Rock History

Math rock sounds like blueprints look: exact, precise, architectural. This trance-like progressive metal music with indie rock and jazz influences has been captivating and challenging listeners for decades. Bands associated with the genre include King Crimson, Black Flag, Don Caballero, Slint, American Football, Toe, Elephant Gym, Covet, and thousands more. In an online age of bedroom producers and sampled beats and loops, math rock is music that is absolutely and resolutely played: men and woman in rooms with instruments creating chaos, beauty, and beautiful chaos.

1973 was the year rock hit its peak while splintering-just like the rest of the world. Ziggy Stardust traveled to America in David Bowie's "Aladdin Sane". The Dark Side of the Moon began its epic run on the Billboard charts, inspired by the madness of Pink Floyd's founder, while all four former Beatles scored top 10 albums, two hitting number one. FM battled AM; Motown battled Philly on the charts, as the era of protest soul gave way to disco. DJ Kool Herc gave birth to hip hop in the Bronx. The glam rock of the New York Dolls and Alice Cooper split into glam metal and punk.

Jon Savage's oral history of Joy Division is the last word on the band that ended with the suicide of Ian Curtis in Macclesfield on May 18, 1980. It weaves together interviews conducted by the author, but never used in the making of the film Joy Division, which told the story of the band in their own words, as well as those of their peers, collaborators, and contemporaries.

Five brothers served. Only two came home. What Leora Never Knew: A Granddaughter’s Quest for Answers is Joy Neal Kidney’s journey of research and remembrance, and the companion book to Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II. Joy Neal Kidney’s new book, What Leora Never Knew: A Granddaughter’s Quest for Answers, masterfully captures the essence of “The Greatest Generation” through her family lens. – John Busbee, The Culture Buzz We must never forget these young men who served our nation and who paid the ultimate sacrifice with their...

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 40 years on.

However you found your way into indie rock, once you were a listener, it felt like being part of a secret club of people who had discovered something special, something secret, something superior. In Such Great Heights, music journalist Chris DeVille brilliantly captures this cultural moment, from the early aughts and the height of indie rock, until the 2010s as streaming upends the industry and changes music forever.

From surf music to hot-rod records to the sunny pop of the Beach Boys and the Mamas & the Papas, Hollywood Eden captures the fresh blossom of a young generation who came together in the epic spring of the 1960s to invent the myth of the California Paradise. Central to the story is a group of sun-kissed teens from the University High School class of 1959 - a class that included Jan & Dean, Nancy Sinatra, and future members of the Beach Boys - who came of age in Los Angeles at the dawn of a new golden era when anything seemed possible.

Captain Arturo Sanders was having a bad day. First the routine destruction of some ancient automatic defense batteries became a disaster, when his ship’s screens failed, and he had no choice to abandon ship. Then he had to rescue two left behind crew people, which meant he missed the main shuttle evacuation leaving him and his two companions in a shuttle on their own at the rear.

Acquired wisdom has always put Sgt. Pepper at the head of the class, but it was Revolver that truly signaled The Beatles' sea change from a functional band to a studio-based ensemble. These changes began before Rubber Soul but came to fruition on Revolver, which took an astonishing 300 hours to produce, far more than any rock record before it.

A fitting tribute to the troubled genius who revolutionized electric bass playing and bridged the gaps between jazz, R&B, rock, and funk. From his early days in R&B club bands through his international stardom with fusion group Weather Report and on to his solo career and tragic death at age 35, this book portrays the life and music of Jaco Pastorius, the self-proclaimed "world's greatest bass player".

#1 Best Seller: 'Rock Music' (April 2023), 'General Broadcasting' (June 2023), 'Radio History' (Sep 2023), Radio Reference (Feb 2024). Broadcast Hall of Fame Inductee Rick Dees: "WOW, you created a masterpiece. You are #1!" A reader Steve ***** describes it as "A love letter to radio." Carol ******** says, "One of the most interesting and comprehensive books I have ever read!" "Disc Jockeys, Preachers, and Elvis" by Ron Brandon is widely praised as an engaging and authentic memoir that offers a unique, insider's perspective on the golden age of radio and rock & roll. The book is ...

Hangdog Days vividly chronicles the era when rock climbing exploded in popularity, attracting a new generation of talented climbers eager to reach new heights via harder routes and faster ascents. This contentious, often entertaining period gave rise to sport climbing, climbing gyms, and competitive climbing-indelibly transforming the sport. Jeff Smoot was one of those brash young climbers, and here he traces the development of traditional climbing "rules," enforced first through peer pressure, then later through intimidation and sabotage.

In 1969, in Capitol Records' Hollywood studio, a blonde-haired troubadour named Larry Norman laid track for an album that would launch a new genre of music and one of the strangest, most interesting careers in modern rock. Having spent the bulk of the 1960s playing on bills with acts like The Who, Janis Joplin, and The Doors, Norman decided that he wanted to sing about the most countercultural subject of all: Jesus.

In this conclusion to his trilogy of authoritative books on Canada's most beloved and successful rock band, Martin Popoff takes us through three decades of "life at the top" for Rush's Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart. Though this era begins with the brisk-selling Roll the Bones and sees throngs of fans sell out international tours, there is also unimaginable tragedy.

"The Rock Trenches: Journal of a Music Industry Executive" by Phillip Rauls is the memoir of a Memphis-born music promoter who worked with some of the top rock 'n' roll recording artists of the 1960s-1990s, including the Gentrys, Robert Palmer, Yes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Eagles, and Led Zeppelin, to name a few. The Rock Trenches begins with Phillip as he gains entry into the music business by becoming the road manager for a local band just out of high school, the Gentrys. The Memphis band scored a million selling record in 1965 titled "Keep On Dancing" and Rauls...

James Meredith’s struggle to integrate the University of Mississippi in 1962 is still remembered vividly, but the Little Rock Nine are frequently overlooked when it comes to discussing the Civil Rights Movement, despite attempting to integrate Little Rock Central High School five years earlier. For millions of kids, high school is a tumultuous time, but for the Little Rock Nine, the first African American students to attend a previously segregated high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, those years were nightmarish.

Beneath the empire’s polished rails, something ancient stirs—and it’s hungry for more than steam. Disgraced inspector Alaric Voss thought exile had ended his days chasing ghosts. But when a train vanishes without a trace on the Trans-Etherian Line, he’s summoned to the frontier town of Ketter’s Gate. There, he finds a town gripped by fear, an engineer with fire in her veins, and whispers of a conspiracy buried deep in the steel bones of the empire. Riona Flint, brilliant and wary, is searching for her missing father—the chief architect of the railway—and the secrets he left ...

From behind the walls of a handful of well-hidden, unlikely recording studios in the Los Angeles area, legends-in-waiting created masterpiece albums. It was a time of astonishing creativity and unprecedented fame and fortune. It was also a time of unfettered excess that threatened to unravel everything along the way. With access that only a longtime music business insider can provide, Kent Hartman packs Goodnight, L.A. with never-before-told stories about the most prolific time and iconic place in rock 'n' roll history.

High Drama explores rock climbing's transformation from a pursuit of select anti-establishment vagabonds to a sport embraced by competitors of all ages, social classes, and backgrounds. Climbing magazine's John Burgman weaves a multi-layered story of traditionalists and opportunists, grassroots organizers and business-minded developers, free-spirited rebels and rigorously coached athletes. Deeply reported and compellingly told, this is a celebration of climbing and the pivotal figures who made its growth possible....

On January 15, 1921, five members of the infamous Bigham family of Pamplico, South Carolina, were gunned down in cold blood during a one-hour killing spree, resulting in the prosecution – across six years, three trials and many appeals – of Edmund Dalrimple Bigham for their murders. This was the culmination of a nearly one-hundred-year reign of terror by successive members of the Bigham family, including many other murders, as well as serial extortion, fraud and systematic embezzlement that the authorities were mostly powerless to stop. Current interest in another five deaths, between ...