Shiny Happy People
The upbeat pop song by REM becomes an uplifting children’s story.
Find your next great graphic novel, retrospective, memoir, or manifesto in this all-over-the-place reading list, curated by our eclectically interested staff for your education and quiet-time entertainment.
The upbeat pop song by REM becomes an uplifting children’s story.
Carl F. Gauze digs into Sydney Pollack: A Subliminal Existentialist, a detailed look at the cinematic works of Sydney Pollack from the prolific Wes D. Gehring.
Roi J. Tamkin reviews This Bird Has Flown, a rock n’ roll redemption romance from multi-talented, many-hit wonder Susanna Hoffs.
Ink 19’s Roi J. Tamkin reviews Drumming With Dead Can Dance and Parallel Adventures, Peter Ulrich’s memoir of an artistic life fueled by Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard’s remarkable friendship.
Ska historian Heather Augustyn chronicles the history, experiences, and struggles of the women who shaped the two-tone scene in Rude Girls: Women in 2 Tone and One Step Beyond. Jay Stooksberry reviews.
Carl F. Gauze reviews this comprehensive look at the early works of Muppets creator Jim Henson by Craig Shemin.
Frank Bello’s new memoir Fathers, Brothers, and Sons: Surviving Anguish, Abandonment, and Anthrax takes us from a New York childhood, to Anthrax stadium tours, to fatherhood with the charming informality of a conversation with an old friend. Then I’m Gone, Bello’s first solo EP, provides accompaniment. Joe Frietze reviews.
Bela Koe-Krompecher recalls love and death in musty Ohio basements in Love, Death & Photosynthesis while Jenny Mae’s What’s Wrong with Me? Singles and Unreleased Tracks provides the soundtrack. Carl F. Gauze reviews.
CREEM, the iconic rock and roll magazine from the 1960s, is back and just as snotty as ever… in its own quaint way.
Politics is Crime. Crime is Politics. Discuss… Carl F. Gauze reviews Meditations on Crime, the book half of Harper Simon’s super-collaborative art and music project.
Charles DJ Deppner reviews Carl King’s look back at an amusement park made for robots, aliens, and The Dawn of Sir Millard Mulch.
Carl F. Gauze reviews a menacingly large book on the prolific outsider artist Steve Keene.
Love, Death, and Photosynthesis is Bela Koe-Krompecher’s memoir of addiction, friendship, mental illness, and the music scene of early ’90s Ohio.
Plus 1 Athens: Show Flyers from a Legendary Scene reproduces over 150 Athens, Georgia band flyers in a beautifully designed book.
A look back at the early days of Los Angeles punk through the lens of photographer Melanie Nissen and her book HARD + FAST.
From The Windbreakers to Bark, Tim Lee is a trooper in the rock and roll trenches…and he’s lived to tell it all in his new memoir.
From underground thrash metal pioneers, to arguably the biggest rock act in the new millennium, Metallica has had a long and tumultuous history. Ben Apatoff scours a myriad of sources to catalog this history in his new book.
Carl F. Gauze reviews Mike Mattison and Ernest Suarez’s study of how poetry crept into rock and roll.
A young woman abandons a promising skating career only to be chased by her inner demons. Review by Carl F. Gauze.
Over a ten-year period, punk guitar legend Tim Kerr and his wife Beth used thrift store cameras to document self-taught artists’ environments. Combined with portraits of the creators, Self Taught is a celebration of artistic spirit.
Charles DJ Deppner takes a look at a new book of artwork by DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh, and discovers the book is actually looking back at him.
Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds’ “Wicked World” video features Alice Bag, previews That Delicious Vice, out April 19 on In The Red Records.
Despite serving up ample slices of signature snark, FOX News golden boy Jesse Watters, for the most part, just listens — driving the narrative of his latest book, Get It Together, through the stories of others.
Brooklyn rapper Max Gertler finds himself a bit ground up on “Put My Heart in a Jay,” his latest single.
The dissolution of a wealthy Russian family confuses everyone involved.