The beach, the mountain or Las Vegas, any place is good to read a good music book. Here is our selection for you:

‘Lemon Jail: On the Road with the Replacements’
Bill Sullivan
Univ Of Minnesota Press
$22.95

A tour diary of life on the road with one of Minnesota’s greatest bands—with nearly 100 never-before-seen photographs. A raucous tour diary of rock ’n’ roll in the 1980s, Sullivan’s book puts us in the van with the Replacements in the early years. Barreling down the highway to the next show through quiet nights and hightailing it out of scandalized college towns, Sullivan—the young and reckless roadie—is in the middle of the joy and chaos, trying to get the band on stage and the crowd off it and knowing when to jump in and cover Alice Cooper. Lemon Jail shows what it’s like to keep the band on the road and the wheels on the van—and when to just close your eyes and hit the gas.

‘It’s Only Rock and Roll’
Susana Monteagudo | Marta Colomer – Tutticonfetti
Lunwerg Editores
19.95€ / Language: Spanish

An expression of rebellion, a social phenomenon, an art, and an irreverent, this is Rock. A wild attitude that goes on reinventing itself through the decades: psychedelic, punk, new wave, grunge, post-punk… This book is full of unforgettable stories, legendary songs, and figures who have become indispensable references for entire generations of fans. In this illustrated book for every reader, you will travel back through the history of this immortal genre and the people who made it great.

‘Unusual Sounds:
The Hidden History of Library Music’

David Hollander
Anthology Editions
$44.00

Unusual Sounds: The Hidden History of Library Music, by David Hollander, is a deep dive into a musical universe that has, until now, been accessible only to producers and record collectors; a celebration of this strange industry and an examination of its unique place at the nexus of art and commerce.

In the heyday of B-movies, low-budget television and scrappy genre filmmaking, producers looking for a soundtrack reached for library music: royalty-free LPs of stock recordings for any mood. Initially regarded as an inexpensive alternative to traditional film scores, library labels became treasure troves for record collectors, and much of the work became recognized as extraordinary. Unusual Sounds is a journey into this hidden musical universe from writer and filmmaker David Hollander. The book features histories, interviews, and extraordinary visuals from the field’s most celebrated creators.

‘A Spy in the House of Loud: New York Songs and Stories’
Chris Stamey
University of Texas Press
$26.95

A cofounder of the dB’s, Chris Stamey re-creates the music scene in late 1970s New York City, recalling the birth of punk and other new streams of electric music as well as the making of the cult albums Stands for deciBels and Repercussion.

“Where most musician autobiographies are fueled by backstage drama, this book focuses almost entirely on the creative process, a choice that not only proves to be compelling but helps turn Stamey’s personal journey into a necessary document of peak-era college rock, illustrating how it was a vibrant scene filled with unexpected cross pollination.” (Pitchfork 2018-06-11)

‘Devo: The Brand / Devo: Unmasked’
Devo
$65.71

Presented in a two-color rubberised cover, this 320-page book tells the remarkable story of Devo’s astounding career. DEVO: The Brand is illustrated throughout with classic Devo iconography and music press interviews with major British and US publications; when finished flip it over and read DEVO: Unmasked, which is packed with rare and unseen photos of the band as children, Mark and Jerry at Kent State University, and every stage of Devo’s career from the early 1970s to the present day.

‘Fugazi’s In on the Kill Taker (33 1/3)’
Joe Gross
Bloomsbury Academic
£9.99

By June 1993, when Washington, D.C.’s Fugazi released their third full-length album In on the Kill Taker, the quartet was reaching a thunderous peak in popularity and influence. With two EPs (combined into the classic CD 13 songs) and two albums (1990’s genre-defining Repeater and 1991’s impressionistic follow-up Steady Diet of Nothing) inside of five years, Fugazi was on creative roll, astounding increasingly large audiences as they toured, blasting fist-pumping anthems and jammy noise-workouts that roared into every open underground heart. When the album debuted on the now-SoundScan-driven charts, Fugazi had never been more in the public eye.

Few knew how difficult it had been to make this popular breakthrough. Disappointed with the sound of the self-produced Steady Diet, the band recorded with legendary engineer Steve Albini, only to scrap the sessions and record at home in D.C. with Ted Niceley, their brilliant, under-known producer. Inadvertently, Fugazi chose an unsure moment to make In on the Kill Taker: as Nirvana and Sonic Youth were yanking the American rock underground into the media glare, and “breaking” punk in every possible meaning of the word. Despite all of this, Kill Taker became an alt-rock classic in spite of itself, even as its defiant, muscular sound stood in stark contrast to everything represented by the mainstreaming of a culture and worldview they held dear.

This book features new interviews with all four members of Fugazi and members of their creative community.

‘Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968’
Ryan H. Walsh
Penguin Press
$27.00

Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks is an iconic rock album shrouded in legend, a masterpiece that has touched generations of listeners and influenced everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Martin Scorsese. In his first book, acclaimed musician and journalist Ryan H. Walsh unearths the album’s fascinating backstory–along with the untold secrets of the time and place that birthed it: Boston 1968.

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