Rock Music Memoirs

Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities, I have decided to tell these stories just as I have always done, in my own voice. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I’ve recorded and can’t wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child.

As an only child reeling from the demolition of her parents’ toxic marriage, the New York City underground music scene offers a young Ali a different family of misfits and talented outsiders to belong to. She becomes the bass player for edgy band Speedball Baby, a decision that will take her around the world—from onstage at the legendary CBGBs to the red-light district of Amsterdam. She’s often the only girl in a broken-down tour van, being strip-searched at the Croatian border, chased by lunatics, and navigating the seedy underbelly of a male-dominated music scene.

The revealing backstory of the album with no name that spawned 'When the Levee Breaks', 'Black Dog,' 'Stairway to Heaven', and 'Rock 'n' Roll'. Four tracks each side; eight killers, no fillers. This is how they did it.

At its heart, Under A Rock is a love story. The codependent bond between Chris Stein and Debbie Harry carried Blondie through their many tribulations: terribly misogynistic music scenes, greasy record execs, bitter band mates, gruelling schedules, and hard drug abuse abound, and Chris lays it all bare with blunt sincerity and humour. Ultimately, Chris and Debbie broke up, but their bond never dissipated; they remain closest of friends, and continue to tour and promote their various projects together to this day.

Patti Smith arrived in New York City at the end of the Age of Aquarius in search of work and purpose. What she found—what she fostered—was a cultural revolution. Through her poetry, her songs, her unapologetic vocal power, and her very presence as a woman fronting a rock band, she kicked open a door that countless others walked through. No other musician has better embodied the 'nothing-to-hide' rawness of punk, nor has any other done more to nurture a place in society for misfits of every stripe.

I Was There is a memoir by Alan Edwards, the godfather of modern music PR, whose stellar list of clients has ranged over the years from the Rolling Stones to the Spice Girls via the Stranglers, Blondie, Prince, Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse and, outside of music, David Beckham and Naomi Campbell. Edwards describes getting his break in the mid-1970s as a scruffy 20-year-old back from the hippy trail; his encounter with London’s thriving punk scene, which inspired him to set up his own PR company; finding success as his work with the likes of Blondie and Bowie takes him to the US and beyond.

In 1983, backstage at the Lyceum in London, Tracey Thorn and Lindy Morrison first met. Tracey's music career with the Marine Girls had just begun, while Lindy, drummer for The Go-Betweens, was ten years her senior. They became confidantes, comrades and best friends, a relationship cemented by activism and agitprop theatre, lesbian punk bands and rock 'n' roll love affairs. Morrison came to be a kind of mentor to Thorn, a strong female role model in a male dominated industry. They both faced a chauvinist music media wanting them to behave to type.

Leaving school and starting his career at Decca Records in 1958 at the age of sixteen, Tony King would soon find himself becoming close friends with Elton John, rekindling John Lennon and Yoko Ono's relationship, mediating a quarrelsome Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and spending time with Freddie Mercury in his final days - a far cry from his childhood days in Eastbourne. Living in an era of seismic social, technological and cultural transformation, King experienced these defining moments as a stalwart in London and New York's gay scenes.

PEN/Hemingway Award-winner Bobbie Ann Mason turns her acumen on one of 20th-century America's most mysterious icons, The King himself. This new biography eschews sensational speculation to paint a thoughtfully researched but wholly felt portrait of the man-child, simultaneously naive and shrewd, who metamorphosed into a hero, one of the most popular and least supported characters in American history.

Along Comes the Association is the story of how Russ Giguere and his fellow band members in the legendary and influential pop group The Association came together to create unparalleled music, unique to the time and place, and never again to be repeated.

In 1969, a twenty-something screenwriter with one movie credit to his name is approached by Jimi Hendrix's management after the legendary guitarist saw the obscure indie film in London and wanted to collaborate on a project of his own. Jonathan Stathakis had no idea how thrilling the next eighteen months would be, as he and Hendrix formed not just a working partnership but a unique friendship.

In this funny and poignant memoir and cultural history, the television personality, columnist, and author of Drag pays homage to Lou Reed’s groundbreaking album Transformer on its fiftieth anniversary and recalls its influence on his coming of age and coming out through glam rock.

None of This Rocks is a memoir by Joe Trohman—lead guitarist and cofounder of Fall Out Boy—that unfolds like a double album full of revealing stories from his youth and his experiences of modern rock and roll stardom. With wit and wisdom, and maybe a little bit of whining, Trohman grapples with depression, his mother's brain cancer, antisemitism, pills, petty larceny, side hustles, and pop punk at the turn of the century.

This harrowing, deeply personal, coming of age, on the road memoir follows critically acclaimed 80s indie alt rock band Divine Weeks’ first tour in the summer of ’87. Liberated from alcoholic upbringings and rigid cultural constraints, all they have is their music and each other’s friendship. The road is filled with yuppies, brothels, riots, sleeping on floors, spiked drinks, DJs with no pants, and battles with racism. They set out on the road to discovery to drink in all they could and maybe sell a few records. They grew up instead.

In Me Elton writes powerfully about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father. In a voice that is warm, humble and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes. This is a story that will stay with you, by a living legend.

In this new audiobook, broadcaster and music writer Alan Cross narrates the definitive history of Oasis. Cross succeeds once again in revealing the fascinating history behind the music in the same compelling way we've come to expect from his long broadcasting career.

In Francis Rossi's explosive new memoir, I Talk Too Much, the Status Quo main man reveals for the first time the true-life stories behind the life and times of one of the best-selling rock singers in the world. With over 100 million records sold worldwide in a career that mirrors the evolution of rock music, from the flower power '60s, with hits like 'Pictures of Matchstick Men', through the denim-clad '70s and classic Quo-tastic anthems such as 'Down Down', 'Rocking All over the World' and 'Whatever You Want', through the turbulent '80s, when they famously opened Live Aid....

The Music And Magic of Led Zeppelin is a comprehensive guide to one of the most influential and iconic rock bands in history. Listeners will gain an in-depth understanding of the birth, evolution, and legacy of the band, as well as the musical genius of its members.

ROBBIE WILLLIAMS is probably the hottest celebrity artist around. When he left Take That he firmly established himself and the burning question always was - "When will he rejoin?". Robbie has attitude, he does what he wants in a very confident way. This is not a music release by the artist or record label but an exclusive audiobiog in which we hear how he continues to be a workaholic, what motivates him, why he is so controversial and how he survives.

Told with acclaimed New Yorker writer Ariel Levy, Brothers is seventy-year-old drummer Alex Van Halen's love letter to his younger brother, Edward, (Maybe 'Ed', but never 'Eddie'), written while still mourning his untimely death. In his rough yet sweet voice, Alex recounts the brothers' childhood, first in the Netherlands and then in working class Pasadena, California, with an itinerant musician father and a very proper Indonesian-born mother—the kind of mom who admonished her boys to 'always wear a suit' no matter how famous they became—a woman who was both proud and practical.