On 4 June 1976, four young men took to the tiny stage of the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester. The noise they made changed everything...The NME named it as the most important gig of all time. When the Sex Pistols played Manchester in '76 they set off a series of musical detonations that are still being felt today. Despite thousands claiming they were in attendance, only a handful of people were actually there - but those that were went on to form bands including The Smiths, Buzzcocks, Joy Division, New Order and The Fall. They kick-started the Manchester music scene, created Factory Records and laid the foundations for the world-famous Hacienda nightclub. Forty years on, music journalist David Nolan tells the true story of that legendary gig, plus the Pistols' follow up performance and the band's first ever TV appearance at Manchester's Granada TV a few weeks later. The question has truly become one of rock 'n' roll's greatest mysteries: Who really saw the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in 1976? So how does David Nolan finally solve it? By trying to track down the whole audience!In an updated edition comprised of extensive interviews with key players and audience members, and featuring previously unpublished photos, I Swear I Was There is the true story of the electrifying gig that changed the music scene forever.

Damaged: Musicality and Race in Early American Punk is the first book-length portrait of punk as a musical style with an emphasis on how punk developed in relation to changing ideas of race in American society from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Drawing on musical analysis, archival research, and new interviews, Damaged provides fresh interpretations of race and American society during this period and illuminates the contemporary importance of that era. Evan Rapport outlines the ways in which punk developed out of dramatic changes to America's cities and suburbs in the postwar era, especially with respect to race. The musical styles that led to punk included transformations to blues resources, experimental visions of the American musical past, and bold reworkings of the rock-and-roll and rhythm-and-blues sounds of the late 1950s and early 1960s, revealing a historically oriented approach to rock that is strikingly different from the common myths and conceptions about punk. Following these approaches, punk itself reflected new versions of older exchanges between the US and the UK, the changing environments of American suburbs and cities, and a shift from the expressions of older baby boomers to that of younger musicians belonging to Generation X. Throughout the book, Rapport also explores the discourses and contradictory narratives of punk history, which are often in direct conflict with the world that is captured in historical documents and revealed through musical analysis.

As the satanic President Razour attempts to bring forward Armageddon to prevent humanity repenting, the fate of us all rests in the hands of Cleric20, a hedonistic loner with a chequered past, and his robot sidekick, GiX. An action-packed literary shock to the senses that mixes flights of comic fantasy with bouts of brutal violence. Mankind's only hope seems to be having a very bad day. Can Cleric20 halt Razour's devilish plans after an experimental bioweapon deployed to kill him accidentally gives him superpowers? Has the Devil inadvertently created a hero who could actually stop him? Little can prepare you for this spiritually-charged, cyber-noir thrill ride.

Fire up the crimpers and get backcombing! Hairspray and heartbreak abound as the painted youth of the 1980s go on the rampage in a North West London suburb. Further `Tales of a Rock Star's Daughter' by Nettie, eldest offspring of Cream/Blind Faith drummer Ginger Baker, follows on from her hilarious and critically acclaimed first volume. Here she negotiates eviction and poverty and goes off the rails with a new cast of maniacs. From a 1970 meeting with Jimi Hendrix, through to Live Aid, Greenham Common, a cancer op and a brief glimpse of Cream's 2005 reunion. This is essentially a punk rock, pub-based soap-opera like no other; set against venues long-gone and values out-dated, in the smashed-up ruins of a changing world.

On their debut, The Clash famously claimed to be "bored with the USA," but The Clash wasn't a parochial record. Mick Jones' licks on songs such as "Hate and War" were heavily influenced by classic American rock and roll, and the cover of Junior Murvin's reggae hit "Police and Thieves" showed that the band's musical influences were already wide-ranging. Later albums such as Sandinista! and Combat Rock saw them experimenting with a huge range of musical genres, lyrical themes and visual aesthetics. The Clash Takes on the World explores the transnational aspects of The Clash's music, lyrics and politics, and it does so from a truly transnational perspective. It brings together literary scholars, historians, media theorists, musicologists, social activists and geographers from Europe and the US, and applies a range of critical approaches to The Clash's work in order to tackle a number of key questions: How should we interpret their negotiations with reggae music and culture? How did The Clash respond to the specific socio-political issues of their time, such as the economic recession, the Reagan-Thatcher era and burgeoning neoliberalism, and international conflicts in Nicaragua and the Falkland Islands? How did they reconcile their anti-capitalist stance with their own success and status as a global commodity? And how did their avowedly inclusive, multicultural stance, reflected in their musical diversity, square with the experience of watching the band in performance? The Clash Takes on the World is essential reading for scholars, students and general readers interested in a band whose popularity endures.

*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.