'The book is f***ing BRILLIANT! Just arrived NYC and wanked myself laughing. Literally tears. Irritated looks all around. What a great writer you are. It's a classic. You absolutely got the whole shite early 70s thing down precisely as it was. Names, smells, sounds, looks, the food, drink, girls, boys! Mega! Well done.' - Bob GeldofIn a sodden tent at a '70s festival, the teenage Mark Ellen had a dream. He dreamt that music was a rich meadow of possibility, a liberating leap to a s...

In a sodden tent at a '70s festival, the teenage Mark Ellen had a dream. He dreamt that music was a rich meadow of possibility, a liberating leap to a sparkling future, an industry of human happiness - and he wanted to be part of it. Thus began his 50-year love affair with rock and roll. From his time at the NME and Smash Hits to Radio One, Old Grey Whistle Test, Live Aid, Q, Select, Mojo and The Word magazines, he's been at the molten core of its evolution, and watched its key figures fro...

I was only sixteen when I bought an electric guitar and joined a band. A year later, I formed an all-girl band called the Marine Girls and played gigs, and signed to an indie label, and started releasing records.Then, for eighteen years, between 1982 and 2000, I was one half of the group Everything But the Girl. In that time, we released nine albums and sold nine million records. We went on countless tours, had hit singles and flop singles, were reviewed and interviewed to within a...

Brought to you by Penguin.WINNER OF THE EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE 2016A comic masterpiece about love, art, greed and the banking crisis, from the author of Skippy DiesWhat links the Investment Bank of Torabundo, www.myhotswaitress.com (yes, hots with an s, don't ask), an art heist, a novel called For the Love of a Clown, a four-year-old boy named after TV detective Remington Steele, a lonely French ...

Born just outside London in 1942, Glyn Johns was sixteen years old at the dawn of rock and roll. His big break as a producer came on the Steve Miller Band's debut album, Children of the Future, and he went on to engineer or produce iconic albums for the best in the business including Abbey Road with the Beatles. Even more impressive, Johns was perhaps the only person on a given day in the studio who was entirely sober, and so he is one of the most reliable and clear-eyed ...

Without the Sex Pistols there would be no punk. And without Steve Jones there would be no Sex Pistols. It was Steve who, with his schoolmate Paul Cook, formed the band that eventually went on to become the Sex Pistols and who was its original leader. As the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of punk -- the influence and cultural significance of which is felt in music, fashion, and the visual arts to this day--Steve tells his story for the very first time.Steve J...

You don't just wake up jaundiced and bitter. It's taken Jack years of dedication and commitment to brew his unique cocktail of disillusionment and bile.From grumpy pensioners to 'gifted' children, from self-pitying farmers to well-meaning primary school teachers, Jack pulls no punches in this fearless assault on everyone and everything ... apart from militant Islamists. Jack would like to make it clear he has no problem with them at all.Once you've read this book you'll never...

SUNDAY TIMES MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEARROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEARMOJO BOOK OF THE YEARIn 1975, Viv Albertine was obsessed with music but it never occurred to her she could be in a band as she couldn't play an instrument and she'd never seen a girl play electric guitar.A year later, she was the guitarist in the hugely influential all-girl band the Slits, who fearlessly took on the male-dominated music scene and became part of a ...

The dazzlingly funny second volume of Danny Baker's memoirs: the television years.Since my first book was published I have had countless friends and family members get in touch to say how come I hadn't included this story or that tale. Was I ashamed of being shot twice, once up the arse, in Jamaica Road? How long should a man live with such a secret? If by retrospectively dropping my trousers every few pages I can reveal a fuller picture of myself during these year...

The long-awaited memoir from the legendary guitarist and cofounder of the seminal British band The Smiths.An artist who helped define a period in popular culture, Johnny Marr tells his story in a memoir as vivid and arresting as his music. The Smiths, the band with the signature sound he cofounded, remains one of the most beloved bands ever, and have a profound influence on a number of acts that followed—from the Stone Roses, Suede, Blur, and Radiohead to Oasis, The Libertines, and...

'The best vicar ever' Caitlin Moran'Sex, drugs, death, religion, more sex... it has got it all' GuardianFATHOMLESS RICHES is the Reverend Richard Coles' warm, witty and wise memoir in which he divulges with searing honesty and intimacy his pilgrimage from a rock-and-roll life of sex and drugs in the Communards to one devoted to God and Christianity.'All the humour, quirky characters and incidents that life - and dea...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERKim Gordon, founding member of Sonic Youth, fashion icon, and role model for a generation of women, now tells her story—a memoir of life as an artist, of music, marriage, motherhood, independence, and as one of the first women of rock and roll, written with the lyricism and haunting beauty of Patti Smith's Just Kids.Often described as aloof, Kim Gordon opens up as never before in Girl in a Band. Telling th...