Acid for the Children: A Mem oir by Flea

$32.99 AUD

Category: Music

Michael Peter Balzary was born in Melbourne, Australia, on October 16, 1962. His more famous stage name, Flea, and his wild ride as the renowned bass player for the Red Hot Chili Peppers was in a far and distant future. Little Michael from Oz moved with his very conservative, very normal family to Westc hester, New York, where life as he knew it was soon turned upside down. His parents split up and he and his sister moved into the home of his mother's free-wheeling, jazz musician boyfriend - trading in rules, stability, and barbecues for bohemian values, wildness, and Sunday afternoon jazz parties where booze, weed, and music flowed in equal measure. There began Michael's life-long journey to channel all the frustration, loneliness, love, and joy he felt into incredible rhythm. When Michael's family moved to Los Angeles in 1972, his home situation was rockier than ever. He sought out a sense of belonging elsewhere, spending most of his days partying, playing basketball, and committing petty crimes. At Fairfax High School, he met another social outcast, Anthony Kiedis, who quickly became his soul brother, the yin to his yang, his partner in mischief. Michael joined some bands, fell in love with performing, and honed his skills. But it wasn't until the night when Anthony, excited after catching a Grandmaster Flash concert, suggested they start their own band that he is handed the magic key to the cosmic kingdom. Acid for the Children is as raw, entertaining and wildly unpredictable as its author. It's both a tenderly evocative coming of age story and a raucous love letter to the power of music and creativity. ...Show more

Me: Elton John Official Autobiography (Hb) by Elton John

$44.99 AUD

Category: Music

In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life,  The result is Me - the joyously funny, honest and moving story of the most enduringly successful singer/songwriter of all time. Christened Reginald Dwight, he was a shy boy with Budd y Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star. By the age of twenty-three, he was performing his first gig in America, facing an astonished audience in his bright yellow dungarees, a star-spangled T-shirt and boots with wings. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again. His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with song-writing partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with the Queen; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation. All the while, Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade. In Me Elton also writes powerfully about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father. In a voice that is warm, humble and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes. This is a story that will stay with you, by a living legend. ...Show more

The Beautiful Ones - Prince by Prince

$49.99 AUD

Category: Music

From Prince himself comes the brilliant coming-of-age-and-into-superstardom story of one of the greatest artists of all time--featuring never-before-seen photos, original scrapbooks and lyric sheets, and the exquisite memoir he began writing before his tragic death. Prince was a musical genius, one of t he most talented, beloved, accomplished, popular, and acclaimed musicians in pop history. But he wasn't only a musician--he was also a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds, from the sexy, gritty funk paradise of his early records to the mythical landscape of Purple Rain to the psychedelia of Paisley Park. But his greatest creative act was turning Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minnesota, into Prince, the greatest pop star of his era. The Beautiful Ones is the story of how Prince became Prince--a first-person account of a kid absorbing the world around him and then creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and fame that would come to define him. The book is told in four parts. The first is composed of the memoir he was writing before his tragic death, pages that brings us into Prince's childhood world through his own lyrical prose. The second part takes us into Prince's early years as a musician, before his first album released, through a scrapbook of Prince's writing and photos. The third section shows us Prince's evolution through candid images that take us up to the cusp of his greatest achievement, which we see in the book's fourth section: his original handwritten treatment for Purple Rain--the final stage in Prince's self-creation, as he retells the autobiography we've seen in the first three parts as a heroic journey. The book is framed by editor Dan Piepenbring's riveting and moving introduction about his short but profound collaboration with Prince in his final days--a time when Prince was thinking deeply about how to reveal more of himself and his ideas to the world, while retaining the mystery and mystique he'd so carefully cultivated--and annotations that provide context to each of the book's images. This work is not just a tribute to Prince, but an original and energizing literary work, full of Prince's ideas and vision, his voice and image, his undying gift to the world. ...Show more

Bowie's Books: The Hundred Literary Heroes Who Changed His Life by John O'Connell

$34.99 AUD

Category: Music

David Bowie once said that his idea of perfect happiness was reading. Three years before he died, he made a list of the one hundred books that had transformed his life - a list that formed something akin to an autobiography. From Lolita to Madame Bovary, the Beano to The Iliad, these were the books that had fuelled his creativity and shaped who he was. In Bowie's Books, John O'Connell explores this list in the form of one hundred short essays, each offering a perspective on the man, performer and creator that is Bowie, his work as an artist and the era that he lived in. Bowie's Books is much more than a list of books you should read in your lifetime: it is a unique insight into one of the greatest minds of our times, and an indispensable part of the legacy that Bowie left behind. ...Show more

The Song Remains the Same: 800 Years of Love Songs, Laments and Lullabies by Andrew Ford; Anni Heino

$32.99 AUD

Category: Music

Often today, the word 'song' is used to describe all music. A free-jazz improvisation, a Hindustani raga, a movement from a Beethoven symphony, a Springsteen anthem or a Leonard Cohen ballad- they're all songs. But, in fact, a song is a specific musical form. It's not so much that they all have verses and choruses - though most of them do - but that they are all relatively short and self-contained; they have beginnings, middles and ends; they often have a single point of view, message or story; and, crucially, they unite words and music. Thus, a Schubert song has more in common with a track by Joni Mitchell or Sia than with one of Schubert's own symphonies. The Song Remains the Same traces these connections through seventy-five songs from different cultures and times- love songs, anthems, protest songs, lullabies, folk songs, jazz standards, lieder and pop hits; 'When You Wish Upon a Star' to 'We Will Rock You', 'Jerusalem' to 'Jolene'. Unpicking their inner workings makes familiar songs strange again, explaining and restoring the wonder, joy (or possibly loathing) the reader experienced on first hearing. Featuring songs by The Beatles, Cole Porter, Kate Bush, Carole King, Bob Marley, Tracy Chapman, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and Violeta Parra; musical numbers by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sondheim and the Gershwins; and works from great composers, including Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms. ...Show more

Kim Salmon and the Formula for Grunge by Douglas Galbraith

$39.99 AUD

Category: Music

This book follows Australian musician Kim Salmon, from bands The Scientists, Surrealists and Beasts of Bourbon, from childhood in Perth through his many bands, albums, tours, family upheavals, triumphs, disappointments and examines the characters of the music business he collaborates with along the way. The book explores the forces that shaped his style to create an idiosyncratically Australian sound that went on to spark a worldwide music & cultural movement-Grunge. It's a tribute to the life-long pursuit of artistic mastery, and celebration of the growing international recognition, well overdue for this unique Australian artist. ...Show more

Morning Glory on the Vine: Early Songs and Drawings by Joni Mitchell

$49.99 AUD

Category: Music

A gorgeous compendium of Joni Mitchell's handwritten lyrics and drawings, originally handcrafted as a gift for a select group of friends in 1971 and now available to the public for the first time   In 1971, as her album Blue topped charts around the world, Joni Mitchell crafted one hundred copies o f Morning Glory on the Vine as a holiday gift for her closest friends. For this stunningly beautiful book, Joni hand-wrote an exquisite selection of her own lyrics and poems and illustrated them with more than thirty of her original pictures. Handcrafted, signed, and numbered in Los Angeles, the existing copies of this labor of love have rarely been seen in the past half-century.    Now, during Joni's seventy-fifth birthday year, Morning Glory on the Vine: Early Songs and Drawings will be widely available for the first time. In this faithfully reproduced edition, Joni's best-loved lyrics and poems spill across the pages in her own elegant script. The lively, full-color drawings depict a superb array of landscapes, still lifes, portraits of friends, self-portraits, innovative abstractions, and more. All the artwork from the original book is included, along with several additional pictures that Joni drew of her friends from the same period. Finally, the refreshed volume features an original introduction written by Joni. Morning Glory on the Vine is a gorgeous and intimate keepsake and an invitation to explore anew the dazzling, visionary world of Joni Mitchell. ...Show more

Face It (Debbie Harry Memoirs) HB by Debbie Harry

$45.00 AUD

Category: Music

Debbie Harry has achieved a level of global success and iconic stature that is reserved for very few musicians, and even fewer women. Charismatic lead singer, critically acclaimed solo artist and style icon, her allure is endless and her legacy is enduring. In this, her first memoir, Debbie shares her r emarkable life story. Finding fame in the anarchic punk scene of mid-70s downtown New York, Blondie went on to enjoy worldwide success, freewheeling through genres, from pop to rap via disco and reggae, with a sense of assuredness and abandon that typified their lead singer. Debbie, a brilliant lyricist with a captivating stage presence, has made an indelible impression on pop culture; within the band, in her solo career and as an actor. Time and again, she has pushed boundaries and defied expectations. From gigging in CBGBs to headlining Glastonbury in 2014, Debbie's career has spanned nearly four decades and generated over 40 million record sales. Unafraid to speak her mind, she encapsulates a sense of independence, strength and sincerity that has inspired generations. Now Debbie recalls the experiences that have shaped her – the unprecedented triumphs and the darkest challenges – in her typically unapologetic, vibrant style. ...Show more

Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith

$29.99 AUD

Category: Music

From the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids and M Train, a profound, beautifully realized memoir in which dreams and reality are vividly woven into a tapestry of one transformative year. Following a run of New Year's concerts at San Francisco's legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland with no design, yet heeding signs--including a talking sign that looms above her, prodding and sparring like the Cheshire Cat. In February, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing with it unexpected turns, heightened mischief, and inescapable sorrow. In a stranger's words, "Anything is possible: after all, it's the Year of the Monkey." For Smith - inveterately curious, always exploring, tracking thoughts, writing - the year evolves as one of reckoning with the changes in life's gyre: with loss, aging, and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America. Smith melds the western landscape with her own dreamscape. Taking us from California to the Arizona desert; to a Kentucky farm as the amanuensis of a friend in crisis; to the hospital room of a valued mentor; and by turns to remembered and imagined places, this haunting memoir blends fact and fiction with poetic mastery. The unexpected happens; grief and disillusionment set in. But as Smith heads toward a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the reader: her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye, and above all, a rugged hope for a better world. Riveting, elegant, often humorous, illustrated by Smith's signature Polaroids, Year of the Monkey is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times. ...Show more

The Australian Musical: From the Beginning by Peter Wyllie Johnston; Peter Pinne

$79.99 AUD

Category: Music

A definitive history of a century of musical theatre in Australia, including behind the scenes stories of achievement and disaster, fully illustrated in colour. Musical theatre has a special place in the hearts of Australians. Whether it is The Boy from Oz, Bran Nue Dae or Muriel's Wedding, we love to see Australian stories on the big stage with all the glamour, energy and vibrancy a musical can offer.However magical they are on stage, performances leave behind few traces. Australia has a rich, hidden history of achievement in musical theatre which is now largely forgotten. Drawing on their long careers in musical performance, and extensive research in public and private collections, Peter Wyllie Johnston and Peter Pinne have compiled a definitive account of the history of musical theatre in Australia.From small amateur performances in the early days, to international achievements, to the new wave of Australian musicals from the 1990s right through to the explosion of creativity in the 21st century, they recount the emotional roller-coaster of successes and disappointments of one of the most demanding art forms. Also included is an authoritative guide to over 300 Australian musicals.Richly illustrated with colour photos from the early days to the present, The Australian Musical is a book to treasure for years to come, and an invaluable resource for anyone involved with theatre and music. ...Show more

Roots: How Melbourne Became the Live Music Capital of the World by Craig Horne

$34.99 AUD

Category: Music

Roots is the history of live music in Melbourne, from jazz to blues, country, folk, rhythm and blues to rock, and the socio-political stories of those musicians who played what they wanted, when they wanted, without a damn.

A Masters Apprentice living in the sixties by Peter Tilbrook

$39.95 AUD

Category: Music