John Lydon has secured prime position as one of the most recognizable icons in the annals of music history. As Johnny Rotten, he was the lead singer of the Sex Pistols - the world's most notorious band, who shot to fame in the mid-1970s with singles such as 'Anarchy in the UK' and 'God Save the Queen'. So revolutionary was his influence, he was even discussed in the Houses of Parliament, under the Traitors and Treasons Act, which still carries the death penalty. Via his music and invective he spearheaded a generation of young people across the world who were clamouring for change - and found it in the style and attitude of this most unlikely figurehead. With his next band, Public Image Ltd (PiL) Lydon expressed an equally urgent impulse in his make-up - the constant need to reinvent himself, to keep moving. From their beginnings in 1978 he set the groundbreaking template for a band that continues to challenge and thrive in the 2010s. He also found time for making innovative new dance records with the likes of Afrika Baambaata and Leftfield. Following the release of a solo record in 1997, John took a sabbatical from his music career into other media, most memorably his own Rotten TV show for VH1 and as the most outrageous contestant ever on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! He then fronted the Megabugs series and one-off nature documentaries and even turned his hand to a series of much loved TV advertisements for Country Life butter. Lydon has remained a compelling and dynamic figure - both as a musician, and, thanks to his outspoken, controversial, yet always heartfelt and honest statements, as a cultural commentator. The book is a fresh and mature look back on a life full of incident from his beginnings as a sickly child of immigrant Irish parents who grew up in post-war London, to his present status as a vibrant, alternative national hero.

If you know what it is, punk is everywhere nowadays - in fashion, in TV ads, in loads of books and in retro mags. And as the characters aren't waxworks but in many cases living beings, some have staggered, tramped or even rocketed back into public life. It's a bit tricky to sort the crap from the class but this unusual book deserves the latter tag. If your world was influenced by Crass, the Levellers or Adam & The Ants, Let's Submerge is for you (Berger has written the definitive work on Crass and also a biog of the Levellers). The anthology is more than memoir - it's a personal take on punk and its place in Berger's life. Built on a superb, rangy interview with Crass linchpin Penny Rimbaud and including in-depth talks with mavericks such as Mark Perry, Marco Pirroni, the late Steven Wells and Spizz, it seeks to unearth what the movement/phenomenon was about and how its protagonists fit with the Berger view that punk was "a place where misfits could be accepted and conformity didn't rule." His choice of subjects might make consensus likely but that is not the point as an unflinching style gets the best out of his interviewees. A key passage in the Mark Perry interview has the priceless line: "My old mate Danny Baker, erstwhile Sniffin' Glue colleague] did an advert for Daz They're a major corporation Give us a break They're destroying the fucking world - why are we working for them? I'm not a particularly political person . . .." Perry also tells a great tale of how he was asked to appear on Baker's edition of This Is Your Life and was chastised by his ma for turning it down. "Even people I respect didn't understand. I don't live by those rules." Wherever their careers have taken them, all have consciously avoided settling in the mainstream. Berger's writing career took him to 3am (not the Daily Mirror column, but 3ammagazine.com - "Whatever it is, we're against it") and the pieces he contributed are to me the hard core of Let's Submerge. They are a riveting set, composed with passion and spiked with insight and humour, covering an unexpectedly wide terrain - drinking at the Ritz, flag-waving nationalism, the virtues of Jeffrey Archer, Crass redux and voting among others. There's also an equally spiky and humorous memoir of a spell of horse-drawn life in Ireland, and quite a bit more. In conclusion, an illuminating interview with the author puts the foregoing into historical perspective. The impression is that while Berger wants to "draw a line" rather than march on as a modern-day torchbearer, the light is unlikely to go out.

By June 1993, when Washington, D.C.'s Fugazi released their third full-length album In on the Kill Taker, the quartet was reaching a thunderous peak in popularity and influence. With two EPs (combined into the classic CD 13 songs) and two albums (1990's genre-defining Repeater and 1991's impressionistic follow-up Steady Diet of Nothing) inside of five years, Fugazi was on creative roll, astounding increasingly large audiences as they toured, blasting fist-pumping anthems and jammy noise-workouts that roared into every open underground heart. When the album debuted on the now-SoundScan-driven charts, Fugazi had never been more in the public eye. Few knew how difficult it had been to make this popular breakthrough. Disappointed with the sound of the self-produced Steady Diet, the band recorded with legendary engineer Steve Albini, only to scrap the sessions and record at home in D.C. with Ted Niceley, their brilliant, under-known producer. Inadvertently, Fugazi chose an unsure moment to make In on the Kill Taker: as Nirvana and Sonic Youth were yanking the American rock underground into the media glare, and "breaking" punk in every possible meaning of the word. Despite all of this, Kill Taker became an alt-rock classic in spite of itself, even as its defiant, muscular sound stood in stark contrast to everything represented by the mainstreaming of a culture and worldview they held dear. This book features new interviews with all four members of Fugazi and members of their creative community.

Glen Matlock is a founder member of the Sex Pistols. He was a major contributor to their songwriting from 1975 to 1977, and has played bass guitar on all their reformation tours since 1996. This is Matlock's personal memoir of the 'Filthy Lucre' world tour of 1996, including rare memorabilia and previously unseen personal photographs. Foreword by Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers. Published by Foruli Codex - music, photography and popular culture.

Like a real life field of dreams Alf Hyslop built it - the Grey Topper music venue in Jacksdale, an obscure Nottinghamshire pit village - and they came - glam kings Sweet, Mud, Bay City Rollers, Hot Chocolate, soul legends Ben E king, Geno Washington, Edwin Starr, reggae greats Desmond Dekker and Jimmy Cliff, heavy metal acts UFO, Judas Priest, Saxon. Then came the punk rock and new wave explosion - The Stranglers, The Vibrators, UK Subs, The Members, The Ruts, Angelic Upstarts, Ultravox, Adam and the Ants, The Pretenders, Toyah, The Specials, Simple Minds. Inevitably with punk, violence flared, culminating in the Angelic Upstarts riot gig that has gone down in Jacksdale folklore. The Palace and the Punks tells the amazing, hilarious (imagine a 1970's Phoenix Nights if Top of the Pops was filmed there), and occasionally sad, true story of the Grey Topper, centred around its last rise and fall and pogo in 1979. From the same author of the acclaimed If the Kids are United. www.manutdbooks.com

A collection of humorous, shocking, and surprising tales about touring from some of underground music's most celebrated musicians.

"Visual Vitriol: The Street Art and Subcultures of the Punk and Hardcore Generation" is a vibrant, in-depth, and visually appealing history of punk, which reveals punk concert flyers as urban folk art. David Ensminger exposes the movement's deeply participatory street art, including flyers, stencils, and graffiti. This discovery leads him to an examination of the often-overlooked presence of African Americans, Latinos, women, and gays and lesbians who have widely impacted the worldviews and music of this subculture. Then Ensminger, the former editor of fanzine "Left of the Dial," looks at how mainstream and punk media shape the public's outlook on the music's history and significance.

Often derided as litter or a nuisance, punk posters have been called instant art, Xerox art, or DIY street art. For marginalized communities, they carve out spaces for resistance. Made by hand in a vernacular tradition, this art highlights deep-seated tendencies among musicians and fans. Instead of presenting punk as a predominately middle-class, white-male phenomenon, the book describes a convergence culture that mixes people, gender, and sexualities.

This detailed account reveals how members conceptualize their attitudes, express their aesthetics, and talk to each other about complicated issues. Ensminger incorporates an important array of scholarship, ranging from sociology and feminism to musicology and folklore, in an accessible style. Grounded in fieldwork, "Visual Vitriol" includes over a dozen interviews completed over the last several years with some of the most recognized and important members of groups such as Minor Threat, The Minutemen, The Dils, Chelsea, Membranes, 999, Youth Brigade, Black Flag, Pere Ubu, the Descendents, the Buzzcocks, and others.

Twenty-eight years after its original release, the Clash's "London Calling "was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Route 19 Revisited is about the making of this iconic album, detailing the stories behind its songs and placing them in contexts personal, musical and socio-political.

"From the Hardcover edition."

Los Angeles rock generally conjures memories of surf music, The Doors, or Laurel Canyon folkies. But punk? L.A.'s punk scene, while not as notorious as that of New York City, emerged full-throated in 1977 and boasted bands like The Germs, X, and Black Flag. This book explores how, in the land of the Beach Boys, punk rock took hold.

As a teenager, Dewar MacLeod witnessed firsthand the emergence of the punk subculture in Southern California. As a scholar, he here reveals the origins of an as-yet-uncharted revolution. Having combed countless fanzines and interviewed key participants, he shows how a marginal scene became a "mass subculture" that democratized performance art, and he captures the excitement and creativity of a neglected episode in rock history.

"Kids of the Black Hole" tells how L.A. punk developed, fueled by youth unemployment and alienation, social conservatism, and the spare landscape of suburban sprawl communities; how it responded to the wider cultural influences of Southern California life, from freeways to architecture to getting high; and how L.A. punks borrowed from their New York and London forebears to create their own distinctive subculture. Along the way, MacLeod not only teases out the differences between the New York and L.A. scenes but also distinguishes between local styles, from Hollywood's avant-garde to Orange County's hardcore.

With an intimate knowledge of bands, venues, and zines, MacLeod cuts to the heart of L.A. punk as no one has before. Told in lively prose that will satisfy fans, "Kids of the Black Hole" will also enlighten historians of American suburbia and of youth and popular culture.

Jeff Turner was raised in Custom House in the East End of London, with seven siblings to share a three-bedroom council house. When the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" hit, his brother Mickey picked up a guitar and Jeff picked up a microphone, and together they stormed the music scene as The Cockney Rejects. The Rejects stood for being young, working class, and not taking anything from anyone, resulting in aggression and violence being the main staple at their shows. However, the madness couldn't last forever, and as chaos at the gigs spiraled out of control, so did the band. Jeff was left dazed and penniless, and here tells his story.

With his critically acclaimed "Rip It Up and Start Again," renowned music journalist Simon Reynolds applied a unique understanding to an entire generation of musicians working in the wake of punk rock. Spawning artists as singular as Talking Heads, Joy Division, The Specials, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Gang of Four, and Devo, postpunk achieved new relevance in the first decade of the twenty-first century through its profound influence on bands such as Radiohead, Franz Ferdinand, and Vampire Weekend. With "Totally Wired" the conversation continues. The book features thirty-two interviews with postpunk's most innovative personalities--such as Ari Up, Jah Wobble, David Byrne, and Lydia Lunch--alongside an "overview" section of further reflections from Reynolds on postpunk's key icons and crucial scenes. Included among them are John Lydon and PIL, Ian Curtis and Joy Division, and art-school conceptualists and proto-postpunkers Brian Eno and Malcolm McLaren. Reynolds follows these exceptional, often eccentric characters from their beginnings through the highs and lows of postpunk's heyday. Crackling with argument and anecdote, "Totally Wired" paints a vivid portrait of individuals struggling against the odds to make their world as interesting as possible, in the process leaving a legacy of artistic ambition and provocation that reverberates to this day.

Punk Slash! Musicals is the first book to deal extensively with punk narrative films, specifically British and American punk rock musicals produced from roughly 1978 to 1986. Films such as Jubilee, Breaking Glass, Times Square, Smithereens, Starstruck, and Sid and Nancy represent a convergence between independent, subversive cinema and formulaic classical Hollywood and pop musical genres. Guiding this project is the concept of "slip-sync." Riffing on the commonplace lip-sync phenomenon, "slip-sync" refers to moments in the films when the punk performer "slips" out of sync with the performance spectacle, and sometimes the sound track itself, engendering a provocative moment of tension. This tension frequently serves to illustrate other thematic and narrative conflicts, central among these being the punk negotiation between authenticity and inauthenticity. Laderman emphasizes the strong female lead performer at the center of most of these films, as well as each film's engagement with gender and race issues. Additionally, he situates his analyses in relation to the broader cultural and political context of the neo-conservatism and new electronic audio-visual technologies of the 1980s, showing how punk's revolution against the mainstream actually depends upon a certain ironic embrace of pop culture.

*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.

They were the pioneers of American hardcore, forming in California in 1878 and splitting up 8 years later leaving behind them a trail of blood, carnage and brutal, brilliant music. Throughout the years they fought with the police, record industry and their own fans. This is the band's story from the inside, drawing upon exclusive interviews with the group's members, their contemporaries and the groups who were inspired by them. It's also the story of American hardcore music, from the perspective of the group who did more to take the sound to the clubs, squats and community halls in American than any other.

Four friends in their early 20's use their punk band to fight crime and vandalism in their neighborhood. What begins with the best of intentions ends up pulling the band into the White Power movement.

'I was 22 years old, a hard-on with a pulse: wretched, vice-ridden, too much to burn and not enough minutes in a hour to do so' The action begins in West Des Moines, Iowa, where Corey Taylor, frontman of heavy metal bands Slipknot and Stone Sour, systematically set about committing each of the Seven Deadly Sins. He has picked fights with douche bags openly brandishing guns. He has set himself on fire at parties and woken up in dumpsters after cocaine binges. He lost his virginity at eleven. He got rich and famous and immersed himself in booze, women, and chaos until one day he realised, suddenly, that he didn't need any of that at all. Now updated with a brand new chapter, Seven Deadly Sins is a brutally honest look at 'a life that could have gone horribly wrong at any turn', and the soul-searching and self-discovery it took to set it right.

This is the first ever 'authorised' biography of this most inscrutable of bands - now updated. This new edition incorporates a new epilogue in which Mick Middles considers recent upheavels in the Fall camp, the "Heads Roll" album, Mark E. Smith's appearance at its launch and his ongoing tirades at anything and everything. Together music writer Mick Middles and Fall leader Mark E Smith have written an exhausting biography of the Fall. Spanning their years on the fringe of the Manchester punk scene, three dozen albums, numerous tours, two successful stage playes and numerous 'spoken word' events, this book is strangely compelling as the band itself.

This book describes the emergence of DIY punk record labels in the early 1980s. Based on interviews with sixty-one labels, including four in Spain and four in Canada, it describes the social background of those who run these labels. Especially interesting are those operated by dropouts from the middle class. Other respected older labels are often run by people with upper middle-class backgrounds. A third group of labels are operated by working-class and lower middle-class punks who take a serious attitude to the work. Using the ideas of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this book shows how the field of record labels operates. The choice of independent or corporate distribution is a major dilemma. Other tensions are about signing contracts with bands, expecting extensive touring, and using professional promotion. There are often rivalries between big and small labels over bands that have become popular and have to decide whether to move to a more commercial record label. Unlike approaches to punk that consider it as subcultural style, this book breaks new ground by describing punk as a social activity. One of the surprising findings is how many parents actually support their children's participation in the scene. Rather than attempting to define punk as resistance or as commercial culture, this book shows the dilemmas that actual punks struggle with as they attempt to live up to what the scene means for them.

"Fellow rock stars, casual members of the public, lords and media magnates, countless thousands of people will talk of their encounters with this driven, talented, indomitable creature, a man who has plumbed the depths of depravity, yet emerged with an indisputable nobility. Each of them will share an admiration and appreciation of the contradictions and ironies of his incredible life. Even so, they are unlikely to fully comprehend both the heights and the depths of his experience, for the extremes are simply beyond the realms of most people's understanding."
--from the Prologue
The first full biography of one of rock 'n' roll's greatest pioneers and legendary wild men
Born James Newell Osterberg Jr., Iggy Pop transcended life in Ypsilanti, Michigan, to become a member of the punk band the Stooges, thereby earning the nickname "the Godfather of Punk." He is one of the most riveting and reckless performers in music history, with a commitment to his art that is perilously total. But his personal life was often a shambles, as he struggled with drug addiction, mental illness, and the ever-problematic question of commercial success in the music world. That he is even alive today, let alone performing with undiminished energy, is a wonder. The musical genres of punk, glam, and New Wave were all anticipated and profoundly influenced by his work.
Paul Trynka, former editor of "Mojo" magazine, has spent much time with Iggy's childhood friends, lovers, and fellow musicians, gaining a profound understanding of the particular artistic culture of Ann Arbor, where Iggy and the Stooges were formed in the mid to late sixties. Trynka has conducted over 250 interviews, has traveled to Michigan, New York, California, London, and Berlin, and, in the course of the last decade or so at "Mojo," has spoken to dozens of musicians who count Iggy as an influence. This has allowed him to depict, via real-life stories from members of bands like New Order and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Iggy's huge influence on the music scene of the '70s, '80s, and '90s, as well as to portray in unprecedented detail Iggy's relationship with his enigmatic friend and mentor David Bowie. Trynka has also interviewed Iggy Pop himself at his home in Miami for this book. What emerges is a fascinating psychological study of a Jekyll/Hyde personality: the quietly charismatic, thoughtful, well-read Jim Osterberg hitched to the banshee creation and alter ego that is Iggy Pop.
"Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed" is a truly definitive work--not just about Iggy Pop's life and music but also about the death of the hippie dream, the influence of drugs on human creativity, the nature of comradeship, and the depredations of fame.

Combining unique access to Green Day with a journalist's nose for a great story, Mark Spitz tells the complete account of the band Green Day from their earliest days to their most recent explosion in popularity--achieved after many in the business had written the band off as old news. It??'s hard to believe that in early 2004, Green Day was considered pass??--a strictly 90s phenomenon. Since then, they have rewritten the rules of rock???namely the rule that says: no comebacks allowed. Sure, there are second acts in rock, but usually they???re embarrassing. ???American Idiot??? has sold 4 million copies in America???the biggest selling rock record of the year. It??'s currently at number 20 on the charts???57 weeks after debuting at number 1. The band was awarded a Grammy for rock album of the year and seven MTV video music awards including video of the year. NOBODY LIKES YOU is a story of friendship and the transporting power of playing very loud music. It is the story of how high school drop out Billy Jo Armstrong came to write song lyrics that inflamed the political conscience of fans in a way that two Yale graduates couldn???t. Green Day??'s story???from rise, to fall, to rise again--has never been fully told, and Spin journalist Mark Spitz has exclusive access.

When it began, punk was an underground revolution that raged against the mainstream; now punk "is" the mainstream. Tracing the origins of Grammy-winning icons Green Day and the triumphant resurgence of neo-punk legends Bad Religion through MTV's embrace of pop-punk bands like Yellowcard, music journalist Matt Diehl explores the history of new punk, exposing how this once cult sound became a blockbuster commercial phenomenon. Diehl follows the history and controversy behind neo-punk--from the Offspring's move from a respected indie label to a major, to multi-platinum bands Good Charlotte and Simple Plan's unrepentant commercial success, through the survival of genre iconoclasts the Distillers and the rise of "emo" superstars like Fall Out Boy.
" My So-Called Punk "picks up where bestselling authors Legs McNeil and Jon Savage left off, conveying how punk went from the Sex Pistol's "Anarchy in the U.K." to anarchy in the O.C. via the Warped Tour. Defining the sound of today's punk, telling the stories behind the bands that have brought it to the masses and discussing the volatile tension between the culture's old and new factions, "My So-Called Punk "is the go-to book for a new generation of punk rock fans.