Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life

Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life
Author: Steve Almond
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2010-04-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0679603654

Drooling fanatic, n. 1. One who drools in the presence of beloved rock stars. 2. Any of a genus of rock-and-roll wannabes/geeks who walk around with songs constantly ringing in their ears, own more than 3,000 albums, and fall in love with at least one record per week. With a life that’s spanned the phonographic era and the digital age, Steve Almond lives to Rawk. Like you, he’s secretly longed to live the life of a rock star, complete with insane talent, famous friends, and hotel rooms to be trashed. Also like you, he’s content (sort of) to live the life of a rabid fan, one who has converted his unrequited desires into a (sort of) noble obsession. Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life traces Almond’s passion from his earliest (and most wretched) rock criticism to his eventual discovery of a music-crazed soul mate and their subsequent production of two little superfans. Along the way, Almond reflects on the delusional power of songs, the awkward mating habits of drooling fanatics, and why Depression Songs actually make us feel so much better. The book also includes: • sometimes drunken interviews with America’s finest songwriters • a recap of the author’s terrifying visit to Graceland while stoned • a vigorous and credibility-shattering endorsement of Styx’s Paradise Theater • recommendations you will often choose to ignore • a reluctant exegesis of the Toto song “Africa” • obnoxious lists sure to piss off rock critics But wait, there’s more. Readers will also be able to listen to a special free mix designed by the author, available online at www.stevenalmond.com, for the express purpose of eliciting your drool. For those about to rock—we salute you!

We Still Hold These Truths

We Still Hold These Truths
Author: Matthew Spalding
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1497636477

The Essential Guide to Rolling Back the Progressive Assault and Putting America Back on Course Many Americans are concerned, frightened, angry. The country, it seems, is on the wrong track. But what is the right course for America? Knowing what we stand against is not the same as knowing what we stand for. Just in time, Matthew Spalding provides the plan for translating angst into proper action in this bestselling book. We Still Hold These Truths offers a bracing analysis of how and why we have lost our bearings as a nation and lays out the strategy to rescue our future from arbitrary and unlimited government.

Tape Op

Tape Op
Author: Larry Crane
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2010-01-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780977990306

(Book). This book features interviews and articles from issues 11 to 20 of Tape Op , an independently published magazine founded in 1996. With a fiercely loyal readership, Tape Op covers creative and practical music recording topics from the famous studios to musicians creating masterpieces in their bedrooms. Creativity, technique, equipment, passion and learning collide in this entertaining, value-rich publication. Interviews and articles in this volume include Abbey Road Studio, Butch Vig, Jim Dickinson, Joe Chiccarelli, Ani DiFranco, Fugazi, The Flaming Lips, and Ween.

Just Around Midnight

Just Around Midnight
Author: Jack Hamilton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2016-09-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0674416597

By the time Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, the idea of a black man playing lead guitar in a rock band seemed exotic. Yet a mere ten years earlier, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley had stood among the most influential rock and roll performers. Why did rock and roll become “white”? Just around Midnight reveals the interplay of popular music and racial thought that was responsible for this shift within the music industry and in the minds of fans. Rooted in rhythm-and-blues pioneered by black musicians, 1950s rock and roll was racially inclusive and attracted listeners and performers across the color line. In the 1960s, however, rock and roll gave way to rock: a new musical ideal regarded as more serious, more artistic—and the province of white musicians. Decoding the racial discourses that have distorted standard histories of rock music, Jack Hamilton underscores how ideas of “authenticity” have blinded us to rock’s inextricably interracial artistic enterprise. According to the standard storyline, the authentic white musician was guided by an individual creative vision, whereas black musicians were deemed authentic only when they stayed true to black tradition. Serious rock became white because only white musicians could be original without being accused of betraying their race. Juxtaposing Sam Cooke and Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones, and many others, Hamilton challenges the racial categories that oversimplified the sixties revolution and provides a deeper appreciation of the twists and turns that kept the music alive.

Rock Seen

Rock Seen
Author: Bob Gruen
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2018-06-05
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 1613122152

“The official monograph of rock and roll’smost famous photographer, Rock Seen is a must-have for all rock fans.” (RollingStone.com) For forty years, Bob Gruen’s name has been synonymous with rock and roll. From taking early photos on tour with Ike and Tina Turner, to capturing the early CBGB/Max’s Kansas City scene to covering current stadium rockers such as Green Day, Gruen has always been at the right place at the right time—and he’s always gotten the shot. In this lavish monograph, Gruen has curated his favorite photographs from his career, with intimate captions and behind-the-scenes anecdotes. Featuring such illustrious acts as the Clash, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols, Ramones, and more, and including an introduction by the legendary Debbie Harry of Blondie, this collection is a must-have for all fans of rock and roll. “Rock Seen offers a disarmingly natural look at icons like Blondie and Cher before the era of the posed rock-star portrait kicked in.” —Entertainment Weekly “Rock Seen . . . hits the high points on and off the stage in rock’s past four decades.” —USA Today “Go backstage with forty years’ worth of rock-and-roll images from the legendary lens of Bob Gruen. . . . From over-the-top action shots of Elton John’s acrobatics to private pics of Lennon and Yoko in bed with baby Sean to boozy plane rides with the Sex Pistols, the glossy pages act as your VIP pass to the rock-star lifestyle you’ve dreamed of.” —Marie Claire “Gruen had a front-row seat to the rise of many rock legends [from] Elton John to Green Day.” —The New York Post

Rolling Thunder

Rolling Thunder
Author: Mark Mynheir
Publisher: Multnomah
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2010-05-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307563375

Law Enforcement Agents Can Do It All. But Forgive? John Russell is the Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent assigned to the missing Dylan Jacobs’ case. But while he’s tracking down clues in his professional life, a murderer is hot on his trail—his own flesh and blood. John’s father relentlessly seeks something John refuses to offer: forgiveness. Forced to face the source of his paralyzing fear of thunder and his stolen childhood, can John find the missing boy without his personal life completely unraveling? Ten-year-old Dylan Jacobs is missing from state care. John Russell is the team leader of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement task force trying to find him. Although the governor has declared this a top priority, all the team is turning up are corruption and crime of a different sort. Could Dylan still be alive after disappearing from the system six years ago? Meanwhile, John’s own long-buried nightmare is unearthed when a paroled killer shows up in his driveway. He struggles to leave old horrors where they belong—in the past. Determined to protect her children and help her husband, his wife, Marie, does some investigating of her own. Because she soon realizes, what you don’t know can hurt you. Join the agents of the FDLE as they seek the truth behind the crime and grapple with Truth in their personal lives. Dealing with depravity all day, every day, it doesn’t always seem like God is in control. Which just makes victory all that much sweeter when it comes. “Drawing upon his real-life experience as a police detective, Mark Mynheir has given us a realistic story and characters to care for. Mark presents us with a fresh new voice who writes from a unique perspective.” Angela Hunt, bestselling author of Unspoken “A remarkable first novel, with strong action and a solid moral. Readers will eagerly await the next installment from Mark Mynheir.” T. Davis Bunn, bestselling author “Rolling Thunder is a compelling story examining the struggles, importance, and power of forgiveness.” Bill Myers, bestselling author of Soul Tracker Story Behind the Book Mark Mynheir’s experience as a homicide detective enables him to accurately expose, from an insider’s view, the exciting world of law enforcement and crime investigation. It also sets an unassuming scene for the serious spiritual work that needs to be accomplished in Mynheir’s main character. While the story unfolds, the reality becomes clear of how many Christians welcome God’s grace and forgiveness for themselves but struggle to extend it to others. They harbor unresolved anger and resentment, often for years, against those who have hurt them. Mynheir challenges readers to identify with fictional characters and to initiate the process of forgiveness in their own lives.

Like a Rolling Stone

Like a Rolling Stone
Author: Jann S. Wenner
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 601
Release: 2022-09-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0316415391

In this New York Times bestseller, Rolling Stone founder, co-editor, and publisher Jann Wenner offers a "touchingly honest" and "wonderfully deep" memoir from the beating heart of classic rock and roll (Bruce Springsteen). Jann Wenner has been called by his peers “the greatest editor of his generation.” His deeply personal memoir vividly describes and brings you inside the music, the politics, and the lifestyle of a generation, an epoch of cultural change that swept America and beyond. The age of rock and roll in an era of consequence, what will be considered one of the great watersheds in modern history. Wenner writes with the clarity of a journalist and an essayist. He takes us into the life and work of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Bono, and Bruce Springsteen, to name a few. He was instrumental in the careers of Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and Annie Leibovitz. His journey took him to the Oval Office with his legendary interviews with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, leaders to whom Rolling Stone gave its historic, full-throated backing. From Jerry Garcia to the Dalai Lama, Aretha Franklin to Greta Thunberg, the people Wenner chose to be seen and heard in the pages of Rolling Stone tried to change American culture, values, and morality. Like a Rolling Stone is a beautifully written portrait of one man’s life, and the life of his generation.

Sound Man

Sound Man
Author: Glyn Johns
Publisher: Plume
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2015-11-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0147516579

"A life recording hits with the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, the Faces ..."--Jacket.

Juke Box Hero

Juke Box Hero
Author: Lou Gramm
Publisher: Triumph Books
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2013-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1623682053

Lou Gramm rose from humble, working-class roots in Rochester, New York, to become one of rock's most popular and distinctive voices in the 1970s and '80s, singing and cowriting more than a dozen hits with the band Foreigner. Songs such as "Cold As Ice," "I Want to Know What Love Is," "Waiting for a Girl Like You," "Double Vision," "Urgent," and "Midnight Blue" are among 20 Gramm songs that achieved Top 40 status on the Billboard charts and became rock classics still played often, nearly three decades after they first hit the airwaves and the record store shelves. "Juke Box Hero: The My Five Decades in Rock 'n' Roll" chronicles, with remarkable candor, the ups and downs of this popular rocker's amazing life--a life which saw him achieve worldwide fame and fortune, then succumb to its trappings before summoning the courage and faith to overcome his drug addiction and a life-threatening brain tumor. Gramm takes the reader behind the scenes--into the recording studio, back stage, on the bus trips and beyond--to give an insider's look into the life of the man "Rolling Stone" magazine referred to as "the Pavarotti of rock."