Books

New PATTI SMITH Book Coming – Inspired By Her INSTAGRAM Account

Posted on by JL

8 August 2022

A deeply moving and brilliantly idiosyncratic visual book of days by the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids and M Train, featuring more than 365 images and reflections that chart Smith’s singular aesthetic—inspired by her wildly popular Instagram.

Followers felt an immediate affinity with these miniature windows into Smith’s world, photographs of her daily coffee, the books she’s reading, the graves of beloved heroes—William Blake, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, Simone Weil, Albert Camus. Over time, a coherent story of a life devoted to art took shape, and more than a million followers responded to Smith’s unique aesthetic in images that chart her passions, devotions, obsessions, and whims. Original to this book are vintage photographs: anniversary pearls, a mother’s keychain, and a husband’s Mosrite guitar. Here, too, are photos from Smith’s archives of life on and off the road, train stations, obscure cafés, a notebook always nearby. In wide-ranging yet intimate daily notations, Smith shares dispatches from her travels around the world.

With over 365 photographs taking you through a single year, A Book of Days is a new
way to experience the expansive mind of the visionary poet, writer, and performer. Hopeful, elegiac, playful—and complete with an introduction by Smith that explores her documentary process—A Book of Days is a timeless offering for deeply uncertain times, an inspirational map of an artist’s life.

Patti Smith on her FB page: “This is A Book of Days, to be published in the fall. It is a year of reflections and images, inspired by my Instagram, but original throughout. The fruit of much labor, populated by sacred ghosts, and celebrating the new.”

Pre-order info here
Out 15 November 2022

PATTI SMITH: Instagram

BOB DYLAN – The Noble Prize Winner’s New Book ‘THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG’ Comes In November

Posted on by JL

2 April 2022

New book: THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG

Author: BOB DYLAN – It’s the Nobel Prize laureate’s
first new book since 2004’s Chronicles: Volume One.

Out: 8 November 2022 – Order info here.

Content: Dylan’s unique reflection on the ideas and philosophy contained in modern
popular song. He began working on the book in 2010, offers a master class on the art
and craft of songwriting. He writes over sixty essays focusing on songs by other artists,
spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank
Williams to Nina Simone.

He analyzes what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. These essays are written in Dylan’s unique prose. They are mysterious and mercurial, poignant and profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny.

And while they are ostensibly about music, they are really meditations and reflections on
the human condition. Running throughout the book are nearly 150 carefully curated photos
as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work’s transcendence.

BOB DYLAN: Website

Expanded Edition Of JOY DIVISION Book With Photos By Legendary Photographer KEVIN CUMMINS Out Now

Posted on by JL

4 January 2022

Book: JOY DIVISION: JUVENES
With photos by legendary Manchester photographer Kevin Cummins.
He worked for 25 years for iconic weekly magazine NME that used to be
the bible for all alternative/indie music.

Content book: “A new, expanded edition of the legendary book published more than
a decade ago, now with added interviews and unpublished photographs. The definitive collection of the Joy Division photographs of Kevin Cummins, including new interviews with Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris. Originally published in 2007 in an ultra-limited run of just 226 copies, Juvenes is a book with legendary status among Joy Division devotees.

The book consists of Kevin’s selection of pictures from his Joy Division archive accompanied
by short personal essays and memories from the band’s family, contemporaries and fans and from several writers including Ian Rankin, David Peace and Natalie Curtis. The foreword is by Ian Rankin. Now comprehensively updated with new material and images that have never been published in a book before, this new edition will allow the band’s many die-hard fans to own it for the first time. Juvenes is a truly special celebration of the magic of Joy Division.”

To my eyes this stunning photo of the late great Ian Curtis
is the most fascinating one ever of the Joy Division frontman.

Cummins: “Curtis’s arresting stare in this 1979 portrait has
become an “emblem” of his legacy with the band.” Absolutely!

You can purchase the book right here.

Kevin Cummins: Website

Picture This – MOTÖRHEAD Photo Book On Its Way

Posted on by JL

26 December 2021

Manic metalheads MOTÖRHEAD were the ace of spades when it came to
crushing the legal level of decibels with their kamikaze racket. True noise
champions, led by party animal LEMMY who would have celebrated his
76th birthday 2 days ago (born 24 Dec 1945 in Stoke-on-Trent, England)

The band canned 22 studio albums between 1975
and 2015. (Lemmy passed away on 28 December 2015).

A new photo book about the legendary trio titled
FAST & LOOSE is coming next week, 30 December.
Order info here.

“From 1976 to 1982 Graham Mitchell traveled countless miles of highway with Motörhead as their tour manager and trusted friend. Fortunately, he brought along his camera. Captured through the lens of their trusted friend, those photos—many of them never seen before—have now been collected in the new book “Motorhead: Fast & Loose – Snapshots from the Graham Mitchell Archive.” The images are a gritty, intimate and authentic “insider’s view” of daily life on the road with Lemmy, Phil Taylor, and Eddie Clarke as they were setting out to take over the world.”

The book’s promo trailer…

MOTÖRHEAD: Website

SHANE MACGOWAN Announces Art Photo Book

Posted on by JL

25 December 2021

First things first: Happy 64, Xmas child. MacGowan was born
on 25 December 1957 in Pembury, Kent, England, son of Irish
immigrants.

And now about the upcoming art book titled
The Eternal Buzz and The Crock of Gold.

Out: April 2022. Limited edition,
only 1000 copies.Order info here.

Content: From the man who brought forth such musical masterpieces as
Fairytale Of New York, Streams of Whiskey and A Pair of Brown Eyes, this
limited edition art folio book presents a complete psychedelic collection of
never-before-seen or published illustrations, drawings, lyrics, stories, snippets
and secretions from the pen of Shane, dating back to his childhood, and
journeying through six decades of punk and Irish revelry.

Shane: “I was always into drawing and painting, and I used to do
all sorts of things, hurlers, IRA men, teenage punks hanging around
in cafes, you name it. When I was about 11 or 12 I got heavily into
studying history of art and looking at old paintings and modern
paintings, I knew a lot about art. It’s one of the only O Levels
I got, was in art.

I like pastels but I don’t really think about it. I’ll paint or draw on anything,
with anything. I like more or less everyone from Fra Angelico and Giotto to
the latest, like Caravaggio was the last of the Renaissance, before it went
into Expressionism. I love Cezanne, Gauguin, Monet, Manet.

I love the Irish impressionists, Lavery, Jack B Yeats, Brendan Fitzpatrick.
The 20th-century impressionists who painted the period of Ireland fighting
for its freedom. I like Max Ernst, the surrealists, Dali, Chagall… God there’s
millions of them.”

SHANE MACGOWAN: Website

MARK LANEGAN Wrote Memoir About His Near-Death Experience Due To Covid-19

Posted on by JL

14 November 2021

Washington born singer-songwriter MARK LANEGAN (Screaming Trees, QOTSA,
solo and countless collaborations) got infected with COVID-19 last March.

He went deaf, couldn’t walk for months, had cracked ribs, and had breathing
problems. He was hospitalized and slipt in and out coma for months.

He wrote a memoir about his life-threatening misfortunes
and the near-death experience he suffered.

The book, titled DEVIL IN A COMA comes out
on 14th December via White Rabbit Books.


(photo by Turn Up The Volume)

Press statement: One morning in March 2021 with the second wave of infections
ripping through Ireland where he was newly resident, Mark Lanegan woke up breathless, fatigued beyond belief, his body burdened with a gigantic dose of Covid-19. Admitted to
Kerry Hospital and initially given little hope of survival, Lanegan’s illness has him slipping
in and out of a coma, unable to walk or function for several months and fearing for his life.

As his situation becomes more intolerable over the course of that bleakest of springs he
is assaulted by nightmares, visions and regrets about a life lived on the edge of chaos and disorder.

He is prompted to consider his predicament and how, in his sixth decade, his lifelong battle
with mortality has led to this final banal encounter with a disease that has undone millions, when he has apparently been cheating death for his whole existence. Written in vignettes of prose and poetry, DEVIL IN A COMA is a terrifying account of illness and the remorse that
comes with it by an artist and writer with singular vision.”

PAUL MORLEY Wrote Biography Of Factory Records Legend… TONY WILSON

Posted on by JL

17 July 2021

Book: From Manchester with Love: The Life and Opinions of Tony Wilson

Author: Paul Morley

Publisher: Faber & Faber
Hardcover – 688 pages
Out: 21 October 2021

About: Critically-acclaimed and bestselling author Paul Morley’s long-awaited
biography of journalist, news-anchor, Factory Records co-founder and Manchester
icon Tony Wilson. At the helm of Factory Records and the Hacienda, Wilson unleashed landmark acts such as Joy Division and New Order into the world as he pursued myriad other creative endeavours, appointing himself a custodian of Manchester’s legacy of innovation and change. To Paul Morley he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, aesthetic adventurer, mean factory boss, self-deprecating chancer, intellectual celebrity, loyal friend, shrewd mentor, insatiable publicity seeker. It was
Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book.

Tony Wilson: “When forced to pick between truth and legend, print the legend.”

Here’s Wilson introducing Joy Division on Manchester’s Granada Television in 1978…

TONY WILSON: NME Feature

NEW: The Collected Works of JIM MORRISON

Posted on by JL

7 July 2021

Book: THE COLLECTED WORKS OF JIM MORRISON:
Poetry, Journals, Transcripts, and Lyrics

About: The definitive anthology of Jim Morrison’s writings
with rare photographs and numerous handwritten excerpts
of unpublished and published poetry and lyrics from his 28
privately held notebooks.

Released: 8 June 2021
Hardcover – A New York Times bestseller

Available: via Barnes & Noble, Harpers & Collins,
Amazon and all other renowned online books/music shops.

Info: Created in collaboration with Jim Morrison’s estate and inspired
by a posthumously discovered list entitled “Plan for Book,” The Collected
Works of Jim Morrison is an almost 600-page anthology of the writings of
the late poet and iconic Doors’ frontman. This landmark publication is the
definitive opus of Morrison’s creative output—and the book he intended to
publish. Throughout, a compelling mix of 160 visual components accompanies
the text: excerpts from his 28 privately held notebooks—all written in his own
hand and published here for the first time—as well as an array of personal
images and commentary on the work by Morrison himself.

Full content:

Foreword by Tom Robbins; introduction and notes by editor Frank Lisciandro that provide insight to the work; prologue by Anne Morrison Chewning

Published and unpublished work and a vast selection of notebook writings

The transcript, the only photographs in existence, and production notes of Morrison’s last poetry recording on his twenty-seventh birthday

The Paris notebook, possibly Morrison’s final journal, reproduced at full reading size

Excerpts from notebooks kept during his 1970 Miami trial

The shooting script and gorgeous color stills from the never-released film HWY

Complete published and unpublished song lyrics accompanied by numerous drafts in Morrison’s hand

Epilogue: “As I Look Back”: a compelling autobiography in poem form

Family photographs as well as images of Morrison during his years as a performer

Hear Jim Morrison’s final poetry recording, now available for the first time, on CD or digital audio book, at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles on his twenty-seventh birthday, December 8, 1970. The digital audio book also includes performances by Patti Smith, Oliver Ray, Liz Phair, Tom Robbins, and others reading Morrison’s work.

JIM MORRISON: Website

New RICKIE LEE JONES Memoir – ‘Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour’

Posted on by JL

5 July 2021

Book: Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles Of An American Troubadour
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Released: 13 April 2021 – 384 pages

Order info: here

Content: Last Chance Texaco is the first-ever no-holds-barred account of the life of two-time Grammy Award-winner Rickie Lee Jones in her own words. It is a tale of desperate chances and impossible triumphs, an adventure story of a girl who beat the odds and grew up to become one of the most legendary artists of her time, turning adversity and hopelessness into timeless music.

With candor and lyricism, the “Duchess of Coolsville” (Time) takes us on a singular
journey through her nomadic childhood, to her years as a teenage runaway, through her legendary love affair with Tom Waits, and ultimately her longevity as the hardest working woman in rock and roll.

In this electrifying and intimate memoir by one of the most remarkable, trailblazing, and tenacious women in music are never-before-told stories of the girl in the raspberry beret, a singer-songwriter whose music defied categorization and inspired American pop culture for decades.

An audio excerpt read by Rickie Lee Jones herself…


.
RICKIE LEE JONES: Website