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Books like Music to your Ears
With International Music Day on October 1st ringing in the month, we’re celebrating with this hefty list of auto/biographies, novels, poetry collections, and even a few book/CD combos we’ve assembled for your reading – and listening – pleasure.
All Books in this Collection
Showing 17–32 of 38 results
I Was There the Night He Died
$19.95I Was There the Night He Died
Jim Guthrie
$14.95Jim Guthrie: Who Needs What tells the story of a musician whose twenty-year career has been spent either at the forefront of Canada’s indie rock renaissance or in the background of some of the most popular indie games, films, and ad campaigns of the past decade. Through interviews with Jim, his collaborators, and fans, this book explores how a self-described “Seabiscuit” earned a cult following and became a major influence to musicians at home and abroad-all without really having to leave his basement.
“Music lovers are lucky to have Hood behind the wheel.”—The Bookshelf
Joni Mitchell
$32.95When singer, musician, and broadcast journalist Malka Marom had the opportunity to interview Joni Mitchell in 1973, she was eager to reconnect with the performer she’d first met late one night in 1966 at a Yorkville coffeehouse. More conversations followed over the next four decades of friendship, and it was only after Joni and Malka completed their most recent recorded interview, in 2012, that Malka discovered the heart of their discussions: the creative process.
In Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words, Joni and Malka follow this thread through seven decades of life and art, discussing the influence of Joni’s childhood, love and loss, playing dives and huge festivals, acclaim and criticism, poverty and affluence, glamorous triumphs and tragic mistakes . . .
This riveting narrative, told in interviews, lyrics, paintings, and photographs, is shared in the hope of illuminating a timeless body of work and inspiring others.
Lives of the Poets (with Guitars)
$19.95Lives of the Poets (with Guitars) picks up where Samuel Johnson left off nearly 250 years ago, collecting biographical and critical portraits of 13 of rock & roll, blues, folk, and alt-country’s most inimitable artists. These often irreverent essays offer a riotous, toe-tapping and original take on how each musician shaped their genre, while looking into their tumultuous lives.
Lyrics and Poems, 1997-2012
$14.95Often cited as one of the finest contemporary lyricists, singer, songwriter and poet John K. Samson captures the essential images of contemporary life. Whether on the streets of his beloved and bewildering hometown of Winnipeg, an outpost in Antarctica, or a room in an Edward Hopper painting, he finds whimsy and elegance in the everyday, beauty and sorrow in the overlooked.
This collection gathers together Samson’s writing, starting with his band The Weakerthans’ 1997 debut album Fallow, through Left and Leaving, Reconstruction Site, and the award-winning Reunion Tour. It also features lyrics from Samson’s newly released solo album, Provincial, and selected poems.
Maple Leaf Rag
$14.95Maple Leaf Rag is a dynamic, jazz-infused riff on Canadian culture. With rhythm and edge, Kaie Kellough’s verbal soundscape explores belonging, dislocation and relocation, and national identity from a black Canadian perspective. This collection of poems is both written word and musical score-a dictated dub replete with references to African Canadian and African American culture (current and dated), Canadian history and politics, and characters ranging from dancers to piano players to boxers.
Minor Dedications
$19.99Minor Dedications is the first collection of songs and poems of Montreal singer-song writer J.F. Robitaille. Brimming with the fullness of his language, these texts are interspersed with playful line drawings by Robitaille and responses to his lyrics by 11 contemporary photographers that illuminate the soulfulness of his verse in provocative ways. Together with a copy of Robitaille’s newest album Palace Blues that comes with the book, Minor Dedications will give fans and new listeners alike the opportunity to experience an orchestration of J.F. Robitaille’s artistry that affirms him as a master of desire with a perceptive eye and ear powerfully attuned to his generation.
No Flash, Please!
$28.00The music scene in the mid-eighties was in transition, just as the entire music business was, unaware that it was all about to change in 1991 when Nirvana’s watershed release, Nevermind would unexpectedly hit number one on the Billboard chart. But that explosion didn’t happen overnight. It was the product of many things: Toronto’s developing music scene, club owners seeking original music, and the communities of musicians, artists, and fans supporting these new bands. No Flash, Please! documents an important period in Toronto’s music community.
As seen and heard by two journalists covering it for a number of monthly independent magazines, not only did they experience the local bands they knew and loved becoming famous, they also witnessed soon-to-be legends come through those same clubs and concert halls. Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Jesus Lizard, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Henry Rollins, all played Toronto during this period to crowds that varied in size from twenty to five hundred. No Flash, Please! doesn’t just focus on the music, it also captures the crowds and the community that spawned one of the richest periods in Toronto’s music history.
Nocturnes
$16.95Inspired by music, this poetry collection is composed of assonances, rhythms, musical phrases, and improvisations that outline the beginning and the end of everything that matters. Paul Savoie delves into the different dimensions of music that enable him to pierce the gray or to go through crystal, two of the pathways that give shape to his imaginary world.
NoMeansNo
$15.95NoMeansNo: Going Nowhere looks at a band whose career has spanned three decades, 14 albums and produced an alter ego that’s become as much a part of the Canadian consciousness as SCTV. Through interviews with band members, bit players and fans, the book will explore how one punk band from Victoria, B.C. influenced musicians across the world and continue to be force in punk rock.
Nowhere with You
$18.95A celebration of a beloved Canadian icon, featuring dozens of original interviews and exclusive photos
Joel Plaskett has earned an awful lot of honourifics in his career so far, counting folk hero, indie darling, and national treasure among them. And that’s just since the Halifax musician started making records of his own in 1999. For a decade before that, he was one-quarter of Thrush Hermit, a band of scrappy Superchunk disciples who became hard-rock revivalists and one of the last survivors of the ’90s pop “explosion” of major-label interest in Halifax.
Canada’s east coast has never been much of a pop-culture mecca. Most musicians from the region who’ve ever made it big moved away. But armed with a stubborn streak and a knack for great songwriting, Plaskett has kept Halifax as his home, building both a career and a music community there. Along the way, he’s earned great respect: when he plays shows in Alberta, east-coast expats literally thank him for staying home.
Nowhere with You is the study of how he pulled this off, from the origins of Canada’s east-coast exodus to Plaskett’s anointment as “Halifax’s Rick Rubin.” It’s a story about what happens when you call a city “the new Seattle,” about the lessons you learn playing to empty rooms in Oklahoma, and about defying radio-single expectations with rock operas and triple records. It’s about doing what you want, where you want, no matter how much work it takes.
Off the Books
$20.00The inner workings of the jazz “business.”
“Off the books” refers to a life lived outside of conventional 9 to 5 society. Jazz music itself is “off the books” as far as much of pop culture is concerned. Many jazz lives have unfolded as marginal existences, as jazz guitarist Peter Leitch attests in this honest memoir. Off the Books: A Jazz Life is the story of a life lived in search of excellence in music and art, but also a life lived battling depression and alienation, and overcoming narcotics addiction. Leitch vividly relates a life lived trying to eke out a living in jazz clubs, nightclubs and studios in Montreal, Toronto and New York. He tells of growing up as an Anglophone in Montreal’s working class and predominantly French-speaking East End refinery district, discovering jazz on CBC radio and learning to play it–outside of the academy.
Scripts
$24.95The late James Reaney remains one of Canada’s favourite poets and playwrights; at the intersection of his dramatic and poetic talents is Scripts, a collection of musical writings. There are nine complete works here, including the chamber opera Night-blooming Cereus, the poetry/music collage (and Governor General’s Award winner) Twelve Letters to a Small Town, the Canada Dot, Canada Dash trilogy and operas Shivaree , Taptoo! and Serinette. Many of these pieces have been published individually, but none are in print, and they have never been amassed.
Songs for Relinquishing the Earth
$20.00Songs for Relinquishing the Earth contains many poems of praise and grief for the imperilled earth drawing frequently on Jan Zwicky’s experience as a musician and philosopher and on the landscapes of the prairies and rural Ontario.
Songs for Relinquishing the Earth was first published by the author in 1996 as a hand-made book, each copy individually sewn for its reader in response to a request. It appeared between plain covers on recycled stock, with a small photo (of lavender fields) pasted into each copy. The only publicity was word of mouth.
Part of Jan Zwicky’s reason for having the author be the maker and distributor of the book was a desire to connect the acts of publication and publicity with the initial act of composition, to have a book whose public gestures were in keeping with the intimacy of the art. She also believed the potential audience was small enough that she could easily sew enough copies to fill requests as they came in. While succeeding in recalling poetry’s public life to its roots, she was wrong about the size of that audience and her ability to keep up with demand as word spread, Hence, this facsimile edition. In publishing it, Brick Books has attempted to remain as faithful as possible to the spirit of those original gestures, while making it possible for more readers to have access to this remarkable book.
The Deadly Snakes
$12.95The Deadly Snakes: Real Rock and Roll Tonight charts the rise and gentle fall of Canada’s greatest band. Unwilling to bow to industry demands, the Deadly Snakes instead made records they were proud of and played music by their own rules. From their chaotic teenage beginnings to the band’s exquisite final act, the story of the Deadly Snakes is both the story of angry young men growing up and a microcosm of Canadian independent music.
The Dears
$12.95Over a decade after the release of their first album, The Dears have weathered the indie fringes, the collapse of the music industry as we knew it and the near implosion of the band itself, with their creative vision and gang dynamic intact. The Dears: Lost in the Plot looks at how The Dears survived the fallout, and helped launch the acclaimed mid-aughts music scene in their hometown of Montréal. The Dears: Lost in the Plot is the first book in Invisible Publishing’s new Bibliophonic series. The Bibliophonic Series is a catalogue of the ongoing history of contemporary music. Each book is a time capsule, capturing artists and their work as we see them, providing a unique look at some of today’s most exciting musicians.