In the spring of 1969, the inauspicious release of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band's Trout Mask Replica, a double-album featuring 28 stream-of-consciousness songs filled with abstract rhythms and guttural bellows, dramatically altered the pop landscape. Yet even if the album did cast its radical vision over the future of music, much of the record's artistic strength is actually drawn from the past. This book examines how Beefheart's incomparable opus, an album that divided (rather than) united a pop audience, is informed by a variety of diverse sources. Trout Mask Replica is a hybrid of poetic declarations inspired by both Walt Whitman and the beat poets, the field hollers of the Delta Blues, the urban blues of Howlin' Wolf, the gospel blues of Blind Willie Johnson, and the free jazz of Ornette Coleman. This book illustrates how Trout Mask Replica was not so much an arcane specimen of the avant-garde, but rather a defiantly original declaration of the American imagination.

“Barnes gets the story, and with the full participation of those brave musicians who attempted to interpret Beefheart's sometimes otherworldly methodology” – The Times Through new interview material, and with reference to reports and eulogies that appeared in the media, Mike Barnes studies the star’s legacy – putting the last two decades into context with the revelation of Van Vliet’s battle with MS.

Covers those bands and artists who have rejected the mainstream in favor of innovation, originality and the pursuit of their own unique musical identity.

This text presents a comprehensive and up-to-date reference work on popular music, from the early 20th century to the present day.

Legend. Bum. Genius. Con Man. Devoted husband and father. Myth. Storyteller. Inspiration. Drunk. Visionary. Tom Waits is all of these things. Waits is the lifeline between the great Beat poets and today's rock & roll heroes. He's old enough to be your dad and cool enough to be your hero. One of the few truly original musicians recording today, he's also the rare singer who can actually act, and he has put together a respectable body of work in movies. Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits retraces the long road that Waits has traveled and explores the music that made him a legend. Jay S. Jacobs looks at the towering myth that Waits has created for himself. Jay S. Jacobs follows the fate of one of America's pre-eminent artists, a very private man whose career embodies a quirky array of fulfillment and loss, beauty and strangeness. This revised and updated edition includes a new chapter, with insight on Waits' career in the 21st century thus far, as well as the most complete discography available in print. Tom's Wild Years ' a poignant, revealing celebration of the man and all his myths.

Discover the music that influenced some of the biggest stars in Music history in 10 Albums That Changed My Life, a personal, insightful and gloriously illustrated look at the music that matters the most to the artists who matter the most to you. More than a hundred musicians invite you backstage, each revealing in their own words the 10 albums that influenced their lives, their music and their futures. Artists from Punk to Classic Rock, British Invasion to Pop, and Heavy Metal to Modern Rock take the stage in this sonic coming-of-age adventure. With more than 1,000 albums illustrated and profiled, 10 Albums That Changed My Life shares wonderfully intimate perspectives and surprising selections. Consider Henry Rollins, the legendary front man for punk's Black Flag. Slipped into his list of heavy rockers, you'll find The Original Broadway Cast Recording of Hair. "I had this record in 4th or 5th grade. It was my mother's. I knew it was subversive and I probably shouldn't be listening to it and that's what made it irresistible to me. Besides, there is some great songwriting and performances on this album," Rollins says. From the Beatles' Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band to Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, Rolling Stone's Exile on Main Street to The Beach Boys Pet Sounds, Flatt & Scruggs The Original Sound to Jimi Hendrix Are You Experienced, the book is packed with classics and cool revelations. Featuring a Foreword by Rock And Roll Hall of Fame artist Nancy Wilson of Heart, 10 Albums That Changed My Life is a fun and fabulous page-turner, tuning into the music that made a difference. And still does.

James Piazza is a Western New York-based archivist and music historian. He developed a series of multimedia presentations on experimental music, ambient sound, archival techniques for digital audio, and lectures on personal media servers for large file libraries. His primary goal is to create a greater public understanding and awareness of 20th century music and sound. Piazza founded Innerspace Labs as an independent music archive chiefly communicating with the public via The Innerspace Connection music blog. He manages a library of over 300,000 soundworks focusing on ambient and experimental recordings. This book comprises the first 12 years of our publications showcasing highlights of the Archive, as well as select previously unpublished works.

This collection of essays, documented by an international and interdisciplinary array of scholars, represents the first academically focused volume exploring the creative idiolect of Frank Zappa. Several of the authors are known for contributing significantly to areas such as popular music, cultural, and translation studies, with expertise and interests ranging from musicology to poetics. The publication presents the reader with an understanding of the ontological depth of Zappa's legacy by relating the artist and his texts to a range of cultural, social, technological and musicological factors, as encapsulated in the book's title - Frank Zappa and the And. Zappa's interface with religion, horror, death, movies, modernism, satire, freaks, technology, resistance, censorship and the avant-garde are brought together analytically for the first time, and approached non chronologically, something that strongly complies with the non linear perspective of time Zappa highlights in both his autobiography and recordings. The book employs a variety of analytical approaches, ranging from literary and performance theory, 'horrality' and musicology, to post modern and textually determined readings, and serves as a unique and invaluable guide to Zappa's legacy and creative force.