Collating more than 150 interviews, "Independence Days" traces the story of the UK independent record label boom from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, a period which saw a new generation of independent spirits take up the baton and revolutionize the course of popular music. The era's most celebrated labels are covered, including Rough Trade, Beggars Banquet/4AD, Factory, Cherry Red and Mute, as well as releases by such notable acts as the Smiths, Joy Division, the Buzzcocks, Elvis Costello, Gary Numan, Teardrop Explodes, and Nick Cave. Interviewees include Rough Trade founder Geoff Travis, Mute Records founder Daniel Miller, 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell, Zoo Records cofounder Bill Drummond, Crass cofounder Penny Rimbaud, Beggars Group founder Martin Mills, Cherry Red cofounder Iain McNay, Good Vibrations founder Terri Hooley, DJ Charlie Gillett, I.R.S. Records founder Miles Copeland, and Sire Records cofounder Seymour Stein.

Despite releasing records only on independent labels and receiving virtually no radio play, Dead Kennedys routinely top both critic and fan polls as the greatest punk band of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Their sound was inventive and tetchy, and front man Jello Biafra's lyrics were incisive and often scathing. This chronicle--the first in-depth book written about Dead Kennedys--uses dozens of firsthand interviews, photos, and original artwork to offer a new perspective on a group that was mired in controversy almost from its inception. It examines and applauds the band's key role in transforming punk rhetoric, both polemical and musical, into something genuinely threatening and enormously funny. Author Alex Ogg puts the local and global trajectory of punk into context and, while not flinching from the wildly differing takes the individual band members have on the evolution of the band, attempts to be celebratory--if not uncritical.

Celebrating a wide range of punk design in vinyl cover art, posters, flyers, fanzines, and other ephemera, The Art of Punk highlights the movement primarily within graphic design and print, while also considering its impact on wider popular culture. Punk was based on immediacy-an often-inspired amateurism and underground, close-knit communities that burned brightly but were not intended to extend beyond the gig, the event, the scene, the moment. Punk songs by such legendary bands as the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, the Damned, the New York Dolls, the Germs, and the Clash tended to be short, fast, and aggressive, and the oft-repeated credo "If it can't be said in three minutes, it's not worth saying" was adopted as standard practice, extending in turn to an entire ethos for the whole subculture. The book is arranged chronologically, and by genre, and features more than 900 visual examples both by uncredited artists and internationally renowned designers and design groups, alongside interviews with, and commentary by, many of the artists concerned.

Pick up your pens and pencils and begin your journey ? This beautiful pocket colouring book has been created to help you to be mindful - to slow down and breathe and to give you the inspiration to live more fully in the present. Each illustration has been inspired by an accompanying quote to aid your contemplation of its message while you colour. Divided into three parts, Mindfulness, Insight and Inspiration, this is a colouring journey. Each of the three parts contains quotes and simple, inspirational designs and ends with a meditation and a section with questions aimed at helping you reflect both on your handiwork and your inner journey. Dip in or work from beginning to end Colouring for Contemplation is your calming companion.

Def Jam was one of the most prolific record labels of the 80s, whose artists included the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, LL Cool J and Run DMC. This is Def Jam's story, but it's also the story of creator Russell Simmons, who was responsible for turning a ghetto craze into a worldwide phenomenon. This book documents some of the finest music recorded in the 80s and 90s.