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Post by diestarsdie on Jun 14, 2011 12:18:38 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2011 18:54:12 GMT -5
I've been meaning to get the name of a book my friend has on punk houses throughout the US. I'm not even sure if there's any commentary, but it's got hundreds of really cool pictures and is great to flip through and take in.
I'm no expert on metal but I thought Sound of the Beast was good, even if I did never pick it back up once I got to the sections on the 90s and nu-metal.
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Post by Super Nintendo Chalmers on Jun 14, 2011 19:06:54 GMT -5
Can't wait to read the Bob Mould book.
It's sort of an obvious choice, but Our Band Could Be Your Life is essential. Interesting stories about bands I already liked, and helped get me into a few bands that I wasn't familiar with before.
And yeah, Sound of the Beast is great, and very comprehensive about the different metal sub-genres. It's a little heavy on the Metallica stuff, though.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2011 19:19:04 GMT -5
Haven't read Sound of the Beast in forever, but I think I might start it again before bed tonight or tomorrow morning.
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Post by Terp Torp on Jun 14, 2011 19:21:21 GMT -5
Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil is the best book about punk I've ever read.
On The Road With The Ramones, the Punk Planet interviews collection, American Hardcore, all good stuff. There's some good music related fiction too, like Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno, The Enchanters vs Sprawlburg Springs by Brian Costello, and best of all King Dork by Dr. Frank from the Mr. T Experience.
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Post by Cei on Jun 14, 2011 19:22:52 GMT -5
I really enjoyed Slash by Slash.
I've just started a new(ish) Jim Morrison biography, but I forget what it's called and who it's by. I'm going to hazard a guess and say the title's probably got something to with the Lizard King. Good so far. I also have Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend which is by Stephen somebody and was a great read and didn't try to make out that Jim was just a misunderstood saint which is always a hazard with this sort of thing.
And after that I'm going to read Starman, which is the new Bowie bio and is apparently really really good.
Oh, and Dream, Brother which was about Jeff and Tim Buckley was pretty great. I liked how they divided the book into father and son but didn't try too hard to draw too many comparisons between them.
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Post by Casey on Jun 14, 2011 23:44:03 GMT -5
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Post by Pillars of Aaron on Jun 14, 2011 23:56:22 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2011 0:13:12 GMT -5
I remember doing a project for school in grade 9 and sitting on my bedroom floor painstakingly deciding what pictures of Davey in the center I could manage to part with for a bulletin board and which were too important. Oh, high school.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2011 0:48:17 GMT -5
My friend made me buy this for him when he saw it in Hot Topic 7 years ago. Almost broke down crying when I said I barely had enough money for it...but I didn't anyway so he wouldn't throw a fit and hate me.
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Post by avon on Jun 15, 2011 10:39:57 GMT -5
I'll second Please Kill Me. It isn't really a story of any sort, but rather a collection of interviews. It's pretty rough stuff. Like, hearing about Jim Carroll giving head to dudes in the back of CBGB's for smack and some of Iggy's stuff is so bizarre. And to think you've got bands like NOFX and Pennywise talking about how punk is supposed to be dangerous. Lords of Chaos is pretty good: www.amazon.com/Lords-Chaos-Bloody-Satanic-Underground/dp/0922915946/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308152123&sr=8-1It's about black metal. It mostly details Norweigian black metal, specifically the Euronymous/Vikernes murder and fallout. It gets a bit repetitive at times, but it's pretty crazy stuff if you're not familiar. The authors don't seem to glamourize anything. I think they glamourize the imagery but not the acts. Like, some of those dudes are ultra nationalist, white supremist homophobes, which the authors denounce. A lot of cool info on a fucked up chain of events. Not a music book, but a book by a musician. Check out King Dork by Frank Portman (aka Dr Frank from MTX). It's geared towards teens, but it's pretty easy to get into as an adult. It's about a high school kid who hates Holden Caufield who finds himself wrapped up in a conspiracy of sorts.
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Post by Super Nintendo Chalmers on Jun 15, 2011 10:47:36 GMT -5
Ah yeah, I've been meaning to read Lords of Chaos. That and Heavy Metal Islam.
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Post by diestarsdie on Jun 15, 2011 11:37:50 GMT -5
King Dork is awesome.
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Post by Terp Torp on Jun 15, 2011 15:21:35 GMT -5
Seriously if you open to any given page of Please Kill Me, someone will be doing a sexual favor for heroin, getting in a fight, or almost dying.
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Post by avon on Jun 15, 2011 15:58:51 GMT -5
Or all 3 at once!
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Post by Nick Taxidermy on Jun 17, 2011 9:20:41 GMT -5
Lords of Chaos is, evidently, mostly pretty inaccurate. except for everything that Varg says. you don't need to decontextualize anything he says.
Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell is a book about Bowie, Reed, and Iggy. It is awesome and super-informative.
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Post by Ally on Jun 17, 2011 10:55:13 GMT -5
I was really into neuroscience in first and second year, more specifically the neuroscience of music. Why people like what songs they like, what happens in your brain when you hear a song you like, and of course, synesthesia.
I was so into it I wanted to do Master's work in it, and I found a program at McGill University in Montreal that is really awesome. One of the main professors in their faculty is Daniel Levitin who wrote this awesome book This is Your Brain on Music that applies all sorts of awesome neuroscience to music, without being over jargon-y. I gave it to my mom to read (who isn't a total science dork, but really loves music) and she enjoyed it.
It's definitely one of my favorite non-fiction books.
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Post by j. on Jun 19, 2011 23:44:45 GMT -5
This is Your Brain on Music is such a great book!
I really enjoyed Girls to the Front by Sarah Marcus. It's all about the riot grrrl movement!
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Post by katherinej on Jun 20, 2011 2:33:21 GMT -5
Has anyone here read The Taqwacores, or can you recommend it? I saw the documentary made about it a few months ago and was really intrigued by it (I think the full title is Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam and it's on Netflix instant if anyone is interested in checking it out). I know the novel had a pretty substantial cult-following, but I haven't seen or heard much about it otherwise. www.amazon.com/Taqwacores-Novel-Michael-Muhammad-Knight/dp/1570271674www.taqwacore.com/
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Post by diestarsdie on Jun 20, 2011 11:19:15 GMT -5
oh shit, thanks for reminding me, I really wanted to see that.
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Post by Casey on Jun 20, 2011 22:05:50 GMT -5
This is Your Brain on Music is such a great book! I really enjoyed Girls to the Front by Sarah Marcus. It's all about the riot grrrl movement! Yessss this was so good. I think I enjoyed it even more because as hard as I've always tried I never got into riot grrl beyond Bikini Kill and even then have always been kinda "meh" on, because the book goes super in depth about the different fractures between bands and stuff so I didn't have any biases one way or the other going into it. It also has some great instances of Ian MacKaye being a total douche.
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Post by claire on Jun 23, 2011 14:55:55 GMT -5
I read Just Kids by Patti Smith recently. I loooved it. It's about when she lived in New York with Robert Mapplethorpe, and the book's kinda centered around their relationship, but it's also about when she first started up the Patti Smith Group and there's lots of cool sixties New York shit in there. Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol and what have you. It's beautifully written.
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Post by dance of days on Jun 24, 2011 1:46:25 GMT -5
I've heard great things about Just Kids. Also very excited to check out the Bob Mould book of course, and I definitely second Our Band Could Be Your Life.
One of the greatest rock n' roll books I've ever read is Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, The Pioneers of the Psychedelic Sound. Even if you aren't a fan/super familiar with the band, it's an absolutely fantastic, engrossing read. Those dudes have been through some crazy shit.
I also really enjoyed Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital, which is a Washington D.C. punk book with an emphasis on the Dischord scene of the 80s and early 90s. It's written mostly with quotes by people who were there, talking about it, which is cool. It's a little gushy and self-obsessed, but sort of fitting considering a large portion of the era were a lot of idealistic privileged white kids, even though they did crank out some great tunes.
More recently, every single Touch and Go fanzine from the early 80s was compiled into a single book, which is a pretty awesome read. All the period reviews of what became seminal punk and hardcore records are really a trip to read. I would also encourage folks to check out Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution. I haven't finished it yet, but it's respectfully and honestly written, with the blessing of those involved and a cool kind of personal slant to it, and it's about an incredibly important era in music.
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Post by diestarsdie on Jun 24, 2011 11:06:15 GMT -5
I really need to buy the Gilman book.
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