CRUEL TO BE KIND is the definitive account of Nick Lowe's uncompromising life as a songwriter and entertainer, from his days at Stiff Records, to becoming the driving force behind Rockpile, to the 1979 smash hit 'Cruel To Be Kind'. Nick's original compositions have been recorded by the best in the business, from enfant terrible of the New-Wave, Elvis Costello, to 'The Godfather of Rhythm and Soul', Solomon Burke; from household names, including Engelbert Humperdink, Diana Ross, and Johnny Cash, to legendary vocalists such as Curtis Stigers, Tom Petty, and Rod Stewart. His reputation as one of the most influential musicians to emerge from that most formative period for pop and rock music is cast in stone. He will forever be the man they call the 'Jesus of Cool'. 'Nick's poise as a singer, his maturity, and his use of tone is beautiful. I can't believe it's this guy I've been watching since I was a teenager' Elvis Costello, 2013 'The master of subversive pop' Nick Kent, NME, 1977 'Nick Lowe is such a f*cking good songwriter! Am I allowed to say that?' Curtis Stigers, 2016

In 1979, from the basement of a London squat, the Raincoats reinvented what punk could be. They had a violin player. They came from Portugal, Spain, and England. Their anarchy was poetic. Working with the iconic Rough Trade Records at its radical beginnings, they were the first group of punk women to actively call themselves feminists. In this short book - the first on the Raincoats - author Jenn Pelly tells the story of the group's audacious debut album, which Kurt Cobain once called "wonderfully classic scripture." Pelly builds on rare archival materials and extensive interviews with members of the Raincoats, Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, Hole, Scritti Politti, Gang of Four, and more. She draws formal inspiration from the collage-like The Raincoats itself to explore this album's magic, vulnerability, and strength.

On the day you were born, you were imprinted with a plan and purpose-elegant patterns that can be read to see who you really are and what your true calling is. And, like your own personal tide table, the ebbs and flows of each phase of your life were set into motion on the day of your birth. Based on ancient Chinese principles of balance and health, this book gives you a rich understanding of your hidden symmetry: the intricate inner design that influences who you are and how your life unfolds. This book is not about astrology or numerology; it is based on thousands of years of research about how time moves in natural patterns and profoundly affects your life. You can use this knowledge to discover the themes running through your life experience, tap into your core strengths, find lasting love, and do your best work in the world. Jean Haner shows you how to ride the waves instead of fight the current of your life, learn how to make best use of what's coming in future years, and understand why things happened as they did in the past. Jean will guide you to discover who you really came here to be, recognise the true nature of everyone you meet, and break free of old limitations-and create a life of conscious vitality, joy, ease and love! 'The wisdom Jean Haner presents in Your Hidden Symmetry has been valuable in my own life over the years. I highly recommend it as a way to love and accept yourself, as well as the way your life is unfolding. I'm delighted to contribute the affirmations in this book to support your journey!' Louise L. Hay, the New York Times best-selling author of You Can Heal Your Life 'Your Hidden Symmetry will help you to know yourself, accept yourself, and be true to who you really are. Jean Haner presents an ancient wisdom for living and authentic life. Her work is a gift to the world.' Robert Holden, Ph.D., author of Shift Happens! and Loveability 'With grace and wisdom born of an innate understanding of the human spirit, Jean will gently guide you down the path to profound self-understanding in this heartfelt book. Highly recommended!' Denise Linn, author of Soul Coaching and Sacred Space

Two and a half decades on, Jawbreaker's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (1993-94) is the rare album to have lost none of its original loyalty, affection, and reverence. If anything, today, the cult of Jawbreaker-in their own words, "the little band that could but would probably rather not"-is now many times greater than it was when they broke up in 1996. Like the best work of Fugazi, The Clash, and Operation Ivy, the album is now is a rite of passage and a beloved classic among partisans of intelligent, committed, literary punk music and poetry. Why, when a thousand other artists came and went in that confounding decade of the 90s, did Jawbreaker somehow come to seem like more than just another band? Why do they persist, today, in meaning so much to so many people? And how did it happen that, two years after releasing their masterpiece, the band that was somehow more than just a band to its fans-closer to equipment for living-was no longer? Ronen Givony's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy is an extended tribute in the spirit of Nicholson Baker's U & I: a passionate, highly personal, and occasionally obsessive study of one of the great confessional rock albums of the 90s. At the same time, it offers a quizzical look back to the toxic authenticity battles of the decade, ponders what happened to the question of "selling out," and asks whether we today are enriched or impoverished by that debate becoming obsolete.

Described, variously, as the perfect fusion of poetry and garage band rock and roll (the original concept was "rock and Rimbaud"), Horses belongs as much to the world of literary and cultural criticism as it does to the realm of musicology. Thus, while due attention will be given to the record's origins in the nascent New York punk scene, the book's core will be a detailed analysis of Patti Smith's lyrics - the book will approach Horses as a work of performance poetry more than anything else.The book's centrepiece will be a track-by-track breakdown of the original album sequence, together with detailed discussion of outtakes and early recordings. There will be sections that focus on a specific lyrical preoccupation: love, sex, gender, death, dreams, God, metamorphosis, intoxication, apocalypse and transcendence. Philip Shaw demonstrates how Horses transformed the possibilities of both poetry and rock music; how it achieved nothing less than a complete and systematic derangement of the senses.

Want to be an obscure comedy band? Now you can 'The Bobby Joe Ebola Songbook' features easy-to-learn lyrics and chords to over 80 songs by the infamous satiric duo, Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits, along with hilarious illustrations. With savage humour they dispense 'helpful' rock'n'roll tips for making amazing things happen on little or no budget.

'Meal Deal with the Devil' combines a five-song CD from the devious San Francisco Bay Area musical satirists, Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits, with an accompanying read-along storybook, bringing their twisted humour to the page.

'A raw and raging celebration of music . . . astounding.' Megan Bradbury 'Funny, filthy, erudite, and rude.' Carl Shuker 'A magnificent novel.' Alan McMonagle During their 1985 tour, two events of hatred and stupidity forever change the lives of a band's four members. Neues Bauen, a post-hardcore Illinois group homing in on their own small fame, head on with frontman Conrad Wells sexually assaulted and guitarist Tone Seburg wounded by gunshot. The band staggers forth into the American landscape, traversing time and investigating each of their relationships with history, memory, authenticity, violence and revelling in transcendence through the act of art. With decades passed and compelled by his wife's failing health to track down Tone, Conrad flies to North Africa where her brother is rumoured to be hiding with a renowned artist from their past. There he instead meets various characters including his former drummer, Spence. Amongst the sprawl and shout of Morocco, the men attempt to recall what happened to them during their lost years of mental disintegration and emotional poverty. Dance Prone is a novel of music, ritual and love. It is live, tense and corporeal. Full of closely observed details of indie-rock, of punk infused performance, the road and the players' relationship to violence, hate and peace. Set during both the post-punk period and the present day, Dance Prone was born out of a love of the underground and indie rock scenes of the 1980s, a fascination for their role in the cultural apparatus of memory, social decay and its reconstruction.

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* The brand new memoir from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Road Beneath My Feet. Taking 36 songs from his back catalogue, folk-punk icon Frank Turner explores his songwriting process. Find out the stories behind the songs forged in the hedonistic years of the mid-2000s North London scene, the ones perfected in Nashville studios, and everything in between. Some of these songs arrive fully-formed, as if they've always been there, some take graft and endless reworking to find 'the one'. In exploring them all, Turner reflects with eloquence, insight and self-deprecating wit on exactly what it is to be a songwriter. From love songs and break-up songs to political calls-to-arms; songs composed alone in a hotel room or in soundcheck with the Sleeping Souls, this brilliantly written memoir - featuring exclusive photos of handwritten lyrics and more - is a must-have book for FT fans and anyone curious about how to write music.

During the 1970s, the synthesizer spurred many fundamental shifts in the mechanisms of music-making. Along with the popularization of the musical aesthetics established by both the punk and post-punk movements, the synthesizer led to ground-breaking effects and processes. Dark Waves examines the role of the synthesizer in shaping the dark and dystopian sound of electronic music in 1970s Britain and is the first collected musicological analysis of The Normal, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and John Foxx. Many of these acts, dark in content, presentation and manner, would go on to influence the more commercial sound of 1980s synth pop, which in turn shaped mainstream electronic music today.

This is the album that sent a shockwave of empowerment through the nation's cultural underground. In 1985, Olympia, Washington band Beat Happening released their eponymous debut of lo-fi pop songs on K Records and challenged every conception held about music. At the center of the group was the enigmatic Calvin Johnson and his revolutionary vision of artistic creation. His foresight and industriousness allowed him to recruit to the K Records roster other free-spirited artists like Beck, Modest Mouse, and Built to Spill long before they gained widespread acclaim. This book, structured in abecedarian fashion, breaks down the fundamental components that defined Beat Happening's self-titled album. With a foreword by Phil Elverum, it's organized in a light-hearted yet incisive format, each of the book's chapters details a particular facet of the record-band members, historic shows, recording sessions, songs, and ideologies-parts reflecting the album as a whole. These alphabetic ingredients constitute a recipe book for feeding your creative spirit. Here is the story of a band that popularized do-it-yourself projects and home recording with four-track tape machines decades before the digital revolution would extend an open hand to garage bands everywhere. This is the story of musical pioneers. This is Beat Happening.

The Tallowmere Annual is a unique collection of words, sound, and ink paintings by musician and artist Keaton Henson. This hardback, special limited edition, mixed-media book tells the fragmented story of a town that never existed, Tallowmere, seemingly empty, showing only outlines of living things, words once spoken, and the sounds of distant mourning. The first of its kind, the book's front cover holds an MP3 pack embedded with an audio jack for headphones and sound controls. Readers can plug in and listen to a recorded score created specially by Keaton as an accompaniment to reading the book and viewing the artwork. Visit www.welcometotallowmere.com for more information. Detailed Specification: Cover: Cased edition with scuff proof matt lamination, 4-colour with spot UV front and back Insides: End papers: black, 140gsm uncoated wood-free paper, 128 pages, 157 gsm matt art paper in sewn sections Original artworks created by Keaton: India ink on paper. Black and white striped head and tail bands Battery pack features: Embedded in cardboard panel on front inside cover, 3x AAA batteries supplied with each pack, removable batteries, On/off switch Audio playback features: Audio chip has play/stop button and volume controls, audio lasts for approx. 20 mins, audio jack to be inserted centrally into the bottom of the cased cover. The Tallowmere Annual was shortlisted for 'The Futurebook of the Year' at The Booksellers Futurebook Live Awards 2018.

Factory Records' fame and fortune were based on two bands - Joy Division and New Order - and one personality - that of its director, Tony Wilson. At the height of the label's success in the late 1980s, it ran its own club, the legendary Hacienda, had a string of international hit records, and was admired and emulated around the world. But by the 1990s the story had changed. The back catalogue was sold off, top bands New Order and Happy Mondays were in disarray, and the Hacienda was shut down by the police. Critically acclaimed on its original publication in 1996, this book tells the complete story of Factory Records' spectacular history, from the label's birth in 1970s Manchester, through its '80s heyday and '90s demise. Now updated to include new material on the re-emergence of Joy Division, the death of Tony Wilson and the legacy of Factory Records, it draws on exclusive interviews with the major players to give a fascinating insight into the unique personalities and chaotic reality behind one of the UK's most influential and successful independent record labels.

The product of years of research, travel, and countless conversations, "Burning Britain" is the true story of the UK punk scene from 1980 to 1984 told for the first time by the bands and labels that created it. Covering the country region by region, author Ian Glasper profiles legendary bands like Vice Squad, Angelic Upstarts, Blitz, Anti-Nowhere League, Cockney Rejects, and the UK Subs as well as more obscure groups like Xtract, The Skroteez, and Soldier Dolls through hundreds of new interviews and photographs. As the 1970s closed the media was quick to declare punk dead, but a new generation of even more aggressive and political bands were announcing their presence through some of the most primal and potent music ever committed to plastic. This book is the definitive guide to that previously overlooked era.

On February 21st 2012, five members of an obscure feminist post-punk collective called Pussy Riot staged a performance in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Dressed in their trademark brightly coloured dresses and balaclavas, the women performed their song 'Punk Prayer - Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!' in front of the altar. The performance lasted only 40 seconds but it resulted in two-year prison sentences for three of the performers - and has turned Pussy Riot into one of the most well-known and important protest movements of the last five years. This necessary and timely book is an account of the Pussy Riot protest, the ensuing global support movement, and the tangled and controversial trial of the band members. It explores the status of dissent in Russia, the roots of the group and their adoption - or appropriation - by wider collectives, feminist groups and music icons. Masha Gessen has unique access to the band and those closest to them. Her unrivalled understanding of the Russian protest movement makes her the ideal writer to document and explain the rage, the beauty and the phenomenon that is Pussy Riot.