Books — Recently Added

A deep dig inside the mind of Mark Mothersbaugh – a musician that most folks know for his role in Devo, and his soundtrack material too – but also a visual artist with a legacy that's maybe even more mindblowing than his work on record! The book is the first we've ever seen to look at ... Book

Jonathan Lethem has given us plenty of great writing on his own – and here, he teams up with Kevin Dettmar to co-edit a volume of seminal writing on rock, pop, and soul music of the past 50 years! This isn't one of those "best of the year" books, with content that will seem dated ... Book

A beautiful book that really follows up the image on the cover – offering up dozens of full color illustrations of contemporary ceramic work with a very vintage vibe – all tiles created by the Motawi Tileworks company in Ann Arbor, Michigan! The book is full color – and although ... Book

A beautiful combination of words and image – as the poetry of Patricia Smith is combined with vintage 70s photographs by Michael Abramson – the same sort of material that was featured in the Light On The Southside book/album from the Numero Group! This presentation is quite different ... Book

A detailed look at the moment when hip hop went from a sideline to a mainstream force in the music business – a time when producers became executives, major labels allowed smaller boutique imprints, and everybody started making a lot more money on the music! As you'd guess from the title, ... Book

Billy Vera's had a hell of a career in the music business – early years as both a performer and songwriter, then work behind the scenes as a producer and historian, a return to performing in the limelight – and lots of other surprising stops along the way! The book is told from Vera's ... Book

A stunningly vivid portrait of New York in the postwar years – a time when the city's already-strong hold on American culture was taken to its apex – as the city became home to some of the most important artists, actors, writers, and creative forces of the generation! The book is ... Book

Elvis Costello has given us his own detailed account of his life and music – but before that well-circulated volume was released, Grame Thomson did a pretty great job with this one – using his years of experience as a music journalist to plumb the depths of the man and his recordings! ... Book

The story of the legendary Jerry Lee Lewis – told by The Killer himself to author Rick Bragg – who worked with Jerry for over two years on the creation of the book! There's a fair bit of passages in third person – the book is still more biography than autobiography – but ... Book

South Carolina has been home to a surprising amount of jazz musicians over the years – a list of talents that includes Houston Person, Chris Potter, Webster Young, Etta Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, Arthur Prysock, Nappy Brown, and a number of others – all of whom are featured in separate ... Book

A heady look at Elton John during his glory days in the 70s – a book that charts his rise in the late 60s and explosion to stardom in the following decade – penned in a style that mixes familiar facts with a fair bit of insider information too! Author Tom Doyle has worked for British ... Book

Writer John Corbett has given us words on a huge variety of musical styles over the years – a fair bit of them left field and avant – but this time around, he's tackling the full range of 70s rock, pop, and soul music – in a huge book that's unlike anything he's ever written ... Book

An incredible book on Sun Ra & The Arkestra – one that's got all the beauty and heft of one of his rare albums on the Saturn Records label! This is the second edition of Omniverse (the first went out of print almost 20 years ago, and now goes for fabulous sums) – and it's even ... Book

A beautiful complement to the groundbreaking Big Ears music festival in Knoxville – an annual event that keeps on pushing the boundaries of listening, with a challenging roster of sonic activity that just keeps on getting better and better over the years! In the introduction, Ben Ratliff ... Book

Bob Bert is a lot more than just a drummer and this a lot more than a mere memoir, with tons of Bert's photographs from the early 80s NYC downtown scene, interviews and photos from his great 90s DIY zine BB Gun and lots more! Bert played in early era Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Chrome Cranks and ... Book

A fantastic look at the music of Henry Cow – that important British band of the 70s, and a key bridge between the worlds of art, experimentation, politics, and improvisation at the time! Henry Cow trafficked in ideas that were fairly intellectual, but the group had a way of bringing them ... Book

Coney Island is a hell of a place – a refuge for New Yorkers for over 100 years, and still pretty amazing today – with a surprisingly strong legacy that also includes the park's influence on more serious artists over the decades, a legacy that's presented beautifully in this oversize ... Book

A treasure trove of beautiful objects designed at mid-century – all creations of designer Peter Muller Munk – German by birth, and part of the wave of creative talent to come to America during wartime – which meant that we got to reap all the benefits of Peter's genius! Famous ... Book

A beautiful book-length prose poem from David Grubbs – an artist that some know as a musician, some as a singer, and some as a writer for his previous essential volume on improvised music! The book is very narrative – and tells this dream-like story of a musician faced with the need to ... Book

20 years of shots from the streets of Los Angeles – all done in a way that's a lot different than the usual sort of Hollywood images you might expect! Instead, photographer Gusmano Cesaretti spent his time in the farther reaches and on the streets – working with Chicano gangs, chicas, ... Book

A beautiful tribute to one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century – Duke Ellington's longtime musical partner, the mighty Billy Strayhorn! The book presents Billy's life and music in a really great format – using songs as sidebars amidst the larger text – which is then ... Book

Kim Fowley, an author? Stranger things have happened – and given Fowley's penchant for putting his finger in just about every pie that came within reach, the whole thing's no surprise at all! The book is a stunning account of Fowley's important years in the music business – working in ... Book

A detailed look at one of the most famous rock and roll concerts of all time – the ill-fated Rolling Stones 1969 performance at Altamont race track, in which the group made the mistake of inviting Hells Angels to handle security! The Angels were bullies, and famously stabbed a concert-goer ... Book

Maybe the coolest kind of atlas you can ever read – an imaginary one, of the sort that we usually love in fantasy and science fiction – this time based around the imagined space of a host of famous films from the 30s through the present! The book has a wonderful look – vivid 3D ... Book

A mighty tribute to the legendary Jann Wenner – a humble editor by trade, but one who forever shaped the world of rock music and journalism with his magazine Rolling Stone! Wenner came along at just the right time to be able to provide just the right platform for a new sort of writer, and ... Book

A very cool book that goes deep into the world of some of the greatest cartoonists of the modern age – a lavish, full-color volume that presents unseen art from the private sketchbooks of some of the modern greats – including Joost Swarte, Seth, Gary Panter, Charles Burns, R Crumb, Kim ... Book

A heavy-duty look at one of our favorite instruments of all time – the mighty Hammond Organ, a keyboard that forever changed the sound of jazz, soul, and even rock and roll on the US scene of the 50s, 60s, and 70s! The book is huge – a fully-illustrated history of the electric organ in ... Book

Iconic images from the Hernandez Brothers – the team of California cartoonists who forever changed the world with their Love & Rockets comic! This beautiful oversize book presents the first 50 covers of Love & Rockets – plus some graphic novel covers as well – all with ... Book

Tina Turner tells the story of her life and music, her loves and struggles – at a level that's surprisingly personal overall – a book that's as much as a tale of her own persistence and strength of will, as it is the music she gave the world! Written from the perspective of 2018, the ... Book

Nicole Hollander's best known for her work in the field of comics – but she's also a native of our fair city of Chicago – and does a really wonderful job here of detailing her childhood on the west side of the city! Hollander mixes illustration and narrative in a great way – ... Book