I am midway through Moon Unit Zappa’s new memoir Earth To Moon. Spoiler alert: Her upbringing was not like yours and mine — unless you were raised in L.A. by an aloof, workaholic rock star and a volatile, superstitious woman that you called Frank and Gail instead of Mom and Dad. So far, it’s a pretty good read — conversational, funny and revealing, without coming off as exploitive, whiny or gratuitously lurid. Not into the Zappas? No sweat; there are plenty of options coming down the pike. Read all about ’em:
Cheap Trick | American Standard: From the Bars to the Budokan and Beyond
By Ross Warner
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “They’ve sold more than 20 million albums, they were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and they’re one of Homer Simpson’s favourite bands — but even today, 50 years after they first formed, Cheap Trick remain to many a club band with a cult following. They certainly started out that way, with a carnival-like stage show featuring four perfectly mismatched characters: Guitarist Rick Nielsen, in bow tie, cardigan and baseball cap, stood next to blonde dreamboat Robin Zander, while the enigmatic, chestnut-haired bassist Tom Peterson held down the bottom end with drummer Bun E. Carlos, never seen without cigarette or tie. American Standard: Cheap Trick From the Bars to the Budokan and Beyond tells the unlikely story of the band’s path to greatness, from their origins in Rockford, Illinois to their massively successful live album At Budokan to the many, many ups and downs that followed. This is a rollicking tale of artistic genius, rock excess, hilarious misbehavior, chance encounters with music’s biggest names, and international stardom that brought new meaning to the phrase “big in Japan.” Drawing on exhaustive research and interviews, American Standard gives an intimate look at a truly original band. —whether you consider them rock icons or criminally underrated.”
Cocaine and Rhinestones: A History of George Jones and Tammy Wynette
By Tyler Mahan Coe & Wayne White
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “From the creator of the acclaimed country music history podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones, comes the epic American saga of country music’s legendary royal couple — George Jones and Tammy Wynette. By the early 1960s, nearly everybody paying attention to country music agreed that Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After taking honky-tonk rockers like White Lightning all the way up the country charts, he revealed himself to be an unmatched virtuoso on She Thinks I Still Care, cementing his status as a living legend. That’s where the trouble started. Only at this new level of fame did Jones realize he suffered from extreme stage fright. His method of dealing with that involved great quantities of alcohol, which his audience soon discovered as Jones showed up to concerts falling-down drunk — or failed to show at all. But fans forgave him because he sang so damn good. Then he married Wynette, around the time she became famous with the release of Stand by Your Man. She grew up a fans of Jones. After deciding to become a country singer herself, she went to Nashville, got a record deal, then met and married her hero. With the crossover success of Stand by Your Man (and the drama surrounding its lyrics) came a gigantic audience, who were sold a fairy-tale image of a couple dubbed The King and Queen of Country Music. Many fans still believe that tale today. The behind-the-scenes truth is very different from the images on album covers. Cocaine & Rhinestones is an unprecedented look at the lives of two indelible country icons, reframing their careers within country music and modern history.”
Long Agos and Worlds Apart: The Definitive Small Faces Biography
By Sean Egan
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Small Faces epitomised the maxim, “Never mind the width, feel the quality.” In their brief original lifespan, they released just three albums and 18 singles and B-sides. Yet more than five decades after the London quartet’s split, the phenomenal quality of that compact body of work has ensured a continuing and unassailable musical esteem bordering on legend. Gut-bucket vocalist Steve Marriott brought a bluesy grit to both compositions of gravitas and effervescent pop. Bassist Ronnie Lane collaborated with him in one of the most formidable songwriting partnerships of the era. Ian McLagan was an exhilaratingly blurred-fingered keyboardist. Kenney Jones brought up the rear with blistering drum patterns. This talent-oozing lineup was virtually predestined to conjure excellence. Long Agos and Worlds Apart covers Small Faces’ full, tumultuous story. It explores the group’s 1965 formation, their glory years, their ’70s split into Humble Pie and Faces, the ill-fated Small Faces reunion of the late ’70s, and the little-known but worthy 1981 Small Faces-in-all-but-name project Majik Mijits. A revealing, impartial, exhaustive and definitive account, Longs Agos and Worlds Apart lays to rest several myths about Small Faces while at the same time seeking to redress the lack of credit accorded a truly great band.”
Bedsit Land: The Strange Worlds of Soft Cell
By Patrick Clarke
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “A rich and revealing examination of the legendary pop duo Soft Cell. Soft Cell are not your average pop band. Marc Almond and Dave Ball may be best known for the string of hits they released in 1981, but the powerful first phase of their collaboration embraced a staggering array of sounds, influences and innovations that would change the face of music to come. In Bedsit Land, Patrick Clarke plunges into the archives and interviews more than 60 contributors, including the band members themselves, to follow Soft Cell through the many strange and sprawling worlds that shaped their extraordinary career. They led him from the faded camp glamour of the British seaside to the dizzying thrills of the New York club scene. From transgressive student performance art to the sleaze and squalor of pre-gentrified Soho. From the glitz of British showbiz to the drug-addled chaos of post-Franco Spain.”
Hope I Get Old Before I Die: Why Rock Stars Never Retire
By David Hepworth
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “From the author of Abbey Road comes the story of how enduring rock icons like Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen and many more have remained in the ever-changing music game. When Paul McCartney closed Live Aid in July 1985 we thought he was rock’s grand old man. He was 43 years old. As the 40 years since have shown, he and many others of his generation were just getting started. This was the time when live performance took over from records. The big names of the ’60s and ’70s exploited the age of spectacle that Live Aid had ushered in to enjoy the longest lap of honour in the history of humanity, continuing to go strong long after everyone else had retired. Hence this is a story without precedent, a story in which Elton John plays a royal funeral, Mick Jagger gets a knighthood, Bob Dylan picks up the Nobel Prize, The Beatles become, if anything, bigger than The Beatles and it’s beginning to look as though all of the above will, thanks to the march of technology, be playing Las Vegas for ever.”
Iron Maiden: The Soundtrack Of My Life
By Davide Miotto
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “A passionate journey into the life of an Iron Maiden fan, weaving together decades os music, emotions, and unforgettable memories, An intimate and straightforward story, a shared toast with those who love the most iconic band in heavy metal. With this passionate writing, Davide Miotto retraces four decades of following Iron Maiden, a band that has accompanied nearly his entire life: From carefree adolescence to the first responsibilities, from marriage to fatherhood, from separation to a new rebirth. Discovering at a young age a metal band decidedly different from the others, falling in love with it, and choosing it as the soundtrack of an entire existence: as you turn these pages, you can travel with Davide from the legendary ’80s to the present day, in a journey filled with emotions. Dreams that shatter but then come true, cries of joy, of pain, and many, many beers. With detailed accounts of unforgettable concerts, encounters with the band, frantic races to conquer the long-desired front row, this book offers a unique experience for every Iron Maiden fan, who will easily see themselves reflected in these pages. A story told in a straightforward, no-nonsense style that reads in one breath, without sparing us touching moments. It’s as if the Author were sitting at a table with a good mug of beer in front of all those who, like him, share the passion and devotion for the greatest heavy metal band in history.”
Dolly Parton | All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track
By Simon Benoît, Damien Somville & Lalie Walker
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Take a deep dive into Dolly Parton’s almost-60-year career with this complete guide featuring more than 400 photographs, little-known stories behind each album, and behind-the-scenes details about the recording of each track, the musicians involved, and the songwriting process. Organized chronologically, and covering every album and every song that Dolly has ever released, Dolly Parton | All the Songs is the result of years of research by three Dolly megafans and longtime music journalists. Beginning with a childhood famously spent making music with her family in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains, the book follows along as the country music superstar conquers Nashville, Hollywood, and then the world with her captivating music, unforgettable style, and unmatched humor and kindness. At 608 pages, Dolly Parton | All the Songs is filled with photographs of Dolly in all her glory, and it features tons of fascinating details about Dolly’s recording process, including which musicians appeared on each track, and little-known details about her working relationship with Porter Wagoner (she wrote I Will Always Love You about him), as well as looking at her forays into film stardom with appearances in movies like 9 to 5, Steel Magnolias and the recent series Heartstrings.”
Shoegaze: A 33 1/3 Series
By Ryan Pinkard
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “What the hell is shoegaze? A scene? A movement? A sound? Back in the ’90s, many would have said the so-called genre was entirely fabricated. The term itself, an offensive piss-take given by the notoriously catty and scene-obsessed British music press, was plainly rejected by the absurdly small collection of bands to which it supposedly applied. Today shoegaze is undeniable. As a descriptor and as a source of influence, it is used in more ways and by more bands than anyone could have dreamed of 30 years ago. Between those periods of invention and ubiquity, the term, along with the bands it first described, all but disappeared off the face of the earth. In this ambitious oral history of a genre that has eluded definition for three decades, Ryan Pinkard unearths the first wave of shoegaze, following the core bands, their sounds, their influence, and their journeys in and out of obscurity. His analysis is woven through dozens of original interviews with artists, label heads, and critics. What he discovers is the unlikely odyssey of this esoteric, experimental music form, which nearly became a mainstream entity, only to be viciously killed off, forgotten, and rediscovered by a new generation that regards it as one of the most influential alternative music events since The Velvet Underground.”
Becoming Noise Music: Style, Aesthetics & History
By Stephen Graham
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Becoming Noise Music tells the story of noise music in its first 50 years, using a focus on the music’s sound and aesthetics to do so. Part 1 focuses on the emergence and stabilization of noise music across the 1980s and 1990s, whilst Part 2 explores noise in the 21st century. Each chapter contextualizes — tells the story — of the music under discussion before describing and interpreting its sound and aesthetic. Stephen Graham uses the idea of ‘becoming’ to capture the unresolved ‘dialectical’ tension between ‘noise’ disorder and ‘musical’ order in the music itself; the experiences listeners often have in response; and the overarching ‘story’ or ‘becoming’ of the genre that has taken place in this first fifty or so years. The book therefore doubles up on becoming: it is about both the becoming it identifies in, and the larger, genre-making process of the becoming of, noise music. On the latter count, it is the first scholarly book to focus in such depth and breadth on the sound and story of noise music, as opposed to contextual questions of politics, history or sociology. Relevant to both musicology and noise audiences, Becoming Noise Music investigates a vital but analytically underexplored area of avant-garde musical practice.”
Heavy Sounds in the West
By Hans Verbeke & Onno Hesselink
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “A massive full-colour book recounting the coming of age of heavy metal and hardcore in West Flanders through never before published stories, photos and memorabilia. The organisers, eyewitnesses and band members tell how the slumbering province of West Flanders experienced its rude awakening — first hand, warts ’n’ all. Over 400 pages with 300-plus photos in full colour bring the story to life in this great book, featuring all your heavy faves including Slayer, Metallica, AC/DC, Motörhead, Rush, Van Halen, Kreator, Voivod, Manowar, Venom, Scorpions, The Runaways, Kiss, Ted Nugent, Tokyo Blade, UFO, Crossfire, Mercyful Fate and many more.”
7:42 P.M.: The Art of Chris Mars
By Chris Mars
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Each of the many paintings presented in 7:42 P.M. is a visual novella about the challenges and possibilities of the human condition. It is difficult to do justice to an artist like Chris Mars, whose work is so varied and prolific. Whole volumes could be written about his major themes. In reviewing the multitude of Mars’s paintings, we are constantly reminded of themes from centuries of European art and the extraordinary traditions of Asian Buddhist and Hindu art as well. These pages — filled with haunting portraits of beautiful women combined with skeletal forms, of crowds of wounded people surrounded by medical personnel, of dark landscapes opened up by bright tunnels of light — will hopefully give the reader a more comprehensive view into his complex, inspirational, and beautiful world. The former drummer for beloved indie-rock rascals The Replacements, Mars paints to express personal experiences that led him to confront the torments of misunderstood and unloved individuals whose presence was far outside of the “norm” of social acceptability. He is able to sympathetically and beautifully depict this sense of otherness, isolation, fear, and cruel oppression. He shows us that with care and kindness the world goes on.”
Female Force: Beyoncé
By Michael L. Frizell & Ramon Salas
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Beyoncé‘s transformation from pop royalty to a fierce feminist trailblazer leaves a glittery empowerment trail in her wake. And now, with Cowboy Carter, she’s rustlin’ up a new sound, proving she’s not afraid to ride off into uncharted musical territory. So, grab your hats, and let’s hit the trail with Beyoncé! Writer Michael Frizell and artist Ramon Salas saddle up and ride through the wild, wonderful world of Queen Bey‘s evolution.”
