Music

A Rough Trade Book of the Year

The much-anticipated first book from Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler

With over 70 million records sold, heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath are one of the most influential bands of all time. From the very beginning, Geezer Butler was at the heart of their success. He named the group, provided the bass behind their distinctive sound and wrote the lyrics that resonated so powerfully with fans around the world.

At long last, Geezer is ready to tell his side of the Sabbath story, from early days as a scrappy blues quartet through to the many lineup changes, the record-breaking tours and the international hell-raising with Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Bill Ward.

Featuring Geezer’s candid reflections on his working-class childhood in Luftwaffe-battered Birmingham, his almost-life as an accountant and his fascination with horror, religion and the occult, Into the Void reveals the softer side of the heavy metal legend, while holding nothing back.

Like Geezer’s bass lines and the story of Black Sabbath themselves, Into the Void is original, dramatic and one hell of a ride.

Geezer Butler’s book ‘Into the Void’ was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 05-06-2023.

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Trinity College London’s Rock and Pop graded songbooks contain real songs from legendary artists, with specially written performance notes for the Rock and Pop exams from 2018. This book contains material intended for Keyboards grade 4.

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This book is about the kind of ordinary dancing you and I might do in our kitchens when a favourite tune comes on. It’s more than a social history: it’s a set of interconnected histories of the overlooked places where dancing happens . . .

Why do we dance together? What does dancing tells us about ourselves, individually and collectively? And what can it do for us? Whether it be at home, ’80s club nights, Irish dancehalls or reggae dances, jungle raves or volunteer-run spaces and youth centres, Emma Warren has sought the answers to these questions her entire life.

Dancing doesn’t just refract the music and culture within which it evolves; it also generates new music and culture. When we speak only of the music, we lose part of the story – the part that finds us dancing as children on the toes of adults; the half that triggers communication across borders and languages; the part that finds us worried that we’ll never be able to dance again, and the part that finds us wondering why we were ever nervous in the first place.

At the intersection of memoir, social and cultural history, Dance Your Way Home is an intimate foray onto the dancefloor – wherever and whenever it may be – that speaks to the heart of what it is that makes us move.

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The 1970s was the era when the great heavy metal pioneers laid down the blueprint for everything that was to come after, forefathers like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple dominated. But as metal began to take hold in the mainstream – and then began to diversify – bands such as Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Metallica and Mötley Crüe made their presence felt among new fans, and it continues to evolve today with bands like Clutch and Ghost.

Providing an extensive overview of the music and the stories behind each album, this inclusive reference chronicles the history and development of heavy metal, including sub-movements such as death metal, rap-rock, grunge, industrial rock, grindcore, nu metal, and stoner rock, illustrated with iconic album covers and archive photographs.

Essential reading for metal heads and hard rock fans everywhere.

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Trinity College London’s Rock and Pop graded songbooks contain real songs from legendary artists, with specially written performance notes for the Rock and Pop exams from 2018. This book contains material intended for guitar at grade 4.

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From the creators of Classic Rock Magazine: There are way more than 100 Great Rock Albums, and placing them in some kind of order is incredibly difficult. Music is not a competition and there are no hard and fast criteria by which to judge the greatness of an album. All you can do is measure popularity, the artistic currency a record currently has with critics or the public. So what, then, is the point of this, The Greatest 100 Rock Albums to Own on Vinyl? Think of it as a curation, an opinion poll, a beginner’s guide, a celebration of some of the greatest music ever made, and a snapshot of a time. Nothing here is set in stone, and if we do this again the results will almost definitely be different. But right now, in 2020, these are the 100 albums that rock fans will want to own on Vinyl. The result is this book dedicated to some of the greatest records ever made, the albums that have soundtracked the lives of generations. When we were making this, we listened to each and every one of them. Far from being a difficult slog through music we’ve listened to a thousand times, it reminded us of why we love rock music so much. We hope it will do the same for you. These Albums are chosen by the readers of Classic Rock Magazine and include all the greats AC/DC, Guns N Roses, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, David Bowie, Aerosmith and many more.

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‘The greatest book ever written on British independent music’ Guardian
‘One of the best British music books of the last ten years’ Mojo

Founded by Alan McGee in 1983, Creation Records achieved notoriety as the home of Primal Scream, the Jesus and Mary Chain and other anti-Establishment acts. During the Britpop boom of the mid-90s, the astonishing success of Oasis brought Creation fame on the world stage. In 1999, however, McGee announced his shock departure as his label’s influence over a generation of British music came to a confusing and disappointing end. Containing interviews with Creation musicians, employees, supporters and detractors, this is the inside story of Creation Records – and of British music since the 1980s.

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Record covers are a sign of our life and times. Like the music on the discs, they address such issues as love, life, death, fashion, and rebellion. For music fans the covers are the expression of a period, of a particular time in their lives. Many are works of art and have become as famous as the music they stand for―Andy Warhol’s covers, for example, including the banana he designed for The Velvet Underground. This edition of Record Covers presents a selection of the best rock album covers of the 60s to 90s from music archivist, disc jockey, journalist, and former record-publicity executive Michael Ochs’s enormous private collection. Both a trip down memory lane and a study in the evolution of cover art, this is a sweeping look at an underappreciated art form.

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The Cover Art of Blue Note Records is Graham Marsh and Glyn Callingham’s classic collection of the unparalleled record sleeves produced by the celebrated Blue Note record label.

Around January 1956 the photographer Francis Wolff and Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records met Reid Miles, a commercial artists and a devout classical music fan. After establishing a rapport, Reid Miles became the designer for the Blue Note label for the next eleven years creating wonderful graphic covers that were both unique and also retaining the indefinable Blue Note look. Featuring iconic covers for artists such as Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey, this anthology is an evocative piece of Jazz history.

Alongside over 400 of the record label’s best album covers is a selection of short essays written by leading industry figures. Both a comprehensive guide to an acclaimed label, and an insightful snapshot of graphic design history, The Cover Art of Blue Note Records is a must-have for all Jazz fans.

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‘A deep, engrossing history’ The Observer
‘A fascinating deep dive’ Jeremy Deller

From the illicit reggae blues dances and acid-rock free festivals of the 1970s, through the ecstasy-fuelled Second Summer of Love in 1988, to the increasingly corporate dance music culture of the post-Covid era, Party Lines is a groundbreaking new history of UK dance music, exploring its pivotal role in the social, political and economic shifts on which modern Britain has been built.

Taking in the Victorian moralism of the Thatcher years, the far-reaching restrictions of the Criminal Justice Act in 1994, and the resurgence of illegal raves during the Covid-19 pandemic, Party Lines charts an ongoing conflict, fought in basement clubs, abandoned warehouses and sunlit fields, between the revolutionary potential of communal sound and the reactionary impulses of the British establishment. Brought to life with stunning clarity and depth, this is social and cultural history at its most immersive, vital and shocking.

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‘Excellent’ The Sunday Times
‘Reminds us why the dance floor matters . . . fascinating’ Telegraph

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