Do You Believe In The Power Of Rock Roll

Do You Believe in the Power of Rock & Roll? is a history of alternative rock from John Robb, with the music still ringing in his ears. This collection follows John’s journey from the late 1970s, when he was first caught up in punk’s high-octane thrill, to the present day, via the early days of the rave scene, the birth of electronic and techno, and myriad bands that spun off on their own idiosyncratic paths. John was the first person to write about Nirvana, he coined the term Britpop, and he documented the Stone Roses’ rise out of Manchester before anyone else was interested. He was at every pivotal gig, and has interviewed every key player in the business, including Jordan, the queen of punk, founding father of new American rock Steve Albini, goth-rock guitarist Daniel Ash, infamous Oasis co-founder Noel Gallagher, and music greats like Lemmy and Poly Styrene. Few others have witnessed first-hand so many important moments of the last forty years of rock history. Here, they come together to form the essential history of a personal quest to document the ever-changing soundtrack of the modern world.

With the publication of Alternadad, Neal Pollack became the spokesperson for a new generation of parents. Pollack, a self-styled party guy known mostly for outrageous literary antics, recounts how he and his wife became responsible parents without sacrificing their passion for pop culture. From an ill-fated family trip to the Austin City Limits Festival, to yanking his son out of an absurd corporate gymnastics class, to dealing with the child’s ongoing biting problem, Pollack captures the wonders, terrors, and idiocies of parenting today. Alternadad is both an engaging and amusing memoir of fatherhood, and a fascinating portrait of a new version of the American family. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Since its release in 1971, Don McLean's song "American Pie" has become an indelible part of U.S. culture. It has sparked countless debates about the references within the lyrics; been celebrated as a chronicle of American life from the late 1950s through the early 1970s; and has become iconic itself as it has been remade, parodied, and referenced within numerous texts and forums. This volume offers a set of new essays that focus on the cultural and historical significance of the song. Representing a variety of perspectives and fields of study, the essays address such topics as historical and literary interpretations of the song's lyrics, its musical qualities, the commentary the song offers on rock and roll history, the continuing significance of the song, and the ways in which the song has been used by various writers and artists. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

In this unique collection, critics, musicians, scholars, and fans describe how they have been moved, shaped, and challenged by Bruce Springsteen's music. These essays examine the big questions at the heart of Springsteen's music, demonstrating the ways his songs have resonated for millions of listeners for nearly five decades.

Today more than ever, we need an ethnography of spirit so we can identify and describe how spirit dwells and how it communicates. Our lives and our humanity depend on making the connection to spirit more visible and concrete to ourselves, to those we love, and to those we fail to understand. Educators have a special role to play in making the connection to spirit more visible and concrete. In this vital new book, a wide range of scholars and educators share stories about their own personal calls to spirituality. From the Amazon to the coast of Ireland, from the Talmud to the Book of Mormon, and in classrooms across the world, contributors explore the scenes in which spirit lives through insightful autoethnographic research and reporting. Spirituality, Ethnography, and Teaching is dedicated to the journey to the heart of teaching and learning. Each chapter reveals that spirituality, ethnography, and teaching are linked concretely in our experience of and desire for freedom. This collection of stories invites the reader to share in a way of knowing that discloses a radical union in which freedom, communication, and spirit coalesce. This ethnography of spirit calls upon the reader to dwell more deeply in the humanness of life and vocation and to let love flow.

Until his death aged thirty-three in 1982, Lester Bangs wrote wired, rock 'n' roll pieces on Iggy Pop, The Clash, John Lennon, Kraftwerk, Lou Reed. As a rock critic, he had an eagle-eye for distinguishing the pre-packaged imitation from the real thing; written in a conversational, wisecracking, erotically charged style, his hallucinatory hagiographies and excoriating take-downs reveal an iconoclast unafraid to tell it like it is. To his journalism he brought the talent of a great a renegade Beat poet, and his essays, reviews and scattered notes convey the electric thrill of a music junky indulging the habit of a lifetime. As Greil Marcus writes in his introduction, 'What this book demands from a reader is a willingness to accept that the best writer in America could write almost nothing but record reviews.'

Even before the Beatnik Riots of 1961, New York City's Greenwich Village was the epicenter of revolutionary movements in American music and culture. But, in the early 1960s and throughout the decade, a new wave of writers and performers inspired by the folk music revival of the 1950s created socially aware and deeply personal songs that spoke to a generation like never before. These writers—Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Janis Ian, and Phil Ochs, to name a few—changed the folk repertoire from traditional songs to songs sprung from personal, contemporary experiences and the nation's headlines, raising the level of political self-expression to high art. Message and music merged and mirrored society. In Music + Revolution: Greenwich Village in the 1960s, Richard Barone unrolls a freewheeling historical narrative, peppered with personal stories and insights from those who were there. Illustrated with contemporaneous portraits of the musicians by renowned photographer David Gahr, it celebrates the lasting legacy of a pivotal decade with stories behind the songs that resonate just as strongly today.