Experimentalism Otherwise


Book Description

A book about the links between avant garde music and the art scene in New York City in the 1960s. John Cage and Iggy Pop, together at last.




Babble On


Book Description

Babble On is the autobiography from Alex Paterson, co-founder of legendary house group The Orb.




Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire


Book Description

In Dark Ages America, the pundit Morris Berman argues that the nation has entered a dangerous phase in its historical development from which there is no return. As the corporate-consumerist juggernaut that now defines the nation rolls on, the very factors that once propelled America to greatness—extreme individualism, territorial and economic expansion, and the pursuit of material wealth—are, paradoxically, the nails in our collective coffin. Within a few decades, Berman argues, the United States will be marginalized on the world stage, its hegemony replaced by China or the European Union. With the United States just one terrorist attack away from a police state, Berman's book is a controversial and illuminating look at our current society and its ills.




Lightning Striking


Book Description

“We have performed side-by-side on the global stage through half a century…. In Lightning Striking, Lenny Kaye has illuminated ten facets of the jewel called rock and roll from a uniquely personal and knowledgeable perspective.” –Patti Smith An insider’s take on the evolution and enduring legacy of the music that rocked the twentieth century Memphis 1954. New Orleans 1957. Philadelphia 1959. Liverpool 1962. San Francisco 1967. Detroit 1969. New York, 1975. London 1977. Los Angeles 1984 / Norway 1993. Seattle 1991. Rock and roll was birthed in basements and garages, radio stations and dance halls, in cities where unexpected gatherings of artists and audience changed and charged the way music is heard and celebrated, capturing lightning in a bottle. Musician and writer Lenny Kaye explores ten crossroads of time and place that define rock and roll, its unforgettable flashpoints, characters, and visionaries; how each generation came to be; how it was discovered by the world. Whether describing Elvis Presley’s Memphis, the Beatles’ Liverpool, Patti Smith’s New York, or Kurt Cobain’s Seattle, Lightning Striking reveals the communal energy that creates a scene, a guided tour inside style and performance, to see who’s on stage, along with the movers and shakers, the hustlers and hangers-on--and why everybody is listening. Grandly sweeping and minutely detailed, informed by Kaye’s acclaimed knowledge and experience as a working musician, Lightning Striking is an ear-opening insight into our shared musical and cultural history, a magic carpet ride of rock and roll’s most influential movements and moments.




Rip It Up and Start Again


Book Description

A landmark history of post-punk, the basis of the documentary film directed by Nikolaos Katranis Renowned music journalist Simon Reynolds celebrates the futurist spirit of such bands as Joy Division, Gang of Four, Talking Heads, and Devo, which resulted in endless innovations in music, lyrics, performance, and style and continued into the early eighties with the video-savvy synth-pop of groups such as Human League, Depeche Mode, and Soft Cell, whose success coincided with the rise of MTV. Full of insight and anecdotes and populated by charismatic characters, Rip It Up and Start Again re-creates the idealism, urgency, and excitement of one of the most important and challenging periods in the history of popular music.




Carla Bley


Book Description

This is the first comprehensive treatment of the remarkable music and influence of Carla Bley, a highly innovative American jazz composer, pianist, organist, band leader, and activist. With fastidious attention to Bley's diverse compositions over the last fifty years spanning critical moments in jazz and experimental music history, Amy C. Beal tenders a long-overdue representation of a major figure in American music. Best known for her jazz opera "Escalator over the Hill," her role in the Free Jazz movement of the 1960s, and her collaborations with artists such as Jack Bruce, Don Cherry, Robert Wyatt, and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, Bley has successfully maneuvered the field of jazz from highly accessible, tradition-based contexts to commercially unviable, avant-garde works. Beal details the staggering variety in Bley's work as well as her use of parody, quotations, and contradictions, examining the vocabulary Bley has developed throughout her career and highlighting the compositional and cultural significance of her experimentalism. Beal also points to Bley's professional and managerial work as a pioneer in the development of artist-owned record labels, the cofounder and manager of WATT Records, and the cofounder of New Music Distribution Service. Showing her to be not just an artist but an activist who has maintained musical independence and professional control amid the profit-driven, corporation-dominated world of commercial jazz, Beal's straightforward discussion of Bley's life and career will stimulate deeper examinations of her work.




Fender


Book Description

book for musicians, instrument collectors, and fans of Fender. This, at last, is the complete Fender story." --Book Jacket.




Lollipop Lounge


Book Description

Always the pioneer, Genya formed Goldie and the Gingerbreads in the early sixties, touring behind a string of European hits with the Stones, Kinks, Yardbirds and Hollies as the first all female rock and roll band. Later she resurfaced back in the US as the powerful voice of Ten Wheel Drive, one of the original horn jazz-fusion bands. In the Seventies she expanded her repertoire becoming the world's first independent female producer, with critically acclaimed records by Ronnie Spector and the Dead Boys, 'Young Loud and Snotty', labelled the ultimate punk album by many reviewers. During the same period Hilly Krystal summoned Genya to head up CBGB Records.In 2003 she received accolades for her memoir, Lollipop Lounge, one of the great tales of Rock and Roll survival. In it she speaks candidly about her childhood as a holocaust survivor, a teenage immigrant growing up in the tenements of New York's lower East Side, her career and survival of both addiction and lung cancer. In 2011 The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum included Goldie and the Gingerbreads in their Women in Music exhibit. In 2012 her latest CD, the autobiographical, Cheesecake Girl, was released to rave reviews. She also appears on the posthumous Joey Ramona release, 'New York City', and a portion of her story is about to hit the big screen as Castle star, Stana Katic portrays her character in the new feature film, 'CBGBs' scheduled for a 2013 release. She continues to host two monthly radio shows for Little Steven's Underground Garage on Sirius/XM: 'Chicks and Broads' in which she covers the often forgotten music of female artists from the 50's to the present, as well as showcasing new and unsigned bands in 'Goldie's Garage'.




Queer Futures


Book Description

In this special issue of Radical History Review, scholars and activists examine the rise of "homonormativity," a lesbian and gay politics that embraces neoliberal values under the guise of queer sexual liberation. Contributors look at the historical forces through which lesbian and gay rights organizations and community advocates align with social conservatives and endorse family-oriented formations associated with domestic partnership, adoption, military service, and gender-normative social roles. Distinguished by its historical approach, "Queer Futures" examines homonormativity as a phenomenon that emerged in the United States after World War II and gained traction in the 1960s and 1970s. One essay compares Anita Bryant's antigay campaigns in the late 1970s with those of current same-sex marriage proponents to show how both focus on the abstract figure of the "endangered child." Another essay explores how the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's organizational amnesia has shaped its often conservative agenda. Other essays include a Marxist reading of the transsexual body, an examination of reactionary politics at the core of the movement to repeal the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and a history of how "safe streets" patrols in the 1970s and 1980s became opportunities for urban gentrification and community exploitation. Contributors. Anna M. Agathangelou, Daniel Bassichis, Aaron Belkin, Nan Alamilla Boyd, Maxime Cervulle, Vincent Doyle, Roderick A. Ferguson, Christina Hanhardt, Dan Irving, Regina Kunzel, Patrick McCreery, Kevin P. Murphy, Tavia Nyong'o, Jason Ruiz, David Serlin, Tamara L. Spira, Susan Stryker, Margot D. Weiss