Booked On Rock

Peter Shapiro is the best known and most influential concert promoter of his generation. He owned the legendary Wetlands in Tribeca and has gone on to even bigger ventures, including Brooklyn Bowl (NYC, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and Nashville), the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, producing U2 3D, and promoting the Grateful Dead’s fiftieth-anniversary tour (“Fare Thee Well”) featuring the Core Four...

Get to know the formerly undiscovered artists and the technical wizardry behind your favorite scenes. Symbolic interpretations and subconscious messages of peace and love, plus in-studio hijinks by frustrated animators. How does the 'Yellow Submarine' inspire such wonderful feelings of peace and love? "It's All in the Mind: Inside the Beatles' Yellow Submarine, Vol. 2" lifts the veil of the animat...

Renowned guitarists (or experts) discussing “tools of the trade” in their own words serves as the basis of “Iconic Guitar Gear”. Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Brian May, Tony Iommi, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Kurt Cobain, The Edge, Alex Lifeson, Steve Vai, Dimebag Darrell, Zakk Wylde,…the list goes on/won’t let you down! If you’ve ever pondered what some of rock’s to...

Rock journalist Susan Masino is the author of "Famous Wisconsin Musicians" and "Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy: My Life and Times With AC/DC, Van Halen and Kiss", “AC/DC FAQ – All That’s Left to Know About the World’s True Rock ‘N’ Roll Band”, “The Story Of AC/DC – Let There Be Rock” among others. She published her own music newspaper "Rock Central" for six years and has written for WI Music News, a monthl...

Thomas Ransom, born to a severely dysfunctional southern family transplanted to New York City, is left to his own devices by neglectful parents, and spends his childhood shadowing his criminally-inclined half-brother and roaming the city with hard-drinking teenage pals. He eventually finds an outlet as the flamboyant singer of a downtown rock band, and later as the young editor of the Detroit-base...

HOW COULD DRUMMER JIMMIE NICOL SIMPLY VANISH AFTER PLAYING WITH THE BEATLES IN 1964? “The Beatle Who Vanished” is the first historical account of Jimmie Nicol, an unknown drummer whose journey from humble beginnings to saving The Beatles' first world tour was only one part of his legend. Though his 13 days of fame made headlines, the true mystery of Nicol's story is riddled with blacklisting, betr...

A perfect companion to the recorded output of a unique band, this book part of Sonicbond Publishing’s “On Track” series, covers all of Motörhead’s studio output plus rarities and significant solo work from the late great Lemmy. Beginning with the highly regarded trio of albums that ended the 1970s, the book continues through the line-up hardships and turmoil of the 1980s to the occasionally awkwar...

Bruce Springsteen called him “one of the great, great American songwriters”, Jackson Browne hailed him as “the first and foremost proponent of song noir”, and Stephen King once said that if he could write like him, he “would be a happy guy”. The list of artists that lined up to appear on his records include Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Dave Gilmour and Emmylou Harris. So how is it tha...

Author and NPR critic Tim Riley is our guest to talk about his prolific career as a music critic, author of several books on rock history, his brand-new website and latest venture The Riley Rock Report: an audio newsletter which was launched in March. It builds on his book-length multimedia anthology of reviews due out in 2023 titled "Millennium Pop: Music Love & Squalor". Over 100 essays by Riley...

At age sixteen, Bill German began publishing a Rolling Stones fanzine out of his bedroom in Brooklyn. And when he presented an issue to the band on a street in New York, he obviously made an impression: before he knew it, the Stones had hired him to document their career, inviting him into the studio and to their private jam sessions. He traveled the world with them, stayed at their homes, and, fo...

If you don’t recognize the name James Calvin Wilsey, odds are you’ve heard him. His hypnotic guitar work on Chris Isaak’s top ten single from 1989 “Wicked Game” made Isaak an international star. But there is much more to his story than his guitar work on this iconic song. Goldberg’s book is an incredibly in-depth look into the dark side of San Francisco in the 1970s & 80s, and the dark side of roc...

Established in 1976 at the fore London’s punk rock insurgence, The Clash featuring lead singer and guitarist Joe Strummer, lead guitarist and singer Mick Jones, bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon would outlast their peers while creating some of the most influential albums in rock ’n’ roll history. In “The Clash: All The Albums All The Songs”, author Martin Popoff dissects each of the C...

Nirvana, the White Stripes, Hole, the Hives—all sprang from an underground music scene where similarly raw bands, enjoying various degrees of success and luck, played for throngs of fans in venues ranging from dive bars to massive festivals, but were mostly ignored by a music industry focused on mega-bands and shiny pop stars. “We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988–2001” tracks the inspirat...

An affectionate, honest tribute now updated with new revelations about the rock and roll icon who helped make AC/DC an international sensation, the second edition of “Bon: The Last Highway” includes a brand new 16-page introduction. Fink examines new information from French media that changes what we know about who was with Bon Scott the night he died, the London drug-dealing connections of the la...

In “Take a Sad Song: The Emotional Currency of ‘Hey Jude’,” James Campion dives deeply into the song's origins, recording, visual presentation, impact, and eventual influence, while also discovering what makes "Hey Jude" a classic musical expression of personal comfort and societal unity conceived by a master songwriter, Paul McCartney. Within its melodic brilliance and lyrical touchstones of empa...

Celebrated photographer Elliott Landy presents an intimate look at the legendary female singer-songwriter, Janis Joplin. Landy's iconic images of Janis, both on the road and in concert, capture and preserve her pure essence as well as her onstage magnificence. “Photographs of Janis Joplin: On the Road & On Stage” features beautifully reproduced large format images, many never before published. Jan...

Jean Beauvoir joined the Plasmatics in 1979, playing bass and keyboards for the most notorious band to emerge out of the New York City punk scene. By 1982, he was a member of Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, a retro-rock revival act headed by Steven Van Zandt. The Disciples of Soul videos played on MTV during the network’s earliest years, making Beauvoir one of the first Black recording ar...

“Hearts on Fire” is about the creative explosion in Canadian music of the early 2000s, which captured the world’s attention in entirely new ways. The Canadian wave didn’t just sweep over one genre or one city, it stretched from coast to coast, affecting large bands and solo performers, rock bands and DJs, and it connected to international scenes by capitalizing on new technology and old-school DIY...

More than 40 years since their formation, and 125 million album sales later, Metallica is as relevant as ever. Much has been written about the band, but “The Meaning of Metallica” is the first book to focus exclusively on their lyrics. Their mighty guitar riffs and pounding drums are legendary, but Metallica’s words match the intensity of their tunes. Lead singer James Hetfield writes rock poetry...

Ushering in a new era of confessional music that spoke openly about experiences of trauma, depression, and self-loathing, Nine Inch Nails' seminal album, 1994’s ‘The Downward Spiral’, changed popular music forever—bringing transgressive themes of heresy, S&M, and body horror to the masses and taking music technology to its limits. Released in 1994, the album resonated across a generation, combinin...

The 1970s saw the rise of rock and metal as a force in record and ticket sales. Right there at the birth of this was Black Sabbath, whose first album came from nowhere to smash into the top of the charts in Britain and around the world. “Black Sabbath in the 1970s” covers the career of the original foursome - Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne and Bill Ward – from Polka Tulk, through Earth a...

Incredibly, Uriah Heep have now been active for a full fifty years. Few, however, would argue that the period which has come to define them the most, the years they were most influential, was from 1970 to 1980. During this decade the band released an incredible thirteen studio albums and a legendary double live album. All this while going through a regular turnaround of musicians in all but the gu...

"Mysteries in the Music: Case Closed" examines the secrets, myths, legends, hoaxes, conspiracies, and the wildly inexplicable events that are such an intriguing part of rock and roll history. Jim Berkenstadt, aka The Rock And Roll Detective®, has spent decades researching the players behind these famous soundtracks and the mysteries hidden within the music itself. Travel back to the 1950s to uncov...

It began with the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.” It was distilled to its dark essence by Black Sabbath. And it’s flourished into a vibrant modern underground, epitomized by Newcastle’s Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. This is the evolution of heavy music, and “Electric Wizards” is your sonic gazetteer. The voyage is as varied as it is illuminating: from the lysergic blunt trauma of Blue Cheer to th...

Craig Odanovich grew up in Flour Bluff, Texas. In an era before Dairy Queen officially expanded their menu beyond dessert, he learned entrepreneurial principles working for the family-owned franchise. Later as a young music entrepreneur, he launched a successful record store: Craig's Record Factory. It was a time when neighborhood record stores were still a prime point of connection between popula...