Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music by Ann Powers

by Katie Richards | Apr 16, 2018 | Archived Reviews (pre-April 2020), History, Music, Pop Culture

Ann Powers, the well-known popular music critic that many readers will know from NPR, brings her famous voice to print in Good Booty. The book is a history of American popular music, with particular concentration on the ways that popular music works as a nexus point...

Goodnight, L.A.: The Rise and Fall of Classic Rock – The Untold Story from inside the Legendary Recording Studios by Kent Hartman

by Dick Weissman | Jan 22, 2018 | Archived Reviews (pre-April 2020), History, Music

Following up on his book about the legendary L.A. hit makers The Wrecking Crew, Hartman takes a different tack in this book about LA Rock in the 1970s. He weaves the story around producer Keith Olsen, his studio Sound City, and session guitar player Waddy Wachtel. The...

Unfuck Your Brain by Faith Harper

by Axie Barclay | Nov 7, 2017 | Archived Reviews (pre-April 2020), Music, Psychology, Self-Help

Our brains are assholes, according to Faith Harper, PHD, LPC-S, ACS. In her book, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers, she covers the ways our brains f*&# with us and what we can do to deal with it....

Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk by John Doe and Tom DeSavia

by Dick Weissman | Jun 30, 2017 | Archived Reviews (pre-April 2020), Biographies & Memoirs, Music

John Doe has put together a history of L.A.Punk Music in the 1970s. The contributors include his band-mate Exene Cervenka, Charlotte Caffey, and Jane Weidlin of the Au Go-Go’s, and a half dozen other musicians, music critics, and record producers. The book does a fine...

Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music by James Rhodes

by Dick Weissman | Apr 20, 2017 | Archived Reviews (pre-April 2020), Biographies & Memoirs, Music

Rhodes has concocted an unusual format for this memoir, which is also in development as a feature film. The chapters are titled as “Tracks,” as one would find on a record album. Each track includes an introductory page that references a specific performance of a piano...

Crime Plus Music: Twenty Stories of Music-Themed Noir edited by Jim Fusilli

by Howard Leighton | Apr 12, 2017 | Archived Reviews (pre-April 2020), Music, Mystery, Crime & Thriller

This book contains twenty short stories written by twenty different authors. At the back of the book there is a short (two-to-four sentence) description of each author and their work. While the title of this anthology does imply music existing in the stories, to say...