Rock Books - Page 4

He Is . . . I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neil Diamond

David Wild

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

He is.., and I agree... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Many times I have pondered the relevance of Neil Diamond in my own life and with the release of this book, it's like my head was cracked open and my own feelings emerged. Fans of Diamond will rejoice, as will fans of one of the most respected writers of our time, David Wild. A great read for all.

Editorial Review:

He Is . . . I Say examines Neil Diamond’s singular place in the pantheon of popular music and describes how an introspective kid from Brooklyn roads went from being a struggling songwriter in the Brill Building era to become a multi-platinum global superstar and the voice of a generation (or two). David Wild—who’s interviewed Neil Diamond for Rolling Stone, penned the liner notes to a number of Diamond’s anthologies, and produced Diamond’s scandal-free episode of Behind The Music—now dares to turn on his “Heartlight,” offering a moving and often hilarious salute to his own Jewish Elvis, one based on his interviews from over the years with the Solitary Man himself.

An illuminating snapshot of a beloved American icon , He Is . . . I Say endearingly speaks to the condition of being a Diamondhead in a hipper-than-thou world, while fully illustrating exactly what it is that makes the man and the artist so special.

Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America

Jonathan Gould

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Nearly twenty years in the making, Can’t Buy Me Love is a masterful work of group biography, cultural history, and musical criticism. That the Beatles were an unprecedented phenomenon is a given. In Can’t Buy Me Love, Jonathan Gould seeks to explain why, placing the Fab Four in the broad and tumultuous panorama of their time and place, rooting their story in the social context that girded both their rise and their demise.

Beginning with their adolescence in Liverpool, Gould describes the seminal influences––from Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry to The Goon Show and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland––that shaped the Beatles both as individuals and as a group. In addition to chronicling their growth as singers, songwriters, and instrumentalists, he highlights the advances in recording technology that made their sound both possible and unique, as well as the developments in television and radio that lent an explosive force to their popular success. With a musician’s ear, Gould sensitively evokes the timeless appeal of the Lennon-McCartney collaboration and their emergence as one of the most creative and significant songwriting teams in history. And he sheds new light on the significance of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as rock’s first concept album, down to its memorable cover art.

Behind the scenes Gould explores the pivotal roles played by manager Brian Epstein and producer George Martin, credits the influence on the Beatles’ music of contemporaries like Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, and Ravi Shankar, and traces the gradual escalation of the fractious internal rivalries that led to the group’s breakup after their final masterpiece, Abbey Road. Most significantly, by chronicling their revolutionary impact on popular culture during the 1960s, Can’t Buy Me Love illuminates the Beatles as a charismatic phenomenon of international proportions, whose anarchic energy and unexpected import was derived from the historic shifts in fortune that transformed the relationship between Britain and America in the decades after World War II.

From the Beats in America and the Angry Young Men in England to the shadow of the Profumo Affair and JFK’s assassination, Gould captures the pulse of a time that made the Beatles possible—and even necessary. As seen through the prism of the Beatles and their music, an entire generation’s experience comes astonishingly to life. Beautifully written, consistently insightful, and utterly original, Can’t Buy Me Love is a landmark work about the Beatles, Britain, and America.


From the Hardcover edition.

Imagine: A Celebration of John Lennon

John Lennon

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 80 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

You'll fall in love with John Lennon 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I was in 7th or 8th grade when this movie came out and I saw it in the theater 3 times. It's truly a fantastic look at the life and times of John Lennon. From birth through death, it chronicles many of the highlights from his life. The music is fantastic, combining both Beatles and solo stuff. The interviews are top notch and I truly recommend this film for anyone who's ever been curious about John Lennon and who he was.

It's been a long time coming for this film to show up on DVD and it was worth the wait.

Dream is over 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

When this film was first released, it was quite interesting, introspective and entertaining. Now on DVD it almost seems like an afterthought with the release of The Beatles Anthology DVD set. It still holds up well, but sometimes the anti-war Lennon gets boring. Makes you wonder how great his solo career may have been had he concentrated on his music more than his politics & causes. A nice addition to any Beatles or Lennon fans collection.

Editorial Review:

Of all John Lennon's songs, "Imagine" has come to represent the man himself. More than any of the great songs he wrote for the Beatles, this gentle, poignant ballad serves as Lennon's epitaph. Published to coincide with the December anniversary of Lennon's death, Imagine offers a collection of words and images which together make an elegant memorial and an evocative gift. 40 duotone photos.

I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie

Pamela Des Barres

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 58 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The stylish, exuberant, and remarkably sweet confession of one of the most famous groupies of the 1960s and 70s is back in print in this new edition that includes an afterword on the author's last 15 years of adventures. As soon as she graduated from high school, Pamela Des Barres headed for the Sunset Strip, where she knocked on rock stars' backstage doors and immersed herself in the drugs, danger, and ecstasy of the freewheeling 1960s. Over the next 10 years she had affairs with Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Waylon Jennings, Chris Hillman, Noel Redding, and Jim Morrison, among others. She traveled with Led Zeppelin; lived in sin with Don Johnson; turned down a date with Elvis Presley; and was close friends with Robert Plant, Gram Parsons, Ray Davies, and Frank Zappa. As a member of the GTO's, a girl group masterminded by Frank Zappa, she was in the thick of the most revolutionary renaissance in the history of modern popular music. Warm, witty, and sexy, this kiss-and-tell–all stands out as the perfect chronicle of one of rock 'n' roll's most thrilling eras.

Things the Grandchildren Should Know

Mark Oliver Everett

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Growing up in the Virginia suburbs, Mark Oliver Everett was to roam unsupervised with his sister, Liz, while his mother combated depression and his father, the eccentric and acclaimed quantum physicist Hugh Everett, remained distant and obsessed by parallel universes of his own creation.  (Everett writes, "As a little kid, I had a hard time with the realization that inanimate objects didn't have feelings or thoughts. I remember being on the verge of tears, standing there in the bathroom, as my mom tried to make me understand that the bathroom cabinet wasn't going to be hurt if I closed it too hard. I thought of the bathroom cabinet as one of my friends. Maybe I was confused because I thought of my father as a piece of furniture.") First, the author lost his father to heart failure, and then—in a staggeringly short period of time—his sister to schizophrenia and suicide and his mother to cancer. The author drew upon the relentless tragedies in his life for inspiration in writing highly acclaimed music with his indie rock group, the Eels.  Yet this is much more than a musician's tale. A true gem of a memoir, Everett’s story is a rich and poignant narrative on coming of age, love, death, and the creative vision.

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Chuck Klosterman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 92 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Not What You Expect 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Whoever coined the phrase "you can't judge a book by its cover" saw this one coming. This book is a decent read if you're into first person narratives about contemporary pop culture.

I stumbled upon this book when some dude who had been reading it in a coffee shop suddenly stood up and angrily slam dunked it into a trash can. Intrigued by any piece of writing that could provoke such a visceral reaction I retrieved it and began to read.

It did not take long to discover the why some readers despise this book. As rock journalism goes it is basically an off topic response. When Klosterman does meander towards the genre his lack of objectivity is stunning. He openly despises almost all rock and roll born of the 60s (for example he says matter-of-factly that Eric Clapton sucks and his immense disdain for Jim Morrison pops up again and again) but he idolizes Kiss to the point that he sees the band as perfect ongoing metaphor for every meaningful relationship he has ever had with a woman. In a book that purports to be about death and rock & roll he spends dozens of pages on the mighty Kurt Cobain in his "Seattle" section without ever mentioning Jimi Hendrix.

Bottom Line: If you are interested in the relationship between mortality and rock & roll this book is very likely to let you down in the extreme. At best Klosterman pokes at the subject a bit here and there while lambasting you with his own personal biases. However, the book is actually a pretty fun read as long as you pretend its a Douglas Coupland novel. It is well written and is quite entertaining. If this was a novel about a guy from the sticks who somehow manages to become a sophomoric NYC rock critic it would be brilliant.

Editorial Review:

For 6,557 miles, Chuck Klosterman thought about dying. He drove a rental car from New York to Rhode Island to Georgia to Mississippi to Iowa to Minneapolis to Fargo to Seattle, and he chased death and rock 'n' roll all the way. Within the span of twenty-one days, Chuck had three relationships end -- one by choice, one by chance, and one by exhaustion. He snorted cocaine in a graveyard. He walked a half-mile through a bean field. A man in Dickinson, North Dakota, explained to him why we have fewer windmills than we used to. He listened to the KISS solo albums and the Rod Stewart box set. At one point, poisonous snakes became involved. The road is hard. From the Chelsea Hotel to the swampland where Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane went down to the site where Kurt Cobain blew his head off, Chuck explored every brand of rock star demise. He wanted to know why the greatest career move any musician can make is to stop breathing...and what this means for the rest of us.

Metallica - Death Magnetic (Tab)

Metallica

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

excellent album - excellent book... 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Real well laid out easy to read format - same as the other great Cherry Lane Metallica tab books. Not alot I can say really - is an excellent book - although if you were looking for some slightly 'easier' Metallica to start with you might want to look at the self titled/'Black' album. If you've pretty much got grips with most of the likes of Master Of Puppets and all the other great Metallica albums you'll really enjoy learning from this book - is really excellent...

What a book !!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book is great , easy tabs to learn, it's clear and accurate. Only negative side: No pics or introduction and interviews with the band, like a lot of metallica's tab books

Editorial Review:

We proudly present the matching folio to the highly anticipated CD by these heavy metal masters - the first to feature bassist Robert Trujillo, and the first produced by Rick Rubin. Includes artist-approved notes and tab for the hit single "The Day That Never Comes" and 9 more: All Nightmare Long * Broken, Beat and Scarred * Cyanide * End of the Line * The Judas Kiss * My Apocalypse * Suicide and Redemption * That Was Just Your Life * The Unforgiven III.

Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain

Charles R. Cross

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 226 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Engrossing and disturbing 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I think this book is a very captivating read. It gives alot of detail about Cobain's childhood, rocky adolescence, the forming of Nirvana, all the way through to his death. By the end of the book, it's pretty easy to understand why he killed himself. Alot of people are going to say that it's not true, that it's the "Courtney sanctioned" version of what happened, that Cross is making it up to cover up a murder, but this is nonsense. Overall, Courtney Love is not portrayed in an overly-flattering way, neither is Cobain portrayed in a bad light. People who say that Cross makes Love look great and Cobain look bad either have not read the book or are reading that interpretation into the book.

Alot of people complain about the end, when Cross fictionalizes Cobain's last hours, but he never says that it's fact - to the contrary, Cross points out that that chapter is a fictionalization of what it might have been like. Does fiction have a place in a biography? In "Heaver Than Heaven," I say yes. It would have been a huge letdown if his death had been muddied over - even though we don't know what happened for sure.

I give the book four stars because it's a very engrossing read. My understanding of Kurt Cobain increased greatly after reading this book, and I think my appreciation for Nirvana's music also deepened. It's a haunting, sometimes disturbing portrait of one of rock music's most mythical legends.

Editorial Review:

This is the first in-depth biography of the troubled genius Kurt Cobain. Based on exclusive access to Cobains unpublished diaries, more than 400 interviews, four years of research, and a wealth of documentation, Heavier Than Heaven traces Cobains life from his early days in a double-wide trailer outside of Aberdeen, Washington, to his rise to fame, fortune, and the adulation of a generation.

Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga

Stephen Davis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

As Overblown as the Band Itself 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Davis' profile of Led Zepplin is probably a reliable protrait of the band. If you are like me and you don't care too much for Led Zep music, you will still find the book an interesting read as a slice of pop culture history and biography of at least one fairly interesting guy (Jimmy Page).

Davis' use of language is sometimes preposterously overblown. His diction is sometimes questionable, too, as when he describes Bonham flying into a rage. Bonham "apotheosized into the Beast." (Here you have an example of both hyperbole and poor diction.)

The book is filled with this type of writing, which makes it exciting to read while casting a shadow of doubt as to its veracity.

Davis doesn't call Page out on his affected interest in black magic and sorcery. Davis seems to take it all seriously. The other side of that story is Page was a young man, in his 20s, with excess cash and a deficit in maturity, dabbling in a silly hobby.

Overall, this was a good read for the uninitiated. A bit of a guilty pleasure really.

Editorial Review:

The members of Led Zeppelin are major deities in the pantheon of rock gods. The first and heaviest of the heavy metal monsters, they violently shook the foundations of rock music and took no prisoners on the road. Their tours were legendary, their lives were exalted—and in an era well known for sex and drugs, the mighty Zeppelin set an unattainable standard of excess and mythos for any band that tried to follow them. They were power, they were fantasy, they were black magic. No band ever flew as high as Led Zeppelin or suffered so disastrous a fall. And only some of them lived to tell the tale.

Hammer of the Gods is the New York Times bestselling epic saga of the hard reign of Page, Plant, Jones, and Bonham—a spellbinding, electrifying, no-holds-barred classic of rock 'n' roll history that has now been updated to include the continuing adventures of the band.

Grateful Dead 365

Holly George-Warren

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In 1965, the Grateful Dead came to life in the heart of San Francisco’s hippie counterculture. Founding members Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Phil Lesh, and Bill Kreutzmann (and soon after, Mickey Hart) created a unique blend of improvisational rock, folk, blues, and psychedelia, and the Dead went on to become one of the greatest jam bands of all time, releasing more than ten studio albums and touring constantly for legions of Deadheads.

 

In Grateful Dead 365, five decades of intimate portraits, candid backstage shots, and colorful performance images take readers on the band’s remarkable journey from the mid-sixties to the twenty-first century. Accompanied by the band’s distinctive graphics, these photographs capture memorable moments, including the band’s trip to the Great Pyramid of Egypt; scenes with colorful, trippy Deadheads; and tributes to Garcia. Written by award-winning music writer, Holly George-Warren, Grateful Dead 365 celebrates the evolution of one of the world’s most beloved bands.