The Stranglers, or Meninblack, were once considered the bad boys of punk despite never really being a punk band. Formed in Guildford in 1974, they celebrate their golden anniversary as a band that have continued to tour and record throughout their history, giving us some classic tunes like ‘No More Heroes’, ‘Peaches’ and ‘Golden Brown,’ just part of a legacy that includes 40 top 40 UK singles hits and 18 studio albums. They have courted controversy, been jailed, been reviled and lauded – in fact, everything that can happen to a band has happened to The Stranglers. Still led by original bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel, The Stranglers have created some thought-provoking music with a sense of melody, which proves that their musicality and intelligence were often greater than their contemporaries. This book examines every album and single recorded by the band, as well as rarities and their many videos throughout their history. With a foreword by current guitarist and vocalist Baz Warne, the band’s colourful history is explored as we discuss every song created by one of the most interesting and eclectic bands in rock music. Martin Hutchinson lives with his wife Michaela (and cat Sydney) in Horwich near Bolton, UK. He has written comedy sketches for TV and Radio, compiled quizzes for TV and has penned over 270 CD liner notes for EMI and others. For over thirty years, he has concentrated on music, supplying articles and interviews for around 20 provincial newspapers and three magazines. He is also, for his sins, a lifelong Bolton Wanderers fan. This is his second book for Sonicbond, the first being The Kinks On Track.

The Stranglers have outlasted and outsold virtually every other band of their era, recording ten hit albums and releasing 21 Top 40 singles. Their list of hits, including Golden Brown, were written against a background of spectacular success, dismal failure, drug dependency, financial ruin, infighting and misfortune. As a response to David Buckley's one-sided biography of the band ("No Mercy" Hodder & Stoughton, 1997) and the band’s reticence to reveal the true meaning behind their songs, Hugh Cornwell, founding member and songwriter, sets the record straight, displaces the myths and for the first time explains the real stories behind The Stranglers, his departure and the origins of their songs.

Liz Aggiss and Billy Cowie, known collectively as Divas Dance Theatre, are renowned for their highly visual, interdisciplinary brand of dance performance that incorporates elements of theatre, film, opera, poetry and vaudevillian humour. Anarchic Dance, consisting of a book and downloadable resources, is a visual and textual record of their boundary-shattering performance work. The downloadable resources feature extracts from Aggiss and Cowie's work, including the highly-acclaimed dance film Motion Control (premiered on BBC2 in 2002), rare video footage of their punk-comic live performances as The Wild Wigglers and reconstructions of Aggiss's solo performance in Grotesque Dancer. These films are cross-referenced in the book, allowing readers to match performance and commentary as Aggiss and Cowie invite a broad range of writers to examine their live performance and dance screen practice through analysis, theory, discussion and personal response. Extensively illustrated with black and white and colour photographs Anarchic Dance, provides a comprehensive investigation into Cowie and Aggiss’s collaborative partnership and demonstrates a range of exciting approaches through which dance performance can be engaged critically.

While historians debate of the fate of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the capital story of Etta Place is significant as any event that defines the Old West. Mistress to Sundance and matron to Butch, Etta was a notorious desperada, beautiful and well-read, an excellent horse-rider, and an expert markswoman. In 1901, on the lam from Pinkertons', the family of three fled to Argentina where Detective Frank Dimaio tracked them to their ranch near the small village of Cholila. In 1908, Dimaio reported: 'I know nothing of Etta Place, but believe she met the Sundance Kid in a house of ill-fame and became his common law wife. She returned to the United States while the Kid and Butch stayed in South America and were apparently killed in Bolivia by Soldaleros-although some believe they escaped.' Based on the oral history of Sadie Albin-aka Etta Place-Pinkerton Waltz is the irrefutable saga of the family of three settling in anonymity on their cattle ranch in the ghost town of Greenhorn, Colorado in 1910. In 1966, when Sadie's husband Eli (the Sundance Kid) passes away, she befriends Mary Iris, a cub newspaper reporter. Separated by generations, they develop an unfailing relationship and Sadie reveals her true identity. Pinkerton Waltz is a journalistic reconstruction of Sadie's lucid memories of the family of three. Sadie begins, "Dead outlaws make great legends. You bet. Better to get it from the horse's mouth than some horse's ass." Pinkerton Waltz peeks under the bedclothes at Fanny Porter's Sporting House in San Antonio, where, at fifteen, Etta's infamy began. On Sadie's 94th birthday, she recalls riding with the Wild Bunch-robbing banks and holding-up trains-and dancing with Pinkertons' along The Outlaw Trail. For half a century, Sadie lived an epic life to escape Etta's legendary past. Eli is mentored by Ernest Blumsenschein, co-founder of the Taos Artists Colony; Joseph (Butch Cassidy) promotes a barnyard-boxing match between The Manassa Mauler and a victorious mountain man; the family of three bottle moonshine in a still hidden beneath the bear cage at the Greenhorn Zoo. Pinkerton Waltz celebrates an ancient Chinaman named Boc Yow and laments the demise of the American cowboy. In the beginning, Etta dances a jitterbug to bring finality to a frenetic folklore. In the end, Sadie whispers the truth, soothing as a cradlesong. www.pinkertonwaltz.com

The Stranglers were at the vanguard of punk and new wave whilst never really being accepted as 'proper' punks. Still going to this day, but without original guitarist Hugh Cornwell, the classic line up is Cornwell, Jean Jacques Burnel, Dave Greenfield and Jett Black. This is the line-up covered in this book which goes from the band's conception to Cornwell's departure in 1990.

The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music Volume 1 provides an overview of media, industry, and technology and its relationship to popular music. In 500 entries by 130 contributors from around the world, the volume explores the topic in two parts: Part I: Social and Cultural Dimensions, covers the social phenomena of relevance to the practice of popular music and Part II: The Industry, covers all aspects of the popular music industry, such as copyright, instrumental manufacture, management and marketing, record corporations, studios, companies, and labels. Entries include bibliographies, discographies and filmographies, and an extensive index is provided.

An art form combining the skills of a DJ with the intimacy of a letter, a good mixtape was the ultimate audio valentine. Today, when the iPod and playlists reign supreme, the cassette has been rendered obsolete, and the art of crafting these sonic calling cards has been relegated to back-of-the-closet, thirty-something nostalgia. Now, thanks to Jason Bitner, we can relive our lost youth and lost loves. In Cassette from My Ex, sixty noted writers and musicians wax poetic about their own experiences with these charming artifacts and the relationships that inspired them. Contributors include: Maxim editor Joe Levy Author Rick Moody Former Rolling Stone writer and MTV2 veejay Jancee Dunn The Magnetic Fields' Claudia Gonson Stories range from the irreverently sweet, such as the doomed love affair between a Deadhead and a Goth, to the touching, such as the heartbreaking discovery of a former love passing away. Everyone will find a story or a song to relate to. Just hit play.

‘This is an extraordinary achievement and it will become an absolutely vital and trusted resource for everyone working in the field of popular music studies. Even more broadly, anyone interested in popular music or popular music culture more generally will enjoy - and find many uses for - the wealth of information and insight captured in this volume.' Lawrence Grossberg, Morris Davis Professor of Communication Studies and Cultural Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The first comprehensive reference work on popular music of the world Contributors are the world's leading popular music scholars Includes extensive bibliographies, discographies, sheet music listings and filmographies. Popular music has been a major force in the world since the nineteenth century. With the advent of electronic and advanced technology it has become ubiquitous. This is the first volume in a series of encyclopedic works covering popular music of the world. Consisting of some 500 entries by 130 contributors from around the world. Entries range between 250 and 5000 words, and is arranged in two Parts: Part 1: Social and Cultural Dimensions, covering the social phenomena of relevance to the practice of popular music. Part II: The Industry, covers all aspects of the popular music industry, such as copyright, instrumental manufacture, management and marketing, record corporations, studios, companies, and labels. Entries include bibliographies, discographies and filmographies, and an extensive index is provided. For more information visit the website at: www.continuumpopmusic.com

Media forms and genres are proliferating as never before, from movies, computer games and iPods to video games and wireless phones. This essay collection by recognized scholars, practitioners and non-academic writers opens discussion in exciting new directions.

The literary equivalent of a great dive bar jukebox--inspiring, provocative, irresistible, and the perfect gift for all music lovers. At the heart of all music fetishes, there are lists: ten essential female murder ballads, ten unsettling songs for a midwestern white guy to wake to from a coma, ten smutty Bob Dylan moments, and of course the ever-popular staple of all music lists (and listeners)--ten best breakup songs. Hang the DJ compiles what contributors might once have scribbled in the back of their textbooks or school folders, when they--like all of us at one point--were absolutely sure that they alone were the sole guardians of Musical Truth; that Sparks' number two hit, "This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us," really should have made it to the number one spot, that Gary Numan was merely a misshapen progeny of Bowie's Thin White Duke persona, that female singer-songwriters are better than their male equivalents. Mixing anecdote, humor, reference, and sheer dorkiness--but with the bizarre insight of an anthropological study in pop-culture protocol--Hang the DJ is a collection of lists about musical loves, hates, dreams, and nightmares from music-lovers such as Rick Moody, Jonathan Lethem, Simon Reynolds, Ali Smith, Amanda Petrusich, and many other bloggers, journalists, novelists, poets, and musicians.