"Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy" is a center stage front row seat to the late 70s rockexplosion seen through the eyes of rock journalist/radio host Masino. (Music)

The legendary critic and author of Mystery Train “ingeniously retells the tale of rock and roll” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Unlike previous versions of rock ’n’ roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects ten songs and dramatizes how each embodies rock ’n’ roll as a thing in itself, in the story it tells, inhabits, and acts out—a new language, something new under the sun. “Transmission” by Joy Division. “All I Could Do Was Cry” by Etta James and then Beyoncé. “To Know Him Is to Love Him,” first by the Teddy Bears and almost half a century later by Amy Winehouse. In Marcus’s hands these and other songs tell the story of the music, which is, at bottom, the story of the desire for freedom in all its unruly and liberating glory. Slipping the constraints of chronology, Marcus braids together past and present, holding up to the light the ways that these striking songs fall through time and circumstance, gaining momentum and meaning, astonishing us by upending our presumptions and prejudices. This book, by a founder of contemporary rock criticism—and its most gifted and incisive practitioner—is destined to become an enduring classic. “One of the epic figures in rock writing.”—The New York Times Book Review “Marcus is our greatest cultural critic, not only because of what he says but also, as with rock-and-roll itself, how he says it.”—The Washington Post Winner of the Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award in Music Criticism, given by the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers

What led scientists to have acrobats copulate inside an MRI machine? Why do wordless patterns of sound send shivers down our spines and tickle ancient parts of our brains? How did a chemist's quest to create a drug to ease the pain of childbirth result in the creation of LSD? And did it change our understanding of the brain forever? From tortoiseshell condoms to superstar athletes on hallucinogens, science writer Zoe Cormier dissects these and other burning questions, amplifying them with insights from some of the world's bravest, cleverest, and downright weirdest scientists. Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll explores science at the edge, where scientists ask big, strange questions -- and sometimes experiment on themselves to find answers. It shines a light into the lesser-known corners of scientific research to gain insight into the nature of consciousness, happiness, and humanity. Not to mention our parties. Here are stories of unconventional scientists, innovative inquiries, hedonistic impulses -- and how the renegades of science have illuminated the secrets of our baser impulses.

We are in an era where developments in both technology and musical style have coalesced to produce the greatest period of change in the music industry since the invention of recorded sound. Globalization, the Internet, and digital technology are now opening up possibilities for more artists to be innovative and financially successful. But new music requires new ways of doing business. For more artists to be better off requires new business models to replace those that dominated the 20th century. Integrating insights from economics, management, and intellectual property law, the author explores the dynamics of entrepreneurship and innovation in the music industry, and offers such provocative assessments as these: · The Beatles might never have broken up if they had the kind of two-tier contracts – as band members and as solo artists – that are common in the music industry today. · Buddy Holly would likely have avoided his tragic death in a plane crash at age 22 if his 1959 tour had been sponsored by a company like Coca Cola because today’s corporatized tours are vastly better financed and organized than the haphazard efforts of the 1950s. · The economic value of albums by the likes of Elvis and Michael Jackson has risen significantly since their deaths – the ironic byproduct of the way their behavior tarnished their own brands while they were alive. · Diana Ross might never have quit The Supremes if she had known that one-third of the artists in the 1960s who quit the group had charting careers of only one year. · Thomas Edison’s invention of the phonograph led to the modern record industry, but he is really the godfather of computer programs like Garageband which have created home recording studios. The collapse of the Soviet Union threatened the sound of rock and roll but an American entrepreneur saved the day.

From attending concerts as a teen to working backstage security at major Rock Concerts, this book is a ride through the Rock and Roll years from the 70's to the present.

After more than twenty years in the music business Bret Michaels has sold twenty-five million records and scored an amazing fifteen chartbusting Top 40 singles including the timeless #1 smash hit “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.”?? Today, this award-winning, multi-platinum superstar’s career continues to move at lightning speed following VH1’s hit reality dating show Rock of Love with Bret Michaels —which aired for three seasons and featured a bevy of ladies competing for an all-access pass to Bret Michaels’s heart and to share in his superstar lifestyle. . Bret Michaels is, if nothing else, a true survivor. He has survived a lifelong battle as an insulin-dependent diabetic, a well-publicized near-fatal car crash in 1994, and the countless musical trends and fads of the last two decades. ???Now, Michaels continues his rebirth through this provocative chronicle of his life, in the tradition of Motley Crüe’s The Dirt . . Roses & Thorns reveals everything about Bret’s rockstardom, from the Pennsylvania creation of “the ultimate garage band,” to MTV’s banning of their explicit videos and their 2007 sold-out summer tour. ??Because he’s diabetic, Bret never participated in the drug- and booze-fueled partying like the others, but he was at the center of this movement of over-indulgence and has plenty of stories to tell. ??Also, Bret dishes on his short but notorious relationship with Pamela Anderson—which resulted in an infamous sex tape that circulated on the Internet and was released as a DVD in 2005. Readers will be captivated and entertained by Roses & Thorns , a fascinating account of one of the most enduring rock musicians of the past two decades. .

This book brings the advice and the experience of the Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Oregon to girls everywhere.

Journalist Ian Plenderleith's Rock 'n' Roll Soccer presents the raucous history of the hype and chaos surrounding the rapid rise and cataclysmic fall of the NASL. The North American Soccer League - at its peak in the late 1970s - presented soccer as performance, played by men with a bent for flair, hair and glamour. More than just Pelé and the New York Cosmos, it lured the biggest names of the world game like Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer, Eusebio, Gerd Müller and George Best to play the sport as it was meant to be played-without inhibition, to please the fans. The first complete look at the ambitious, star-studded NASL, Rock 'n' Roll Soccer reveals how this precursor to modern soccer laid the foundations for the sport's tremendous popularity in America today. Bringing to life the color and chaos of an unfairly maligned league, soccer journalist Ian Plenderleith draws from research and interviews with the men who were there to reveal the madness of its marketing, the wild expectations of businessmen and corporations hoping to make a killing out of the next big thing, and the insanity of franchises in scorching cities like Las Vegas and Hawaii. That's not to mention the league's on-running fight with FIFA as the trailblazing North American continent battled to innovate, surprise, and sell soccer to a whole new world. As entertaining and raucous as the league itself, Rock 'n' Roll Soccer recounts the hype and chaos surrounding the rapid rise and cataclysmic fall of the NASL, an enterprising and groundbreaking league that did too much right to ignore.

When Callie interviews the band, Brass Rat, for her school newspaper, her feelings are ambivalent, but when all the children of Northampton begin to disappear on Halloween, she knows where the dangerous search must begin.

Washington, D.C.-based rock 'n' roll antihero Ian F. Svenonius provides an unparalleled and exquisitely provocative how-to guide for rock bands.