Howie Abrams is a former record label owner and longtime A&R and music marketing guy. Sacha Jenkins started the influential 90's era subculture magazine, Ego Trip; is a former music editor; and has produced shows for MTV. Both guys love their hard rock and The Merciless Book of Metal Lists is their irreverent and illuminating tribute full of some of the most random, funny and challenging information about heavy metal music from the last 40 years. You want to know who are the fattest or shortest metal musicians? Interested in what Judas Priest's Rob Halford was really saying with his lyrics now that he's come out as a gay man? Dying to know which 250 album covers look like they were drawn by epileptic 4 year olds? Look no further. Howie and Sacha will also reveal their choices for non-Metal bands that Metalheads love, the weirdest cameos in Metal videos, the sad history of Rap Metal and the unfortunate original names Metal bands started with. Also featuring interviews, short essays, iconic 4 colour photography, and memorabilia from fans and band members alike.

 

‘How do you maintain live music in a culture that does not value it?’ asks Jon Rose, acclaimed improvising violinist and instrument maker. ‘The practice of music has lost its key functions and roles in society’, he writes. ‘The proof of this lies in the steep decline of monetary worth for both practitioner and the art form itself. Music's social worth is also questionable as it is steadily removed from the education curriculum. This is not a uniquely Australian phenomenon, nor is it confined to music practised on the fringes of society; it is a problem common to all music forms.’ Rose rejects blaming popular music and digital downloads, delves deeper and proposes a way to change the culture.

Burt Bacharach is one of the most celebrated and legendary song-writers of the twentieth century. Throughout his sixty year career he has worked with artists from Dionne Warwick to Dr Dre, Marlene Dietrich to Elvis Costello. Anyone Who Had a Heart is the story of one of the greatest song writers of all time. It traces for the first time in his own words, the life and times of the man who created the music that has become the sound track for the lives of his millions of devoted fans all over the world.

Born on Thursday Island in 1929, Seaman Dan didnt release his debut album, Follow the Sun, until his 70th birthday. In the next ten years he released five albums, showcasing traditional music from the Torres Strait, as well as those revealing his love of jazz and blues. Steady, Steady: The life and music of Seaman Dan is replete with Uncle Seamans stories of his active and sometimes dangerous life in the islands in the heyday of pearl diving and other jobs, and his later development as a professional singer/musician. The book includes many evocative and previously unknown images sourced from family and friends and will include a CD of tracks reflecting important periods in the life of this national treasure.

Text and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll explores the interaction between two of the most powerful socio-cultural movements in the post-war years - the literary forces of the Beat Generation and the musical energies of rock and its attendant culture. Simon Warner examines the interweaving strands, seeded by the poet/novelists Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and others in the 1940s and 1950s, and cultivated by most of the major rock figures who emerged after 1960 - Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Bowie, the Clash and Kurt Cobain, to name just a few. This fascinating cultural history delves into a wide range of issues: Was rock culture the natural heir to the activities of the Beats? Were the hippies the Beats of the 1960s? What attitude did the Beat writers have towards musical forms and particularly rock music? How did literary works shape the consciousness of leading rock music-makers and their followers? Why did Beat literature retain its cultural potency with later rock musicians who rejected hippie values? How did rock musicians use the material of Beat literature in their own work? How did Beat figures become embroiled in the process of rock creativity? These questions are addressed through a number of approaches - the influence of drugs, the relevance of politics, the effect of religious and spiritual pursuits, the rise of the counter-culture, the issue of sub-cultures and their construction, and so on. The result is a highly readable history of the innumerable links between two of the most revolutionary artistic movements of the last 60 years.

'Can't Be Satisfied is that rare thing in musical biographies: a book that maps out not just a single, extraordinary life but the cultural forces that shaped it' Sean O'Hagan, Observer Muddy Waters was the greatest blues musician ever, and the most influential. He invented electric blues, inspired the Rolling Stones and created the template for the rock 'n' roll band and its wild lifestyle. Robert Gordon's definitive biography vividly chronicles the extraordinary life and personality of the musical legend who changed the course of modern popular music.

Blind Willie Johnson. Willie Dixon. Ma Rainey. We know their music, and of course we recognise their names, but to their fans the faces of these blues legends are equally as intrinsic. In the same format as our bestselling R. Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country, award-winning author and illustrator William Stout presents 100 legends of the blues ranging from classic to contemporary, British and American, interpreting their iconic visages in dramatic portraiture that blends graphic design and humour with the stylisation of a master illustrator. Legends of the Blues also includes authoritative biographical text, recommended songs and four exclusive bonus trading cards.

October 1982: ABC, Culture Club, Shalamar and Survivor dominate the top twenty when the Pogues barrel out from the backstreets of King's Cross, a furious, pioneering mix of punk energy, traditional melodies and the powerfully poetic songwriting of Shane MacGowan. Reviled by traditionalists for their frequently fast, often riotous interpretations of Irish folk songs, the Pogues rose from the sweaty chaos of backroom gigs in Camden pubs to world tours with the likes of Elvis Costello, U2 and Bob Dylan, and had huge commercial success with everyone's favourite Christmas song, Fairytale of New York . Yet, the exuberance of their live performances coupled with relentless touring spiralled into years of hard drinking and excess which eventually took their toll - most famously on Shane, but also on the rest of the band - causing them to part ways seven years later. Here, their story is told with beauty, lyricism and great candour by James Fearnley, founding member and accordion player. He brings to life the youthful friendships, the bust-ups, the amazing gigs, the terrible gigs, the fantastic highs and the dramatic lows in a hugely compelling, humorous, moving and honest account of life in one of our most treasured and original bands.

Since its earliest days the private detective has been a constant presence in cinema. This book traces the history of the private-eye movie, from its emergence in a handful of influential film noirs in the 1940s, through its slow and brilliant decline in 1970s 'neo-noir' cinema, to the passing of its central figure into present-day movie mythology. The private eye is usually seen as a romantic hero, a 'lone wolf' who confronts and makes sense of a violent and chaotic modern world on behalf of the viewer. In his discussion of classic films such as The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and Out of the Past, acclaimed 1970s movies like Chinatown, The Long Goodbye and Klute, and many lesser-known examples, Bran Nicol challenges these stereotypes, arguing that the job of the private eye is not about solving crimes so much as uncovering private worlds, and private lives. Although ostensibly thrillers, such films are actually preoccupied by 'domestic' issues such as work, home, and love. The private eye is revealed as a figure that investigates the concealments of others, at the expense of his own private life. The Private Eye combines a lucid introduction to an under-explored tradition in movie history with a new approach to the detective in fiction and film. Moving away from the detective as hero, it focuses instead on the dramas and places that feature in private-eye movies. For all detective and noir film buffs, it offers both a novel approach to the private eye in cinema, and a fresh reading of film noir itself.

It's a dwindling band; old-fashioned and of a certain age, you can pick us out at funerals and memorial services because we can sing the hymns without the book. Alan Bennett writes: In 2001 the Medici Quartet commissioned the composer George Fenton to write them a piece commemorating their thirtieth anniversary. George Fenton appeared in my play Forty Years On and has written music for many of my plays since, and he asked me to collaborate on the commission. Hymn was the result. First performed at the Harrogate Festival in August 2001, it's a series of memoirs with music. Besides purely instrumental passages for the quartet, many of the speeches are under-scored, incorporating some of the hymns and music I remember from my childhood and youth. The text includes both words and music. Hymn is coupled with Cocktail Sticks, an oratorio without music that revisits some of the themes and conversations of Alan Bennett's memoir A Life Like Other People's . A son talks to his dead father as his mother yearns for a different life. It's funny, tender and sad. The pinnacle of my social life is a scrutty bit of lettuce and tomato and some tinned salmon. Mind you, I read in Ideal Home that if you mix tinned salmon with this soft cheese you can make it into one of those moussy things. Shove a bit of lemon on it and it looks really classy.