Download or read book Rock n Roll s Strangest Moments written by Mike Evans and published by Batsford. This book was released on 2014-03-28 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rock music, since its pre-history in blues, country music and 40s and early 50s pop, through to the well-publicised excesses of touring bands of today, has left a legacy of thousands of weird and wonderful stories in its wake. We’ve all read about the Who’s Keith Moon driving a Rolls Royce into a hotel swimming pool, but far more bizarre tales of on-the-road mayhem have never been widely told. Likewise, Svengali-like managers have manipulated starstruck musicians since rock began, though hanging your well-known client from a third floor window was a less usual way of ensuring their loyalty. And just where was the stalled hotel lift in which all four Beatles, according to legend, were turned on to marijuana? There are the unsung heroes of rock – pioneering eccentrics who helped make the music what it is and ended up as mere footnotes in the history books. Men such as UK producer Joe Meek who created seminal classics from a bed-sit above a cleaners on the Holloway Road, and the New York DJ who originally coined the phrase ‘rock 'n’roll’ and died in alcoholic poverty. Not to mention the stories behind the stars: when Debbie Harry was a 'Playboy' Bunny, Paul Simon wrote ‘Homeward Bound’ on Widnes railway station in Lancashire, and the Gallagher brothers (so they claim) were petty thieves.
Download or read book 1001 Bizarre Rock n Roll Stories written by Robert Lodge and published by Carlton Books. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Which rock star died twice in a day? What rock legend's friends decided to steal his body? Which bands were considered cursed? With everything from sex, drugs, and death to fights, feuds, and fallouts, 1001 Bizarre Rock 'n' Roll Stories is the ultimate expos of what rock's most infamous names got up to offstage. Celebrated journalist Robert Lodge chronicles outrageous antics from the birth of jazz through heavy-metal hell-raising and into twenty-first century pop.
Download or read book Just Around Midnight written by Jack Hamilton and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-26 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Jimi Hendrix died, the idea of a black man playing lead guitar in a rock band seemed exotic. Yet ten years earlier, Chuck Berry had stood among the most influential rock and roll performers. Why did rock and roll become white? Jack Hamilton challenges the racial categories that distort standard histories of rock music and the 60s revolution.
Download or read book They Just Seem a Little Weird written by Doug Brod and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A veteran music journalist explores how four legendary rock bands—KISS, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, and Starz—laid the foundation for two diametrically opposed subgenres: hair metal in the '80s and grunge in the '90s. It was the age when heavy-footed, humorless dinosaurs roamed the hard-rock landscape. But that all changed when into these dazed and confused mid-'70s strut-ted four flamboyant bands that reveled in revved-up anthems and flaunted a novel theatricality. In They Just Seem a Little Weird, veteran entertainment journalist Doug Brod offers an eye- and ear-opening look at a crucial moment in music history, when rock became fun again and a gig became a show. This is the story of friends and frenemies who rose, fell, and soared once more, often sharing stages, studios, producers, engineers, managers, agents, roadies, and fans-and who are still collaborating more than forty years on. In the tradition of David Browne's Fire and Rain and Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us, They Just Seem a Little Weird seamlessly interweaves the narratives of KISS, Cheap Trick, and Aerosmith with that of Starz, a criminally neglected band whose fate may have been sealed by a shocking act of violence. This is also the story of how these distinctly American groups-three of them now enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-laid the foundation for two seemingly opposed rock genres: the hair metal of Poison, Skid Row, and Mötley Crüe and the grunge of Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and the Melvins. Deeply researched, and featuring more than 130 new interviews, this book is nothing less than a secret history of classic rock.
Download or read book Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon written by David McGowan and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2014-03-19 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The very strange but nevertheless true story of the dark underbelly of a 1960s hippie utopia. Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s was a magical place where a dizzying array of musical artists congregated to create much of the music that provided the soundtrack to those turbulent times. Members of bands like the Byrds, the Doors, Buffalo Springfield, the Monkees, the Beach Boys, the Turtles, the Eagles, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Steppenwolf, CSN, Three Dog Night and Love, along with such singer/songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, James Taylor and Carole King, lived together and jammed together in the bucolic community nestled in the Hollywood Hills. But there was a dark side to that scene as well. Many didn’t make it out alive, and many of those deaths remain shrouded in mystery to this day. Far more integrated into the scene than most would like to admit was a guy by the name of Charles Manson, along with his murderous entourage. Also floating about the periphery were various political operatives, up-and-coming politicians and intelligence personnel – the same sort of people who gave birth to many of the rock stars populating the canyon. And all the canyon’s colorful characters – rock stars, hippies, murderers and politicos – happily coexisted alongside a covert military installation.
Download or read book The Accidental Evolution Of Rock n roll written by Chuck Eddy and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 1997-03-22 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History, jokebook, buying guide, book of lists, and treatise all rolled into one, The Accidental Evolution of Rock'n'Roll is most of all a joyride through the wildest music ever made. Whether discussing Def Leppard or Nirvana, Vanilla Ice or Public Enemy, Donna Summer or Bob Dylan, Chuck Eddy is an unparalleled master at deciphering unknown tongues and disentangling musical accidents. In this lavishly and hilariously illustrated book, he reveals the roots of rap, disco, power ballads, bubblegum, suburban country, and noise-rock; why selling out is good and honesty is never what it seems; the similarities between disco and garage rock and between reggae and heavy metal; whether songs can ever really "mean" anything; what math rock has in common with amputation rock and orgasm rock; and much, much more. By eventually encompassing the whole wacky world of popular music, this book is destined to change it forever.
Download or read book Moments of Valuation written by Ariane Berthoin Antal and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-01-29 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The outcome of innovation processes are determined by complex, historically grown valuation practices. In this book, a wide range of innovations are taken into consideration, from small inventions like entertainment novelties to large societal changes through new technologies. The chapters observe the particular local or distributed sites in which their episodes of innovation take place, and they identify the initial dissonance among those judging a newly proposed alternative. The emphasis of the inquiry, however, is on the practices of valuation that are at work when something succeeds in being "new". The authors represent a wide variety of sub-disciplines and national backgrounds in the social sciences. They share an interest in social valuation and a pragmatist approach. The differences between their empirical evidence reflect the wide variety of appearances that valuation takes in contemporary society. They are anthropologists, economic or cultural sociologists, organization researchers, historians or political scientists. A number of chapters deals with aesthetic valuation, as in the tasting of a new vintage, or in the socio-technical process that shaped successful synthesizer sounds. Other chapters discuss the judgment processes in organizations, like architect offices or consultancy firms, and processes of evaluation and valorization in larger fields of practice, like accounting or mathematics. The studies are both of interest in their various professional fields, and contribute to a more general understanding of the social and cultural conditions under which innovations fail and succeed.
Download or read book Baby Boomer Rock n Roll Fans written by Joseph A. Kotarba and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on 18 years of sociological research and 52 years of rock 'n' roll fandom, Baby Boomer Rock 'n' Roll Fans: The Music Never Ends draws on data collected from participant observations and interviews with artists, fans, and producers to explore our aging rock culture throug...
Download or read book Rock n Roll Plays Itself written by John Scanlan and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2022-07-18 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A raucous cultural history of rock’s relationship with the moving image. When rock ’n’ roll burst into life in the 1950s, the shockwaves echoed around the world, amplified by images of untamed youth projected on cinema screens. But for the performers themselves, corporate showbusiness remained very much in control, contriving a series of cash-in movies to exploit the new musical fad. In this riveting cultural history, John Scanlan explores rock’s relationship with the moving image over seven decades in cinema, television, music videos, advertising, and YouTube. Along the way, he shows how rock was exploited, how it inspired film pioneers, and, not least, the film transformations it caused over more than half a century. From Elvis Presley to David Bowie, and from Scorpio Rising to the films of Scorsese and DIY documentarists like Don Letts, this is a unique retelling of the story of rock—from birth to old age—through its onscreen life.
Download or read book Strange Beautiful Music written by Joe Satriani and published by BenBella Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Go behind the scenes with the musician The New York Times called "a guitar God!" Oft-hailed as the Jimi Hendrix of his generation, living guitar legend Joe Satriani has long transcended stylistic boundaries with a sound that raises the bar like a new horizon for the broader genre of instrumental guitar rock. Joe's 6-string secrets have astounded listeners around the world for nearly 30 years. In Strange Beautiful Music: A Musical Memoir, Satriani and coauthor, music biographer Jake Brown, take fans on their first authorized tour of the story behind his climb to stardom and the creative odyssey involved in writing and recording a storied catalog of classics including "Surfing with the Alien," "Summer Song," "Satch Boogie," "Always With Me, Always With You," "The Extremist," "Flying in a Blue Dream," "Crowd Chant," and more. Featuring previously unpublished photos and hours of exclusive, firsthand interviews with Satriani, Strange Beautiful Music offers a unique look inside the studio with Joe, giving fans a chance to get up close and personal like never before. With insider details about his collaboration with multi-platinum supergroup Chickenfoot, exclusive interviews with Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony of Van Halen and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, commentary from fellow guitar legends such as Steve Vai, Metallica's Kirk Hammett, Primus's Larry LaLonde, and legendary music producers including Glynn Johns and the late Andy Johns, this memoir offers a rare inside look for die-hard Satriani fans, guitar enthusiasts, and anyone who loves to rock.
Download or read book Text and Drugs and Rock n Roll written by Simon Warner and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-03-14 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Text and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll explores the interaction between two of the most powerful socio-cultural movements in the post-war years - the literary forces of the Beat Generation and the musical energies of rock and its attendant culture. Simon Warner examines the interweaving strands, seeded by the poet/novelists Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and others in the 1940s and 1950s, and cultivated by most of the major rock figures who emerged after 1960 - Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Bowie, the Clash and Kurt Cobain, to name just a few. This fascinating cultural history delves into a wide range of issues: Was rock culture the natural heir to the activities of the Beats? Were the hippies the Beats of the 1960s? What attitude did the Beat writers have towards musical forms and particularly rock music? How did literary works shape the consciousness of leading rock music-makers and their followers? Why did Beat literature retain its cultural potency with later rock musicians who rejected hippie values? How did rock musicians use the material of Beat literature in their own work? How did Beat figures become embroiled in the process of rock creativity? These questions are addressed through a number of approaches - the influence of drugs, the relevance of politics, the effect of religious and spiritual pursuits, the rise of the counter-culture, the issue of sub-cultures and their construction, and so on. The result is a highly readable history of the innumerable links between two of the most revolutionary artistic movements of the last 60 years.
Download or read book Rock n Roll Lies written by Donny Levit and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2015-09-18 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young woman from a Coney Island female gang called the Surf Avenue Riots is forever changed by a mystifying event at the Freak Show. Three tough Modern Orthodox Jewish kids from Midwood form a rock n’ roll band that becomes an instant legend. A gruesome font escapes from the boundaries of a computer screen dead set on attacking Brooklyn, but the font faces a formidable opponent in a young woman who rallies every Brooklyn neighborhood together in a desperate attempt to save the borough. Donny Levit’s ten stories are jittery adventures that whisk you through the strange comforts of urban existence. Both hysterical and haunting, Rock n’ Roll Lies will stay with you. The next time you meet a stranger on the subway, you just may wonder where they came from. And where they’re going. Careful, you may want to join that stranger for the adventure of your life.
Download or read book History of Rock n Roll in Ten Songs written by Greil Marcus and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legendary critic and author of Mystery Train “ingeniously retells the tale of rock and roll” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Unlike previous versions of rock ’n’ roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects ten songs and dramatizes how each embodies rock ’n’ roll as a thing in itself, in the story it tells, inhabits, and acts out—a new language, something new under the sun. “Transmission” by Joy Division. “All I Could Do Was Cry” by Etta James and then Beyoncé. “To Know Him Is to Love Him,” first by the Teddy Bears and almost half a century later by Amy Winehouse. In Marcus’s hands these and other songs tell the story of the music, which is, at bottom, the story of the desire for freedom in all its unruly and liberating glory. Slipping the constraints of chronology, Marcus braids together past and present, holding up to the light the ways that these striking songs fall through time and circumstance, gaining momentum and meaning, astonishing us by upending our presumptions and prejudices. This book, by a founder of contemporary rock criticism—and its most gifted and incisive practitioner—is destined to become an enduring classic. “One of the epic figures in rock writing.”—The New York Times Book Review “Marcus is our greatest cultural critic, not only because of what he says but also, as with rock-and-roll itself, how he says it.”—The Washington Post Winner of the Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award in Music Criticism, given by the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers
Download or read book Front Row At The White House written by Helen Thomas and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1999-08-14 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I'm still here, still arriving at the White House in the wee hours of the morning, reading the papers and checking the wire, still waiting for the morning briefing, still sitting down to write the first story of the day and still waiting to ask the tough questions." From the woman who has reported on every president from Kennedy to Clinton for United Press International: a unique glimpse into the White House -- and a telling record of the ever-changing relationship between the presidency and the press. From her earliest years, Helen Thomas wanted to be a reporter. Raised in Depression-era Detroit, she worked her way to Washington after college and, unlike other women reporters who gave up their jobs to returning veterans, parlayed her copy-aide job at the Washington Daily News into a twelve-year stint as a radio news writer for UPI, covering such beats as the Department of Justice and other federal agencies. Assigned to the White House press corps in 1961, Thomas was the first woman to close a press conference with "Thank you, Mr. President," and has covered every administration since Kennedy's. Along the way, she was among the pioneers who broke down barriers against women in the national media, becoming the first female president of the White House Correspondents Association, the first female officer of the National Press Club and the first woman member, later president, of the Gridiron Club. In this revealing memoir, which includes hundreds of anecdotes, insights, observations, and personal details, Thomas looks back at a career spent with presidents at home and abroad, on the ground and in the air. She evaluates the enormous changes that Watergate brought, including diminished press access to the Oval Office, and how they have affected every president since Nixon. Providing a unique view of the past four decades of presidential history, Front Row at the White House offers a seasoned study of the relationship between the chief executive officer and the press -- a relationship that is sometimes uneasy, sometimes playful, yet always integral to democracy. "Soon enough there will be another president, another first lady, another press secretary and a whole new administration to discover. I'm looking forward to it -- although I'm sure whoever ends up in the Oval Office in a new century may not be so thrilled about the prospect."
Download or read book Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock n Roll Group written by Ian Svenonius and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Washington, D.C.-based rock 'n' roll antihero Ian F. Svenonius provides an unparalleled and exquisitely provocative how-to guide for rock bands.
Download or read book Strange Fascination written by David Buckley and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sunday Times bestseller. David Bowie was arguably the most influential artist of his time, reinventing himself again and again, transforming music, style and art for over five decades. David Buckley's unique approach to unravelling the Bowie enigma, via interviews with many of the singer's closest associates, biography and academic analysis, makes this unrivalled biography a classic for Bowie fans old and new. This revised edition of Strange Fascination captures exclusive details about the tours, the making of the albums, the arguments, the split-ups, the music and, most importantly, the man himself. Also including exclusive photographic material, Strange Fascination is the most complete account of David Bowie and his impact on pop culture ever written.
Download or read book Rock n Film written by David E. James and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-23 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the mid-1950s, rock 'n' roll amalgamated earlier black and white working-class musical traditions to displace the Great American Songbook's hegemony over Anglophone popular music. At the same time, the classic musical was both displaced and re-created in a new form of film: the rock 'n' roll musical. For the next two decades, the genre's evolution in the United States and the United Kingdom accompanied and sustained the emergence, flowering, and decay of a counterculture. Cinema was second only to records in the production of the new cultural gestalt that the music generated."--[Source inconnue].
