No Sleep Till Canvey Island


Book Description

It began with an outrageous press trip to New York to launch unknown rock band Brinsley Schwarz, which went disastrously wrong, and it went on to launch the careers of Ian Dury, Elvis Costello and Joe Strummer. The pub rock scene of the early 1970s was one of the most eventful and important in British music history.




A Howlin' Wind


Book Description

A fascinating study of how pub rock started, thrived and ultimately evolved into the New Wave. Blaney starts during the 1960s with the hippie roots of the movement, and then covers the main bands (Eggs Over Easy, Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe et al). He explains how many of the Pub Rock bands re-invented themselves as New Wave acts (Kilburn and the High Roads becoming Ian Dury and the Blockheads, for example), often as a result of universities being awash with money and being able to pay over the odds for acts, thus putting the landlords of live music pubs out of business.




Cruel to Be Kind


Book Description

The definitive biography of singer-songwriter Nick Lowe, best-known for "Cruel to Be Kind" and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" Described as "Britain's greatest living songwriter," Nick Lowe has made his mark as a pioneer of pub rock, power-pop, and punk rock and as a producer of Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, the Damned, and the Pretenders. He has been a pop star with his bands Brinsley Schwarz and Rockpile, a stepson-in-law to Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, and is the writer behind hits including "Cruel to Be Kind" and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding." In the past decades, however, he has distinguished himself as an artist who is equally acclaimed for the second act of his career as a tender yet sharp-tongued acoustic balladeer. Biographer Will Birch, who in addition to being a music writer was a drummer and songwriter with The Records, has known Lowe for over forty years and melds Lowe's gift as a witty raconteur with his own authoritative analysis of Lowe's background and the cultural scenes he exemplifies. Lowe's parallel fame as one of the best interviews in the business will contribute to this first look into his life and work--and likely the closest thing fans will get to an autobiography by this notoriously charming cult figure. This is not an authorized biography, but Lowe has given it his spiritual blessing and his management and label are fully on board. Cruel to Be Kind will be the colorful yet serious account of one of the world's most talented and admired musicians.




Ian Dury


Book Description

Widely described as 'punk's poet laureate', Ian Dury is a cultural icon. With his band The Blockheads, he exploded onto the television screen in 1978, appearing on "Top of the Pops" with his hit single 'What a Waste', followed later that year by 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick'. By now Ian was thirty-six and had worked hard for many years to reach this moment, struggling all the while to find acceptance inspite of the disability he suffered as a result of childhood polio. And yet fame, when it came, almost destroyed him. This groundbreaking and authoritative book gives the first in-depth and compelling account of the life of this charismatic yet complex artist. Author Will Birch interviewed Dury several times during his lifetime, and has also spoken to more than sixty people who were extremely close to Ian, including family members, fellow musicians, friends, lovers and business associates.




Unconditional Surrender


Book Description

'Unconditional Surrender' is a satire on the English class system. The writer takes a dig at the way the ruling class and their sense of entitlement, even when the country is in a global conflict, can plan through the bureaucracy to make their way into the far less dangerous and more comfortable theatres of war.




The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English


Book Description

Booklist Top of the List Reference Source The heir and successor to Eric Partridge's brilliant magnum opus, The Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, this two-volume New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English is the definitive record of post WWII slang. Containing over 60,000 entries, this new edition of the authoritative work on slang details the slang and unconventional English of the English-speaking world since 1945, and through the first decade of the new millennium, with the same thorough, intense, and lively scholarship that characterized Partridge's own work. Unique, exciting and, at times, hilariously shocking, key features include: unprecedented coverage of World English, with equal prominence given to American and British English slang, and entries included from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, South Africa, Ireland, and the Caribbean emphasis on post-World War II slang and unconventional English published sources given for each entry, often including an early or significant example of the term’s use in print. hundreds of thousands of citations from popular literature, newspapers, magazines, movies, and songs illustrating usage of the headwords dating information for each headword in the tradition of Partridge, commentary on the term’s origins and meaning New to this edition: A new preface noting slang trends of the last five years Over 1,000 new entries from the US, UK and Australia New terms from the language of social networking Many entries now revised to include new dating, new citations from written sources and new glosses The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English is a spectacular resource infused with humour and learning – it’s rude, it’s delightful, and it’s a prize for anyone with a love of language.




The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English: A-I


Book Description

Entry includes attestations of the head word's or phrase's usage, usually in the form of a quotation. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).




Hawkwind


Book Description

Hawkwind's fusion of agit-prop and improvised space rock-including Lemmy and lyrics by Michael Moorcock-made them intriguing outsiders in rock. For over 30 years, Hawkwind have successfully existed outside the traditional music business, and spawned a fanatical fanbase. This high quality, authoritative biography contains dozens of new interviews with band members and over 100 rare illustrations, many published for the first time. With a cover designed by Hawkwind's own sleeve artist Peter Pracownik and full co-operation of the all the key protagonists, this authoritative, high-quality biography is the definitive account of one of the UK's most innovative bands.




The Vinyl Countdown


Book Description

VINYL MAY BE FINAL NAIL IN CD’S COFFIN ran the headline in a Wired magazine article in October 2007. Ever since the arrival of the long—playing record in 1948, the album has acted as the soundtrack to our lives. Record collections—even on a CD or iPod-are personal treasures, revealing our loves, errors in judgment, and lapses in taste. In The Vinyl Countdown, Travis Elborough explores the way in which particular albums are deeply embedded in cultural history or so ubiquitous as to be almost invisible. While music itself has experienced several different movements over the past sixty years, the album has remained a constant. But the way we listen to music has changed in the last ten years. In the age of the iPod, when we can download an infinite number of single tracks instantaneously, does the concept of the album mean anything? Elborough moves chronologically through relevant periods, letting the story of the LP, certain genres, youth cults, and topics like sleeve designs, shops, drugs, and education unfurl as he goes along. The Vinyl Countdown is a brilliant piece of popular history, an idiosyncratic tribute to a much-loved part of our shared consciousness, and a celebration of the joy of records.




The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English: J-Z


Book Description

Entry includes attestations of the head word's or phrase's usage, usually in the form of a quotation. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).