Legendary founding KISS drummer Peter "Catman" Criss has lived an incredible life in music, from the streets of Brooklyn to the social clubs of New York City to the ultimate heights of rock 'n' roll success and excess. KISS formed in 1973 and broke new ground with their elaborate makeup, live theatrics, and powerful sound. The band emerged as one of the most iconic hard rock acts in music history. Peter was the heartbeat of the group. From an elevated perch on his pyrotechnic drum riser, he had a unique vantage point on the greatest rock show of all time, with the KISS Army looking back at him night after night.
Peter Criscuola had come a long way from the homemade drum set he pounded on nonstop as a kid growing up in Brooklyn. He endured lean years, street violence, and the roller-coaster music scene of the sixties, but he always knew he'd make it. Now Peter tells of his eye-opening journey from the pledge to his ma that he'd one day play Madison Square Garden to doing just that. He also faced the perils of stardom and his own mortality, including drug abuse, treatment in 1982, near suicides, two broken marriages, and a hard-won battle with breast cancer. "Makeup to Breakup" is the heartfelt account of one of music's most iconic figures, and the importance of faith and family. Rock 'n' roll has been chronicled many times, but never quite like this. "A must-read for all past and present KISS fans and fans of no-holds-barred rock 'n' roll tell-alls."

Best known by her stage name, La Goulue (the Glutton), Louise Weber was one of the biggest stars of fin de siecle Paris, renowned as a cancan dancer at the Moulin Rouge. The subject of numerous paintings and photographs, she became an iconic figure of modern art. Her life, however, has consistently been misrepresented and reduced to a footnote in the stories of men such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Where most accounts dismiss her rise and fall as brief and rapid, the truth is that her career as a performer spanned five decades, during which La Goulue constantly reinvented herself-as a dancer, animal tamer, sideshow performer, and muse of photographers, painters, sculptors, and filmmakers. With Beyond the Moulin Rouge, the first substantive English-language study of La Goulue's career and posthumous influence, Will Visconti corrects persistent myths. Despite a tumultuous personal life, La Goulue overcame loss, abusive relationships, and poverty to become the very embodiment of nineteenth-century Paris, feted by royalty and followed as closely as any politician or monarch. Visconti draws on previously overlooked materials, including medical records, media reports across Europe and the United States, and surviving pages from Louise Weber's diary, to trace the life and impact of a woman whose cultural significance has been ignored in favor of the men around her, and who spent her life upending assumptions about gender, morality, and domesticity in France during the fin de siecle and early twentieth century.

Dana Gillespie, the award-winning first lady of the Blues has enjoyed an incredible life and career. Now, she has chronicled her exploits, and as anyone who knows Dana would expect, it is intelligent, insightful, outrageous, and funny. Detailing high points, low points and everything in-between, the book covers, amongst many other things, liaisons with David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Keith Moon, and the cream of 1960's rock royalty; Recording with Jimmy Page and Elton John; Performing as Mary Magdalene in the original London production of Jesus Christ Superstar, and as the Acid Queen in Tommy; Acting in films directed by Nicholas Roeg, Ken Russell and Mai Zetterling; Performing Shakespeare with Sir John Gielgud and Arthur Lowe; Topping the pop charts across Europe; Performing to an audience of one million people in India; And... oh yes... Being British junior waterski champion for 4 years!

From much-loved documentary maker Louis Theroux comes a funny, heartfelt and entertaining account of his life and weird times in TV.

In 1994 fledgling journalist Louis Theroux was given a one-off gig on Michael Moore’s TV Nation, presenting a segment on apocalyptic religious sects. Gawky, socially awkward and totally unqualified, his first reaction to this exciting opportunity was panic. But he’d always been drawn to off-beat characters, so maybe his enthusiasm would carry the day. Or, you know, maybe it wouldn’t . . .

In Gotta Get Theroux This, Louis takes the reader on a joyous journey from his anxiety-prone childhood to his unexpectedly successful career. Nervously accepting the BBC’s offer of his own series, he went on to create an award-winning documentary style that has seen him immersed in the weird worlds of paranoid US militias and secretive pro-wrestlers, get under the skin of celebrities like Max Clifford and Chris Eubank and tackle gang culture in San Quentin prison, all the time wondering whether the same qualities that make him good at documentaries might also make him bad at life.

As Louis woos his beautiful wife Nancy and learns how to be a father, he also dares to take on the powerful Church of Scientology. Just as challenging is the revelation that one of his old subjects, Jimmy Savile, was a secret sexual predator, prompting him to question our understanding of how evil takes place. Filled with wry observation and self-deprecating humour, this is Louis at his most insightful and honest best.

One of the most charismatic showmen ever to grace a WWE ring recounts his life, his phenomenal career, and how he finally found the one thing that gave his life meaning--his faith. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.

Say 'Eh-oh!' to Nikky Smedley and Laa-Laa Over the Hills and Far Away follows Nikky through the Teletubbies years, from her role as a bistro table during her audition to the show's international success and the accompanying hounding by the press. In this warm, funny, affectionate look back at life on the Teletubbies set, Nikky reveals all, including tales about dogs and asthma, raging arguments about fruit, and the games the cast and crew played to amuse themselves during long shoots in their massive costumes. Join Nikky and Laa-Laa on their extraordinary journey from the very beginning to handing the torch to another performer for the next generation.

The diary and essays of Brian Eno republished twenty-five years on with a new introduction by the artist in a beautiful hardback edition. 'One of the seminal books about music . . . an invaluable insight into the mind and working practices of one of the industry's undeniable geniuses.' GUARDIAN At the end of 1994, musician, producer and artist Brian Eno resolved to keep a diary. His plans to go to the cinema, theatre and galleries fell through quickly. What he did do - and write - however, was astonishing: ruminations on his collaborative work with artists including David Bowie, U2, James and Jah Wobble, interspersed with correspondence and essays dating back to 1978. These 'appendices' covered topics from the generative and ambient music Eno pioneered to what he believed the role of an artist and their art to truly be, alongside razor-sharp commentary on his day-to-day tribulations and happenings around the world. A fascinating, candid and intimate insight into one of the most influential creative artists of our time, A Year with Swollen Appendices is an essential classic, reissued for a new generation of readers. This beautiful 25th anniversary paperback edition has been re-designed in A5, the same size as the diary that eventually became this book. It features two ribbons, pink paper delineating the appendices (matching the original hardback edition) and a two-tone cover that pays homage to the original design.

A FOUNDING MEMBER OF GUNS N' ROSES AND VELVET REVOLVER SHARES THE STORY OF HIS RISE TO THE PINNACLE OF FAME AND FORTUNE, HIS STRUGGLES WITH ALCOHOLISM AND DRUG ADDICTION, HIS PERSONAL CRASH AND BURN, AND HIS PHOENIX-LIKE TRANSFORMATION.
IN 1984, AT THE AGE OF TWENTY, Duff McKagan left his native Seattle--partly to pursue music but mainly to get away from a host of heroin overdoses then decimating his closest group of friends in the local punk scene. In L.A. only a few weeks and still living in his car, he answered a want ad for a bass player placed by someone who identified himself only as "Slash." Soon after, the most dangerous band in the world was born. Guns N' Roses went on to sell more than 100 million albums worldwide.
In "It's So Easy, "Duff recounts Guns' unlikely trajectory to a string of multiplatinum albums, sold-out stadium concerts, and global acclaim. But that kind of glory can take its toll, and it did--ultimately--on Duff, as well as on the band itself. As Guns began to splinter, Duff felt that he himself was done, too. But his near death as a direct result of alcoholism proved to be his watershed, the turning point that sent him on a unique path to sobriety and the unexpected choices he has made for himself since.
In a voice that is as honest as it is indelibly his own, Duff--one of rock's smartest and most articulate personalities--takes readers on a harrowing journey through the dark heart of one of the most notorious bands in rock-and-roll history and out the other side.