Indie Rock Poster Book

From the authors of the popular Indie Rock Coloring Book, this poster book is a colorful celebration of indie rock music and art. Showcasing original artwork by thirty of today's cutting-edge illustrators—including Mike Perry, Deanne Cheuk, Jeremyville, Andy J. Miller, and more—this poster collection is inspired by classic indie rock songs of each artist's choosing. Featuring such favorite indie rock acts as the Bon Iver, Devendra Banhart, and Iron & Wine, this book is a must-have for indie art and music fans. Plus, it's all for a good cause: royalties go to the host of admirable charities supported by Yellow Bird Project.

The Montreal-based nonprofit Yellow Bird Project has worked with an amazing range of indie rock musicians over the years to create unique T-shirt designs that benefit an array of charities. This first ever indie rock coloring book is a fitting tribute to the DIY spirit of the bands, featuring witty, hand-illustrated activity pages from artist Andy J. Miller. Music fans can keep themselves out of trouble for hours with mazes, connect-the-dot games, and coloring pages for the Shins, Devendra Banhart, Rilo Kiley, the National, and more than 20 artists. With all royalties going to charity, The Indie Rock Coloring Book is sure to warm even the coolest of hipster hearts.

"Swag, " a survey of the best rock posters of the 1990s, presents the best in "hip" graphic design as well as a look at what's going on in music under the corporate radar. 250 illustrations.

• A New York Times Summer Reading List selection • A Publishers Weekly Best Summer Book of 2015 • A Business Insider Best Summer Read • An Esquire Father’s Day Book selection • A New York Observer Best Music Book of 2015 • A memoir charting thirty years of the American independent rock underground by a musician who knows it intimately Jon Fine spent nearly thirty years performing and recording with bands that played various forms of aggressive and challenging underground rock music, and, as he writes in this memoir, at no point were any of those bands “ever threatened, even distantly, by actual fame.” Yet when members of his first band, Bitch Magnet, reunited after twenty-one years to tour Europe, Asia, and America, diehard longtime fans traveled from far and wide to attend those shows, despite creeping middle-age obligations of parenthood and 9-to-5 jobs, testament to the remarkable staying power of the indie culture that the bands predating the likes of Bitch Magnet--among them Black Flag, Mission of Burma, and Sonic Youth --willed into existence through sheer determination and a shared disdain for the mediocrity of contemporary popular music. In indie rock’s pre-Internet glory days of the 1980s, such defiant bands attracted fans only through samizdat networks that encompassed word of mouth, college radio, tiny record stores and ‘zines. Eschewing the superficiality of performers who gained fame through MTV, indie bands instead found glory in all-night recording sessions, shoestring van tours and endless appearances in grimy clubs. Some bands with a foot in this scene, like REM and Nirvana, eventually attained mainstream success. Many others, like Bitch Magnet, were beloved only by the most obsessed fans of this time. Like Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, Your Band Sucks is an insider’s look at a fascinating and ferociously loved subculture. In it, Fine tracks how the indie-rock underground emerged and evolved, how it grappled with the mainstream and vice versa, and how it led many bands to an odd rebirth in the 21 st Century in which they reunited, briefly and bittersweetly, after being broken up for decades. Like Patti Smith’s Just Kids, Your Band Sucks is a unique evocation of a particular aesthetic moment. With backstage access to many key characters in the scene—and plenty of wit and sharply-worded opinion—Fine delivers a memoir that affectionately yet critically portrays an important, heady moment in music history.

Inside the culture of an artistically influential music community Britain is widely considered the cradle of independent music culture. Bands like Radiohead and Belle and Sebastian, which epitomize indie music's sounds and attitudes, have spawned worldwide fanbases. This in-depth study of the British independent music scene explores how the behavior of fans, artists, and music industry professionals produce a community with a specific aesthetic based on moral values. Author Wendy Fonarow, a scholar with years of experience in the various sectors of the indie music scene, examines the indie music "gig" as a ritual in which all participants are actively involved. This ritual allows participants to play with cultural norms regarding appropriate behavior, especially in the domains of sex and creativity. Her investigation uncovers the motivations of audience members when they first enter the community and how their positions change over time so that the gig functions for most members as a rite of passage. Empire of Dirt sheds new light on music, gender roles, emotion, subjectivity, embodiment, and authenticity.

A lively oral history of the Toronto cult indie-rock band draws on interviews with such past and present members as Hayden, Bloc Party, and Leslie Feist as well as a number of their fellow performers, in an illustrated tribute that is complemented by reproductions of gig posters and album artwork. Original.

Internationally acclaimed designer and illustrator Dan Stiles offers a collection of over 200 concert posters for many of today's leading acts including Arctic Monkeys, The XX, Sonic Youth, Girl Talk, and hundreds more. From Indie Rock to Dance Punk, these lovingly screen-printed posters provide a visual narrative of the music that shaped the last decade. Including extensive writing by Stiles and a foreword by famed rock poster historian Paul Grushkin, One Thing Leads to Another is a glorious celebration of both music and design.