Still shopping for that music fan who loves to read? I’ve got you covered — assuming they love The Cure, Phil Ochs, Throbbing Gristle, jazz sidemen or Peruvian metal. ’Cause that’s all she wrote. Well, not quite all: I also came across a book featuring a Manchurian Candidate-style conspiracy theory about the murder of John Lennon — but I didn’t include it below because I’m not a lunatic. As for the rest, read all about ’em:
Curepedia: An A-Z of The Cure
By Simon Price
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Cure remain, 40 plus years into their career, one of the biggest rock bands in the world. With 12 studio albums, tours that pack stadiums all over the world — including their recent sold-out series across North America — they were the first alternative band to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 2019 by Trent Reznor. Their influence is heard in bands from Twilight Sad to Interpol to My Chemical Romance. Acclaimed music journalist Simon Price has crafted a first-of-its-kind history of this band that will satisfy legion of fans eagerly awaiting The Cure’s new album. Curepedia is a career-spanning and in-depth biography of Robert Smith and co., chronicling their 40-plus-year history with hundreds of entries organized in an A-to-Z fashion. Presented in a two-color format, with four-color endpapers designed by long-time Cure collaborator Andy Vella, Curepedia is a full-scale look at the long list of members, current and past, unknown facts, tours, descriptions of every album, song, films, as well as entries on the image of the band, their influence, their style, and their enduring legacy. This beautifully packaged book, celebrating one of the most enduring and beloved rock bands, Curepedia will be the perfect introduction for new fans, and a must-have for the obsessive as well.”
That Man In The Gold Lamé Suit: Phil Ochs’s Search For Self
By Jim Bowers
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “That Man In The Gold Lamé Suit offers a fresh, original, and dynamic examination of Phil Ochs, the often overlooked topical folk singer of the 1960s who wrote the soundtrack to that era’s antiwar movement and so much more. That Man In The Gold Lamé Suit explores who Phil Ochs was as he saw and understood himself to be; how he wanted to see himself; and how he wanted to be seen by others. In presenting this exploration of Ochs, author Jim Bowers delves deep into Ochs’s personality to craft a narrative that allows the singer/songwriter to tell his own story rather than the story others would impose upon him. In letting Ochs tell his own story, Bowers provides the reader with insights into how Ochs’s search for self came to define who he really was and how it, in turn, shaped his music, his politics, and his relationships with such contemporaries as Bob Dylan.”
Throbbing Gristle: An Endless Discontent
By Ian Trowell
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Drawing on archives and live performances, this book traces the impressions and reverberations of U.K. punk band Throbbing Gristle. This book looks at late 1970s Britain, before, during, and immediately after the Winter of Discontent, to situate the activism of Throbbing Gristle in this time. It explores how the band worked in and against the time, and how they worked in and against punk, as punk worked in and against the time and place. Punk acts as a mediating factor and nuisance value in the band’s story, as Throbbing Gristle emerged with punk in late 1976, grappled with it through 1977, and then went on to create and eventually criticize a number of post-punk scenes that had flourished around 1979.”
Passport to Hell: Critical Studies on Peruvian Metal
By José Ignacio López Ramírez Gastón
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Passport to Hell: Critical Studies on Peruvian Metal unveils the vibrant and thriving world of Peruvian metal. As the first of its kind, this book brings together a collection of Peruvian scholars, providing a long-overdue spotlight on a musical realm often overlooked in the international conversation. This comprehensive work offers a critical examination of Peruvian metal, challenging preconceived, universal notions regarding the nature of metal and stressing the uniqueness of the local scenes that have received and transformed the sounds and cultures of the global north to make them their own. This book expands the boundaries of metal scholarship by showcasing the connection between world metal narratives and the distinctive social fabric of Peru by giving voice to the identity, resistance, and cultural expressions in the metal world. It offers an invitation to discover a world that has long been marginalized, elevating Peruvian metal to its rightful place in the international conversation and celebrating the resilience and creativity of its artists.”
Bass Notes: Jazz in American Culture: A Personal View
By Chuck Israels
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “From his upbringing as a ‘red-diaper baby’ among some of the leading lights of American music and Left politics, to his legendary work as bassist for the Bill Evans trio, to his collaborations with such figures as Charles Mingus and Billie Holiday, Chuck Israels has witnessed over a half-century of change and innovation in American jazz music. In Bass Notes, he offers up both an engaging memoir and a meditation on the history of jazz music and its prospects for the future. In addition to fascinating stories from his work with musicians like John Coltrane, Joan Baez and Herbie Hancock, he gives an inside view into the mysterious alchemy that happens when skilled jazz improvisers get together. As he explains, the combination of disciplined collaboration and individual freedom is not just exhilarating for musicians, but an inspiring reflection of, and model for, democracy and the potential for true racial equality. Israels recounts his decision to leave Evans’s trio to deepen his musical education and develop as a composer — and his choice to not rejoin the trio in Evans’s last years. Citing such developments as the dominance of conservatory training and ill-advised crossover attempts with classical and pop, he also gives an impassioned but unsentimental account of how jazz lost its primacy in the pantheon of American music, even though it is America’s most distinctive contribution to world music. He explores the obstacles that today’s best young jazz musicians face following the giants of earlier generations and the dwindling opportunities to make a living as a musician. But despite it all, Israels argues that jazz’s enduring and rich legacy will not be lost and shows how it can be not just sustained but broadened in the years to come.”
