Bowie's Books: The Hundred Literary Heroes Who Changed His Life by John O'Connell

$37.99 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: 3 Biography

David Bowie once said that his idea of perfect happiness was reading. Three years before he died, he made a list of the one hundred books that had transformed his life - a list that formed something akin to an autobiography. From Lolita to Madame Bovary, the Beano to The Iliad, these were the books that had fuelled his creativity and shaped who he was. In Bowie's Books, John O'Connell explores this list in the form of one hundred short essays, each offering a perspective on the man, performer and creator that is Bowie, his work as an artist and the era that he lived in. Bowie's Books is much more than a list of books you should read in your lifetime: it is a unique insight into one of the greatest minds of our times, and an indispensable part of the legacy that Bowie left behind. ...Show more

Morning Glory on the Vine: Early Songs and Drawings by Joni Mitchell

$55.00 NZD

Category: Music | Reading Level: Biography

A gorgeous compendium of Joni Mitchell's handwritten lyrics and drawings, originally handcrafted as a gift for a select group of friends in 1971 and now available to the public for the first time   In 1971, as her album Blue topped charts around the world, Joni Mitchell crafted one hundred copies o f Morning Glory on the Vine as a holiday gift for her closest friends. For this stunningly beautiful book, Joni hand-wrote an exquisite selection of her own lyrics and poems and illustrated them with more than thirty of her original pictures. Handcrafted, signed, and numbered in Los Angeles, the existing copies of this labor of love have rarely been seen in the past half-century.    Now, during Joni's seventy-fifth birthday year, Morning Glory on the Vine: Early Songs and Drawings will be widely available for the first time. In this faithfully reproduced edition, Joni's best-loved lyrics and poems spill across the pages in her own elegant script. The lively, full-color drawings depict a superb array of landscapes, still lifes, portraits of friends, self-portraits, innovative abstractions, and more. All the artwork from the original book is included, along with several additional pictures that Joni drew of her friends from the same period. Finally, the refreshed volume features an original introduction written by Joni. Morning Glory on the Vine is a gorgeous and intimate keepsake and an invitation to explore anew the dazzling, visionary world of Joni Mitchell. ...Show more

Iron Maiden by Chris Welch

$17.99 NZD

Category: Music

Celebrate the pioneering band that redefined heavy metal: Iron Maiden. "We've always been bombastic and done what we've wanted to do." --Steve Harris Go straight to the heart and soul of the Mighty Maiden, the group that was at the forefront of the New Wave of British heavy metal in the '80s . . . and is still going strong. Here is their full story in glorious detail, complete with photographs of posters, flyers, and backstage passes, and rare images of the band's most high-profile gigs and iconic moments. In addition to an album-by-album account of all their studio recordings, it includes biographies of the most notable members and a decade-by-decade history of the band. Written by a leading music journalist who has interviewed the band many times, Iron Maiden is a fantastic tribute to the iconic band and a fan must-have. ...Show more

Drum Course For Beginners

$14.99 NZD

Category: Music

The Birth of Loud - Leo Fender, les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll by Ian S. Port

$29.99 NZD

Category: Music

"A hot-rod joy ride through mid-20th-century American history" (The New York Times Book Review), this one-of-a-kind narrative masterfully recreates the rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitar's amplified sound--Leo Fender and Les Paul--and their intense competition to convince rock stars like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton to play the instruments they built.   In the years after World War II, music was evolving from big-band jazz into rock 'n' roll--and these louder styles demanded revolutionary instruments. When Leo Fender's tiny firm marketed the first solid-body electric guitar, the Esquire, musicians immediately saw its appeal. Not to be out-maneuvered, Gibson, the largest guitar manufacturer, raced to build a competitive product. The company designed an "axe" that would make Fender's Esquire look cheap and convinced Les Paul--whose endorsement Leo Fender had sought--to put his name on it. Thus was born the guitar world's most heated rivalry: Gibson versus Fender, Les versus Leo.   While Fender was a quiet, half-blind, self-taught radio repairman, Paul was a brilliant but headstrong pop star and guitarist who spent years toying with new musical technologies. Their contest turned into an arms race as the most inventive musicians of the 1950s and 1960s--including bluesman Muddy Waters, rocker Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton--adopted one maker's guitar or another. By 1969 it was clear that these new electric instruments had launched music into a radical new age, empowering artists with a vibrancy and volume never before attainable.   In "an excellent dual portrait" (The Wall Street Journal), Ian S. Port tells the full story in The Birth of Loud, offering "spot-on human characterizations, and erotic paeans to the bodies of guitars" (The Atlantic). "The story of these instruments is the story of America in the postwar era: loud, cocky, brash, aggressively new" (The Washington Post). ...Show more

Pink Floyd by Michael O'Neill

$12.99 NZD

Category: Music

Follow their incredible journey from students when the band formed in Cambridge in 1965 and consisted of Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, Richard Wright with Dave Gilmour joining in 1967. Syd Barrett left in 1968 but remains synonymous with the group. Pink Floyd rose to become the most commerciall y successful and musically influential group in the history of popular music. ...Show more

The History of Rock and Roll, Volume 2: 1964-1977: The Beatles, The Stones, and The Rise of Classic Rock by Ed Ward

$49.99 NZD

Category: Music

From rock and roll historian Ed Ward comes a comprehensive, authoritative, and enthralling cultural history of one of rock's most exciting eras. It's February 1964 and The Beatles just landed in New York City, where the NYPD, swarms of fans, and a crowd of two hundred journalists await their first Amer ican press conference. It begins with the question on everyone's mind: "Are you going to get a haircut in America?" and ends with a reporter tugging Paul McCartney's hair in an attempt to remove his nonexistent wig. This is where The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 2 kicks off. Chronicling the years 1964 through the mid-1970s, this latest volume covers one of the most exciting eras of rock history, which saw a massive outpouring of popular and cutting-edge music. Ward weaves together an unputdownable narrative told through colorful anecdotes and shares the behind-the-scenes stories of the megastars, the trailblazers, DJs, record executives, concert promoters, and producers who were at the forefront of this incredible period in music history. From Bob Dylan to Bill Graham, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Byrds, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, and more, everyone's favorite musicians of the era make an appearance in this sweeping history that reveals how the different players, sounds, and trends came together to create the music we all know and love today. ...Show more

The Complete Classical Music Guide by DK

$48.00 NZD

Category: Music

What makes Mozart's music so great? Why does a minor chord sound sad and a major chord sound happy? What's the difference between opera and operetta? From Bach to Bernstein, this definitive guide offers a complete survey of the history of classical music. Whether you already love classical music or you 're just beginning to explore it, The Complete Classical Music Guide invites you to discover the spirituality of Byrd's masses, the awesome power of Handel's Messiah, and the wonders of Wagner's operas, as well as hundreds more composers and their masterpieces. This guide takes you on a journey through more than 1,000 years, charting the evolution of musical instruments, styles, and genres. Biographies of major and lesser-known composers offer rich insights into their music and the historical and cultural contexts that influenced their genius. The book explores the features that defined each musical era - from the ornate brilliance of the Baroque, through the drama of Romantic music, to contemporary genres such as minimalism and electronic music. Timelines, quotes, and colour photographs give a voice to this music and the exceptionally gifted individuals who created it. Covering both music history and the fundamental building blocks of music theory, The Complete Classical Music Guideexplains not just the who, what, and where of classical music, but the how and why. ...Show more

What Is It All but Luminous - Notes from an Underground Man by Art Garfunkel

$35.00 NZD

Category: Music

In What Is It All but Luminous, Art Garfunkel writes about growing up in the 1940s and '50s (son of a traveling salesman, listening as his father played Enrico Caruso records), a middle-class Jewish boy living in a redbrick semiattached house on Jewel Avenue in Kew Gardens, Queens. He writes of meeting Paul Simon, the kid who made Art laugh (they met at their graduation play, Alice in Wonderland; Paul was the White Rabbit; Art, the Cheshire Cat). Of their being twelve at the birth of rock 'n' roll ("It was rhythm and blues. It was black. I was captured and so was Paul."), of a demo of their song "Hey Schoolgirl" for seven dollars and the actual record (with Paul's father on bass) going to #40 on the charts. He writes about their becoming Simon & Garfunkel, ruling the pop charts from the age of sixteen, about not being a natural performer but more a thinker, an underground man. He writes of the hit songs, touring, about being an actor working with director Mike Nichols ("the greatest of them all"), about choosing music over a Ph.D. in mathematics. And he writes about his long-unfolding split with Paul, and how and why it evolved, and after, learning to perform on his own...and about being a husband, a father, and much more. ...Show more

Stoned: Photographs and Treasures from Life with the Rolling Stones by Jo Wood

$49.99 NZD

Category: Music

"These images are great and have been tucked away for years" - Ronnie Wood Take a look inside rock 'n' roll history with over 500 never-before-seen photographs, notes, artworks, diary entries and mementoes from life behind the scenes of the Rolling Stones. Married to legendary Stones guitarist Ronnie Wo od for 30 years, Jo Wood lived the rock star life. Her incredible collection of treasures from that time is a once-in-a-lifetime look inside the biggest band in the world. Accompanied by personal memories and behind the scenes anecdotes from Jo, Stoned is a love letter to the rock 'n' roll life and a truly unique window into the eye of the Rolling Stones hurricane. ...Show more

Let's Go (So We Can Get Back) - A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc. by Jeff Tweedy

$24.99 NZD

Category: Music

*A New York Times Bestseller**A Rolling Stone Best Music Books of 2018 selection**A Pitchfork Pick: Best Music Books of 2018* The singer, guitarist, and songwriter--best known for his work with Wilco--opens up about his past, his songs, the music, and the people who have inspired him. Few bands have enc ouraged as much devotion as the Chicago rock band Wilco, and it's thanks, in large part, to the band's singer, songwriter, and guiding light: Jeff Tweedy. But while his songs and music have been endlessly discussed and analyzed, Jeff has rarely talked so directly about himself, his life, or his artistic process. Until now. In his long-awaited memoir, Jeff will tell stories about his childhood in Belleville, Illinois; the St. Louis record store, rock clubs, and live-music circuit that sparked his songwriting and performing career; and the Chicago scene that brought it all together. He also talks in-depth about his collaborators in Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, and more; and writes lovingly about his parents; wife, Susie; and sons, Spencer and Sammy. Honest, funny, and disarming, Tweedy's memoir will bring readers inside both his life and his musical process, illuminating his singular genius and sharing his story, voice, and perspective for the first time. ...Show more

I'll Be Your Mirror - The Collected Lyrics by Lou Reed

$55.00 NZD

Category: Music

Out of print for several years, a comprehensive volume of Lou Reed's lyrics, now updated in a new text design to include the lyrics from his final album with Metallica, Lulu. Through his many incarnations-from proto punk to glam rocker to elder statesman of the avant garde Lou Reed's work has maintaine d an undeniable vividness and raw beauty, fueled by precise character studies and rendered with an admirable shot of moral ambiguity. Beginning with his formative days in the Velvet Underground and continuing through his remarkable solo albums like Transformer, Berlin, and New York, Doin' The Things We Want To s crucial to an appreciation of Lou Reed, not only as a consummate underground musician, but as one of the truly significant visionary lyricists of the rock n roll era. Containing a body of work that spans more than four decades and facsimile pages from late career lyrics, this is a monument to the literary qualities of an American original whose images and storytelling genius are now embedded in the counter-cultural narrative. ...Show more