1970’s Let It Be to the release of Get Back in 2022. Their earlier films parallel an unprecedented period in the artistic and commercial evolution of British world cinema. Matteo explores the production process, original theatrical film releases, subsequent VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray releases and bonus material, along with the U.S. and U.K. soundtracks. The film legacy of the Beatles is an exciting inside look at the group and their music-making process.”
Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life In Music
By Henry Threadgill, Brent Hayes Edwards
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Henry Threadgill has had a singular life in music. At 79, the saxophonist, flautist, and celebrated composer is one of three jazz artists (along with Ornette Coleman and Wynton Marsalis) to have won a Pulitzer Prize. In Easily Slip Into Another World, Threadgill recalls his childhood and upbringing in Chicago, his family life and education, and his brilliant career in music. Here are riveting recollections of the music scene in Chicago in the early 1960s, when Threadgill developed his craft among friends and schoolmates who would go on to form the core of the highly influential Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians; the year and a half he spent touring with an evangelical preacher in the mid-1960s; his military service in Vietnam — a riveting tale in itself, but also representative of an under-recognized aspect of jazz history, given the number of musicians in Threadgill’s generation who served in the armed forces. We appreciate his genius as he travels to the Netherlands, Venezuela, Trinidad, Sicily, and Goa enriching his art; immerses himself in the volatile downtown scene in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s; collaborates with choreographers, writers, and theater directors as well as an astonishing range of musicians, from AACM stalwarts (Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, and Leroy Jenkins), to Chicago bluesmen, downtown luminaries, and world music innovators; shares his impressions of the recording industry his perspectives on music education and the history of Black music in the United States; and, of course, accounts for his work with the various ensembles he has directed over the past five decades.”
Rock Legends at Rockfield
By Jeff Collins
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Rockfield is a recording studio that lives up to its name. Over the past 50 years, this rural Monmouthshire locale has played host to a bevy of British musical legends — from Robert Plant, Queen and Black Sabbath to Oasis, The Stone Roses and Motörhead, along with present-day acts like Thunder and The Dirty Youth. A rich narrative history packed with behind-the-scenes anecdotes, updated since its original 2007 release, Rock Legends at Rockfield features interviews with legendary artists who tell the bizarre tales behind modern classics like Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and Oasis’s Live Forever. Along the way, Jeff Collins examines how these dilapidated farm buildings and solid-stone studios became one of the most famous brands in recording history. Not to be missed by any fan of British music or classic rock scholar, Rock Legends at Rockfield is an uproarious and eminently readable look at one of the most legendary studios in the world.”
Tales From The Gutter: And other Rock and Roll Shenanigans
By Mike Corcione
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Mike Corcione is a rabid music fan who lived his dream of making it in the music industry through a whirlwind rock ’n’ roll career beginning in the late 1970s through the 1980s. Starting his professional life in music as a nightclub DJ in 1978 working for wiseguys in clubs on Long Island, Tales From the Gutter follows Mike as he ascends the ladder of working in music at thrash metal record labels and import record distributors, leading the underground cult-favorite New York City sleaze metal band Sweet Pain, tour managing for the platinum-selling band L.A. Guns, promoting rock ’n’ roll nightclubs, and DJing at Peter Gatien‘s infamous club-kid hangout Limelight, in an era of legally drinking at 18, no-photo driver’s licenses and a pre-crack, pre-AIDS New York City. Raised in an environment of old-world Italian values with the infamous wiseguys portrayed in Goodfellas, it was ultimately music that gave Mike his purpose. This is a story of passion, hard work, and making your dreams come true, with lots of rock ’n’ roll debauchery on the side. Follow Mike and his friends on their drugfueled wild adventures with Mötley Crüe, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Danger Danger, Iron Maiden, L.A. Guns and more, while gaining fascinating insight into a bygone era when the music industry was at the height of its powers.”
Don’t Call It Hair Metal: Art in the Excess of ’80s Rock
By Sean Kelly
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “There may be no more joyous iteration in all of music than 1980s hard rock. It was an era where the musical and cultural ideals of rebellion and freedom of the great rock ’n’ roll of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s were taken to dizzying heights of neon excess. Attention to songcraft, showmanship, and musical virtuosity (especially in the realm of the electric guitar) were at an all-time high, and radio and MTV were delivering the goods en masse to the corn-fed children of America and beyond. Time hasn’t always been kind to artists of that gold and platinum era, but Don’t Call It Hair Metal analyzes the sonic evolution, musical diversity, and artistic intention of ’80s commercial hard rock through interviews with members of such hard rock luminaries as Twisted Sister, Def Leppard, Poison, Whitesnake, Ratt, Skid Row, Quiet Riot, Guns N’ Roses, Dokken, Mr. Big and others.”
Iron Maiden: Where is Eddie?
By Eduardo Benatar, Lindsay Lee & Samuel Blanco
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Throughout their illustrious career, Iron Maiden’s dauntless music has captured the hearts of dedicated fans all over the world, ever fueled by a fierce determination and immense passion for rock ’n’ roll. Their painfully addictive riffs and gripping lyrical storytelling have created a legacy like no other, and always with Eddie by their side. As you search for him, plunge into 15 double-page puzzles inspired by Iron Maiden’s legendary songs and albums. Walk the edgy East End streets of Killers, escape the maddening asylum of Piece of Mind, trek across the desert ruins of Powerslave, then plummet headfirst down into The Number Of The Beast’s hellfire — every page pays glorious respect to the sheer awesomeness of Iron Maiden’s imagery. Lovingly created by the demented team of artists at Fantoons. Where Is Eddie? is a must-have for every Iron Maiden fan.”
The Art Of Darkness: The History Of Goth
By John Robb
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “This is the first comprehensive history of goth music and culture. Across more than 500 pages, John Robb explores the origins and legacy of this enduring scene, which has its roots in the post-punk era. Drawing on his own experience as a musician and journalist, Robb covers the style, the music and the clubs that spawned the culture, alongside political and social conditions. He also reaches back further to key historic events and movements that frame the ideas of goth, from the fall of Rome to Lord Byron and the romantic poets, European folk tales, Gothic art and the occult. Finally, he considers the current mainstream goth of Instagram influencers, film, literature and music. The Art of Darkness features interviews with Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Cure, The Damned, Nick Cave, Southern Death Cult, Einstürzende Neubauten, Bauhaus, Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Danielle Dax, Lydia Lunch and many more. It offers a first-hand account of being there at the gigs and clubs that made the scene happen.”
Decolonial Metal Music in Latin America
By Nelson Varas-Díaz
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The long-lasting effects of colonialism — racism, political persecution, ethnic extermination, and extreme capitalism — are still felt throughout Latin America. This volume explores how heavy metal music in the region has been used to challenge coloniality and its present-day manifestations. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina, Nelson Varas-Díaz documents how metal musicians and listeners engage in “extreme decolonial dialogues” as a strategy to challenge past and present forms of oppression. Most existing work on metal music in Latin America has relied on theoretical frameworks developed in the global North. By contrast, this volume explores the region through its own history and experiences, providing a roadmap for this emerging mode of musical analysis by demonstrating how decolonial metal scholarship can be achieved.”
Aesthetics of Pop Music
By Diedrich Diederichsen
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In this short book, the leading German cultural critic Diedrich Diederichsen puts forward a fresh and original account of pop music. He argues that pop music is not so much a form of music as a constellation of different media channels, social spaces and behavioural systems, of which music is only a part. Its own logic of attraction is based less on compositions and the expression of subjectivity and more on indexicality, real or pseudo-involuntary effects as recorded by sound technologies, and on studio discipline and staging, and hence on performance. By elaborating his innovative account of pop music as a constellation, Diederichsen develops a theory that distinguishes itself from sociology, cultural studies, media studies and ethnography, while at the same time drawing on and encompassing them all.”
