Anyone who has spent time with Courtney Love and Bily Corgan surely has some stories to tell — and presumably, Melissa Auf def Maur spill a few in her new memoir. That alone makes it the top rock / roll read of the week. But it’s far from your only option: You can also dig deeper into the Pumpkins patch, focus on the genesis of Phil Collins’ solo career, get a spoonful of Cream, take a long look at George Michael, check out Rory Gallagher’s guitars, or get in tune with Mazzy Star, Stiff Little Fingers and Stereolab. Read all about ’em:
Even The Good Girls Will Cry: A ’90s Rock Memoir
By Melissa Auf der Maur
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Even The Good Girls Will Cry begins with Melissa Auf der Maur’s bohemian upbringing in Montreal, where her early, deep connection to art and music gave her entry to the colourful and thriving local creative scene. Working as a cassette DJ and ticket girl, she would see (and sometimes meet) the luminaries who’d pass through town — Nirvana, Jane’s Addiction, Pavement, Sonic Youth. Thanks to a thrown beer bottle and a long-shot fan letter to a PO box, her band Tinker scored a life-changing opening slot for The Smashing Pumpkins and, sensing her natural talent on bass, Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love, just one of the many uncanny threads that weaves destiny throughout this riveting memoir. Whisked from her local scene and thrust into the eye of a hurricane of grief on a global stage, Melissa joined Hole for the band’s 1994 Live Through This world tour just after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and Hole’s prior bassist, Kristen Pfaff, with Love at the center of it all. It was a tour of passionate intensity, as a chaotic yet stunningly powerful band constantly threatened to spin out of control. Melissa brings the reader with raging intimacy into the action, offering a heroic portrait of the unforgettable Love as she howled into the darkness as if to keep grief at bay. That was only the beginning of Melissa’s journey through alternative rock. Part rock memoir, part travel diary, part psychedelic scrapbook, Even The Good Girls Will Cry is a behind-the-scenes rock ’n’ roll memoir with a soulful intimacy and mystic undertone that sets it apart from memoirs by her peers. It is a vivid dispatch from the last analog decade, artistically capturing that bygone era in all its messy, angsty glory.”
I Am One: The Smashing Pumpkins Story, 1988-1994
By Greg Prato
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “For a spell during the early ’90s, it seemed like every month (week?) brought another new, outstanding, original-sounding alt-rock artist — or a now-classic album. The Smashing Pumpkins were certainly one shining example. From 1991-1993, singer-guitarist Billy Corgan, guitarist James Iha, bassist D’arcy Wretzky and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin were responsible for two all-time classic albums — Gish and Siamese Dream — and joined the likes of Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden as some of the most successful and popular groups to hit the stage, charts and media. However, it was an era fraught with turmoil both behind the scenes and in the public eye — one that would fracture the lineup just a few years later. And while it was their massive 1995 double album, Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, that made the Pumpkins a household name, many a fan would probably single out their first two albums as their true creative and artistic peak. I Am One: The Smashing Pumpkins Story, 1988-1994 focuses on the early years of the band, telling the story of all four members, how the Pumpkins formed, the stories behind those two classic albums, tours, and the many highs and lows in between. Featuring quotes past and present — including several interviews conducted exclusively for this book with renowned musicians and admirers of the band — plus vintage photos, I Am One: The Smashing Pumpkins Story, 1988-1994 revisits this stellar period.”
Face Value (Phil Collins 1979-1981) From Crisis to Star: The Amazing Rise Of Phil Collins
By Mark Bell
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “January 1979: After returning from the And Then There Were Three world tour with Genesis, Phil Collins wants to save his marriage, which has been in a serious crisis for some time, at all costs: He puts the band on ice and follows his wife and children to Canada. After just a few weeks, however, he is forced to admit his defeat and returns to England. Vacillating between melancholy, sadness and anger, he fights his way out of his deep life crisis by throwing himself into numerous musical projects, including one with Peter Gabriel, in the spring/summer of 1979. Above all, however, he processes his feelings in his first songs as a solo artist, songs created in his home studio in 1979. In his new book, Mark Bell provides the first comprehensive account of how the drummer and singer succeeded in transforming a major personal crisis into one of the most important albums of the 1980s — and establishing his career as a solo star.”
Cream Chronicled
By Nettie Baker
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “This is the fourth of Nettie Baker‘s highly acclaimed and entertaining books. In this one she tackles the challenge of documenting every show by Cream, the legendary band formed by her father Ginger, Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton. Cream lasted just over two years (July 1966 – November 1968). They briefly got together again for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction in 1993, and finally made it to their exciting and well-documented 2005 reunion. Thorough research answers once and for all questions of how Cream formed. Were they Cream or The Cream? What really happened when they jammed with Jimi Hendrix? Why did they split up? And much more. Baker also debunks many tired old myths in the process. She was there at the time and has also drawn on the contemporary accounts of how Cream was experienced back in the day — both by fans and the musicians themselves. As she says: “Crucially, these were very young men who found themselves living in interesting times.” Throw out everything you thought you knew about them, get to know the real Ginger, Jack and Eric — and be prepared for a few surprises.”
Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn’t Easy
By Daniel Okrent
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Stephen Sondheim (1930–2021) was a towering figure in American musical theater. Celebrated for such iconic Broadway shows as Company, Sweeney Todd and Into The Woods, his accolades include eight Tony Awards, multiple Grammy Awards, an Academy Award and a Pulitzer Prize. In this intimate biography, Daniel Okrent follows Sondheim through the tumult of his upbringing and his parents’ divorce, his life-changing relationship with Oscar Hammerstein II and subsequent immersion in musical theater, and his rise to fame as both a lyricist and composer. Okrent shines new light on Sondheim’s complicated emotional life, wavering self-confidence, and alcoholism, drawing on the artist’s intimate correspondence with such notable figures as Hal Prince, Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents; exclusive interviews with his close friends and collaborators, including James Lapine and John Weidman; and Sondheim’s own oral history, which remained closed until his death. He also reveals a previously unknown (and crucial) aspect of the infamous letter from Sondheim’s mother that made him believe she regretted his birth. As Okrent explores the ways Sondheim’s music and lyrics express the inner man, he shows us a life that was defined by two parallel arcs: The movement from alienation to connection, and from ambivalence to resolution.”
Gallagher’s Guitars: The Rory Gallagher Collection
By Julien Bitoun & Eleanor Jane
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “When it comes to guitar heroes, Rory Gallagher is considered one of the greats, a “player’s player” forever linked with his iconic, well-worn 1961 Stratocaster. But like most virtuosos, Gallagher owned many noteworthy guitars, lap steels, and mandolins, 40 of which are featured in this breathtaking collection, along with selected amplifiers and effects pedals. Photographed in cooperation with Bonhams before the 2024 auction of the collection, the gear spans Gallagher’s entire career and showcases instruments from all the major manufacturers. Exquisitely detailed photography of the instruments by guitar photographer Eleanor Jane is accompanied by authoritative text from guitar historian Julien Bitoun, including interview material with Rory’s brother and manager Dónal, as well as archival photography from the Gallagher family. Even Rory’s first guitar, a flat-top acoustic acquired when he was nine years old, is included. In addition to major manufacturers like Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, Rickenbacker, Epiphone, National, Vox, Martin and Marshall, the collection includes pieces from names that grab the attention of discerning gearheads and collectors — Airline, Teisco, Mosrite, Stella, Silvertone, Kay, Guyatone and Supro. Featuring a foreword by acclaimed guitarist and Gallagher superfan Johnny Marr, this carefully curated and display-worthy book is a fitting tribute to the life and career of one of the most revered guitarists of the rock era.”
Celebrating George: Three Decades Of George Michael Through The Lens
By Brian Aris
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “This stunning collection of photographs features iconic George Michael images from throughout his career — including many never before published. The man born as Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou hated being photographed, and that makes this volume such an unusual and beautiful tribute to one of the music world’s most beloved stars. First meeting when he shot Wham!, Brian Aris gained George’s trust and subsequently enjoyed unprecedented access to document the complex and sensitive character behind one of pop’s most talented and consummate artists. Dreaming of stardom from an early age, George achieved popularity first with Wham! and later reached heights of even greater success after re-creating himself as a serious solo artist with songs and music videos that remain iconic to this day. Tragically, he died on Christmas Day 2016 at just 53. With text documenting George’s life and Brian’s memories of his sessions and meetings with the star, together with iconic shots, contact sheets, and previously unseen images, this is an amazing, heartfelt tribute to one of the world’s most likable and talented performers who is one of the all-time immortal greats of pop.”
Space Age Batchelor Pad Music: The Story Of Stereolab In 20 Songs
By Ben Cardew
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Stereolab are one of the most fascinating groups of the past 50 years, a source of constant reinvention and illuminating contrasts, where political ideology meets the sweetest pop melodies and driving guitars rub along with space-age jazz. They are perhaps the greatest Anglo-French collaboration since Concorde: A hugely respected, highly influential group whose fan base grows larger by the year, stretching from chart-topping hip hop artists to underground indie stars. And yet their appeal remains elusive. What kind of music do Stereolab make? What’s their best album? Their greatest song? There are no easy answers. In writing this book, Ben Cardew spoke to more than 50 people from the Stereolab universe to trace the history of the band from the depths of ’90s indie London to their all-conquering reunion tour of 2025. Using 20 of their songs as jumping-off points, he examines in loving detail what makes this most fascinating band work, unpicking the cultural references, stylistic contradictions, and brilliant ideas at the heart of the group. Space Age Batchelor Pad Music is designed for dedicated fans and interested newcomers alike, going deep into a band of infinite jest, excellent fancy, and spiralling contradiction. It’s a story of restless creativity and human endeavour spanning more than three decades of enigmatic artistic life.”
33⅓ | Mazzy Star’s So Tonight That I Might See
By Anthony Gomez III
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Anthony Gomez III explores how out of the commercial failure of the 1980s Paisley Underground genre, a Los Angeles that suffered one of the highest crime rates in the country, the rise of Chicano/a art in the public eye, and record label disputes, singer Hope Sandoval and guitarist David Roback form the influential dream-pop band Mazzy Star. Their album So Tonight That I Might See was a slow, reluctant success. Pushed by Capitol Records as an album for teenagers to make out during, as a record about girlhood, and as music for those uninterested in the era’s male aggression, the album’s reputation has been plagued by these forced connections ever since. Not that the band’s Hope Sandoval or David Roback ever publicly cared to dispel these notions. They preferred to disdain publicity and offer their art without introduction. But there is far more to the Mazzy Star story than media-reluctant musicians and corporate-generated narratives. By tracing the hurried development of their second record, this book revisits how imposed mythologies have contributed to the marginalization of Sandoval’s Mexican American background, and the band’s place in the larger tradition of Chicano music. It combs through the histories of musicians involved in Sandoval and Roback’s prior projects to highlight how Mazzy Star formed partly in response to the rising violence and gentrification of their hometown Los Angeles. Along the way, it ascertains the band’s interest in the American Southwest, 1960s psychedelia, and a surrealism which conjures the strange, dark shadows of everyday life in the U.S.”
33⅓ | Stiff Little Fingers’ Inflammable Material
By Kevin Dunn
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Situating Stiff Little Fingers and their groundbreaking debut within the context of The Troubles, this book explores the band’s complicated and controversial relationship with the Belfast punk scene, a scene that actively defied violent social divisions to create important non-sectarian spaces through which an Alternative Ulster was imagined and put into practice. Inflammable Material was the first independent album to ever reach the U.K. Top 20 and is regarded as one of the most influential punk releases of all time, containing the singles Suspect Device and Alternative Ulster. Inflammable Material was both a product of, and response to, The Troubles, the era of political violence in Northern Ireland that claimed more than 3,500 lives over three decades. Though the album was regarded as the clarion call for that scene, with anthemic songs now regarded as synonymous with the times, the band was often viewed with suspicion and outright hostility by many of their contemporaries.”
The Music Is Black: A British Story
By Jacqueline Springer
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Epic in scope and personal recollection, The Music Is Black is the story of British imperial and colonial histories, the African diaspora, and contemporary British social history put into song. Black British music has been the soundtrack to periods of profound political, social, cultural, and demographic change. It is the music of identity, indefatigability, resistance, anger, celebration, love, loss; it is the music of possibility and hope. Opening with an exploration of the sound and identity of the African diaspora as shaped by the tumultuous forces of British imperialism and colonialism from the 1400s to 1900, Jacqueline Springer then surveys the black musical landscape in Britain from 1900 to 1970. Two major imports ― American rap and Jamaican ragga ― are singled out for their vital contributions to the homegrown genres central to the publication: Lovers rock, Brit funk, 2tone, jungle, drum & bass, trip-hop, and U.K. garage and grime. Each genre is then considered with an academic framing of its social and political landscape and artist interviews that include Carroll Thompson, Neville Staple, Kenny Wellington, Bluey Maunick, Fabio and Grooverider, Skye Edwards and Ross Godfrey of Morcheeba, Megaman, DJ Target and Slimzee. The Music Is Black bears witness to the resilience, ingenuity, and heart of all those who create.”