New Releases by Barry Miles

"This is a reissue of a sought after classic that has stood the test of time, and this new edition now stands as a testament to its creators and an age that has passed." — Black + White Photography Magazine "My London is Soho" — Frank Norman For as long as anyone can remember, Soho has been the fluttering heart of London. Its storied pubs, shops, trattorias, gambling dens and nightclubs are every bit as alive as the millions of tourists, locals and crosstown visitors who crowd the streets all year round. People from all walks of life are made and unmade in Soho, and few knew it better than Frank Norman and Jeffrey Bernard. Writers and raconteurs, the pair haunted Soho’s establishments for much of their lives. While Bernard was renowned for his Low Life column in the Spectator, these pages collect his photos of the Soho he loved, with insightful commentary from Norman, an acclaimed novelist in his own right. Soho Night & Day is an authentic and very personal portrait of a special time and place, telling the tale of Soho in the ’60s. This new edition is embellished with an introduction by Barry Miles, as well as Jeffrey Bernard’s moving obituary for Frank Norman.

Detective Sergeant Carmoody has gotten complaints about a peeping tom from a woman named Miss Morgan. Carmoody put her beachfront motel under surveillance, but while he was taking a meal break, someone broke into the motel, and murdered her.

With the resurgence of vinyl going from strength to strength, album cover art is as important as it's ever been. This sumptuous book brings together 250 of the greatest album covers of all time and is arranged chronologically, beginning in 1956. Our judging panel, drawn from the great and the good of the music industry, has selected the final 275 entries, giving their reasons for selection to accompany the illustrations. From rock ‘n’ roll to pop, R&B to jazz, blues and even folk, some of the album covers included are obvious classics, while others will surprise readers and jog memories. The chosen entries might not necessarily be of a best-selling release, but they are important artistically, stylistically or culturally. This fascinating book forms a wonderful visual record of this popular art form, and is an essential read for music fans the world over.

William Burroughs ha cinque anni quando, seduto con il fratello nella casa di famiglia, in un quartiere altoborghese di St. Louis, scoppia improvvisamente a piangere: «Era come la sensazione disperata e assoluta di essere vulnerabile». William ne è ancora ignaro, ma lo Spirito del Male è già penetrato in lui, entità ostile che lo perseguiterà per tutta la vita. Che studi medicina a Vienna o antropologia ad Harvard, che faccia il disinfestatore a Chicago o si rifugi tra le braccia dell'amico Allen Ginsberg a New York, lo Spirito del Male non gli darà mai pace, portandolo alle azioni più sconsiderate e alle sperimentazioni più folli, ma anche, per reazione violenta, alle visioni più lucide e alle verità più drammaticamente insondabili. L'uccisione della moglie nella delirante e ubriaca imitazione di Guglielmo Tell, la ricerca di giovani corpi nei casini di Tangeri, l'automutilazione del mignolo per farne dono all'innamorato, la dipendenza dall'alcol e dalle droghe, la fascinazione per l'occulto in tutte le forme con cui si manifesta, dallo sciamanismo a Scientology alla stregoneria: Burroughs, vestito di un abito scuro e di un cappello fedora per scivolare tra la folla come un hombre invisible, con l'immancabile pistola in tasca e la freddezza inquietante dello studioso, sperimenta ogni possibile deragliamento dei sensi, convinto di poter sfuggire al controllo dello Stato, delle religioni, del sesso, della droga, delle dipendenze solo immergendovisi fino in fondo, sprofondandovi ogni volta, dando in pegno la sua vita per guadagnarne mille. Sempre in fuga – Tangeri, Parigi, Città del Messico, New Orleans, Chicago, New York – e sempre un passo oltre, non solo rispetto agli amici beat, che ammirati lo elessero capo spirituale, ma anche alle mode letterarie e culturali e a qualsiasi limite dell'immaginario e della morale. Il Saggiatore porta in Italia la biografia fondamentale di uno degli scrittori più radicali e decisivi del XX secolo. A firmarla è Barry Miles, che assistette in presa diretta alla sua eccezionale esistenza e ne ricostruisce qui, tramite testimonianze inedite, l'intera vicenda biografica: una storia privata estrema che getta nuova luce sull'opera letteraria di Burroughs come tentativo disperato di esorcizzare lo Spirito del Male e «scrivere la propria via di fuga».

Barry Miles knew Frank Zappa intimately and was present at the recording of some of his most important albums. This sparkling biography brings the Zappa the musician and composer, Zappa the controversialist and Zappa the family man (despite his love of groupies, he was married for more than 30 years) together for the first time. Barry Miles' biography follows Zappa from his sickly Italian-American childhood in the 1940s (when his father, Frank senior, worked for the US military and was used to test the efficacy of new biological warfare agents) to his death from cancer in the 1990s. Miles shows how Zappa's goal had been to become a classical composer, until he realised that he would starve to death pursuing this ambition in post-war America. In an effort to make music people would actually listen to, in the mid-1960s he joined a noisy new band called 'The Mothers of Invention'. Before long, Zappa had taken over as singer, song writer and lead guitarist and together they exploded on to the San Francisco freak scene. Following the release of recordings such as Freak Out, Absolutely Free, We're Only In It For the Money and Hot Rats, Zappa's reputation in the United States and in Europe, especially the UK, Germany and Holland, took off. When the Berlin wall fell, Frank was surprised to learn that his extravagant music embodied sixties liberty for a generation of dissidents (including Vaclav Havel, who invited Zappa to be his minister for culture). Frank Zappa is an authoritative and hugely enjoyable portrait of a singular man and a vivid evocation of the West Coast scene.

Fifty years ago, Norman Mailer asserted, "William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius." Few since have taken such literary risks, developed such individual political or spiritual ideas, or spanned such a wide range of media. Burroughs wrote novels, memoirs, technical manuals, and poetry. He painted, made collages, took thousands of photographs, produced hundreds of hours of experimental recordings, acted in movies, and recorded more CDs than most rock bands. Burroughs was the original cult figure of the Beat Movement, and with the publication of his novel Naked Lunch, which was originally banned for obscenity, he became a guru to the 60s youth counterculture. In Call Me Burroughs, biographer and Beat historian Barry Miles presents the first full-length biography of Burroughs to be published in a quarter century-and the first one to chronicle the last decade of Burroughs's life and examine his long-term cultural legacy. Written with the full support of the Burroughs estate and drawing from countless interviews with figures like Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, and Burroughs himself, Call Me Burroughs is a rigorously researched biography that finally gets to the heart of its notoriously mercurial subject.

Beginning with the Weathermen explosion in Greenwich Village and ending with punk, the seventies was the age of extremes; sex, drugs and, of course, rock 'n' roll.With an extraordinary cast of characters, and even more extraordinary anecdotes, In The Seventies tells, firsthand, the story - and stories - of the decade. From Allen Ginsberg's hippie commune in upstate New York to the time Miles spent cataloguing William Burroughs' archives in London, from David Bowie in drag to Grace Jones naked at Studio 54, it's all here. Vivid, compelling, intimate and, sometimes, insane, Barry Miles reveals the truth behind this legendary era.

Edward Wesson was one of the great watercolourists of the 20th century. His work spanned nearly half a century, ranging from the 1930s until his death in 1983 during which period he also taught extensively.

An authentic and compelling story of the group that gave alternative London its first real soundtrack and launched on the rock world a radical combination of music, light shows and pyrotechnic stage effects.A revealing diary of Pink Floyd's daily routine, from their roots in Cambridge to cult status in Sixties London. Author Barry Miles saw the band play when they were still called The Pink Floyd Sound and he wrote the first ever article about them for a New York underground newspaper in 1966. He also knew band members socially, witnessed the rapid decline of Syd Barrett and became actively involved in setting up some of Floyd’s major gigs.Barry Miles is an acclaimed music writer and expert on 'Beat' poetry and poets. A founder of the Indica bookshop and gallery in the Sixties, he went on to launch International Times and write for NME. He ghost-wrote Many Years From Now, Paul McCartney's autobiography and has written books on The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Frank Zappa.

L'hôtel du 9, rue Gît-le-Coeur ferma pour de bon au printemps 1963. William Burroughs se souvenant du moment où Madame et son chat Mirtaud sont finalement partis : "Il y avait un chat gris au Beat Hotel. C'était celui de Madame. Quand elle s'est retirée, elle est allée de l'autre côté de la rue. Elle avait l'air si triste, là, l'air des gens qui prennent leur retraite. Elle avait des géraniums et un vieux menton gris et un vieux, vieux chat gris, et elle a simplement disparu dans un fondu enchaîné..." Au coeur du quartier latin, rue Gît-le-Coeur à Paris, un hôtel miteux a joué un rôle clé dans l'histoire de la littérature beat. C'est dans cet établissement, tenu d'une main de fer par Madame Rachou, que les écrivains américains beat, exilés volontaires d'un pays trop puritain pour recevoir leurs idées, ont trouvé refuge. Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso... tous y ont séjourné. Et ce petit hôtel de devenir l'épicentre du phénomène beat qui, entre New York, San Francisco, Mexico, Tanger, Amsterdam, Londres et Budapest, n'a pas simplement concerné les écrivains et artistes américains, mais toute la bohème internationale. Cet ouvrage remarquablement bien documenté retrace les années parisiennes des grandes figures beat. Il saisit l'aspect international de ce mouvement et nous plonge dans le Paris populaire et interlope de cette époque, son souffle, ses voix aujourd'hui disparus.

Beginning with the Weathermen explosion in Greenwich Village and ending with punk, the seventies was the age of extremes; sex, drugs and, of course, rock 'n' roll. With an extraordinary cast of characters, and even more extraordinary anecdotes, In The Seventies tells, firsthand, the story - and stories - of the decade. From Allen Ginsberg's hippie commune in upstate New York to the time Miles spent cataloguing William Burroughs' archives in London, from David Bowie in drag to Grace Jones naked at Studio 54, it's all here. Vivid, compelling, intimate and, sometimes, insane, Barry Miles reveals the truth behind this legendary era.

2010 fut une année particulière pour John Lennon. Elle marque à la fois son 70e anniversaire, le 30e anniversaire de sa mort et le 40e anniversaire de l’album Let It Be. Le mois d’octobre voit tous ses albums solo réédités, et en décembre, la sortie du biopic Nowhere Boy, avec l’étonnant Aaron Johnson dans le rôle du Beatle. Consart a décidé de consacrer un ouvrage au chanteur-compositeur. De ses débuts, avant la formation des Beatles, au sein des Quarrymen jusqu’à son assassinat au Dakota Building en décembre 1980, c’est non seulement la vie de Lennon qui parcoure les pages de ce livre, mais une époque. Celle de l’avènement du rock anglais, des années psychédéliques, de la rupture avec les Beatles, de l’exil aux Etats-Unis, des manifestations politiques. L’occasion de voir à travers le prisme lennonien une société en mouvement, qu’il incarne jusque dans ses errances.

Allen Ginsberg occupies a significant and enduring position in American literature. This title presents a readable account of one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary poets

An intimate day-by-day history of all four Beatles from childhood to the break-up of the group. All the concerts...film, TV and radio appearances...interviews, hushed-up scandals, the sex and the drugs...the triumphs and quarrels...and all the Beatles-related births, marriages and deaths. Essential reading for anyone interested in rock's most influential phenomenon of all time.

'Fear makes me a writer, fear and a lack of confidence' Charles Bukowski chronicled the seedy underside of the city in which he spent most of his life, Los Angeles. His heroes were the panhandlers and hustlers, the drunks and the hookers, his beat the racetracks and strip joints and his inspiration a series of dead-end jobs in warehouses, offices and factories. It was in the evenings that he would put on a classical record, open a beer and begin to type... Brought up by a violent father, Bukowski suffered childhood beatings before developing horrific acne and withdrawing into a moody adolescence. Much of his young life epitomised the style of the Beat generation - riding Greyhound buses, bumming around and drinking himself into a stupor. During his lifetime he published more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including the novels Post Office, Factotum, Women and Pulp. His novels sold millions of copies worldwide in dozens of languages. In this definitive biography Barry Miles, celebrated author of Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats, turns his attention to the exploits of this hard-drinking, belligerent wild man of literature.

Can you remember where you were when you heard John Lennon had died? Did you queue to watch Saturday Night Fever or rush out to buy With The Beatles when it was first released? Did you witness Justin Timberlake’s national TV superbowl blunder or tune in to see the verdict in the Michael Jackson trial? 'Massive Music Moments' chronicles over 100 of the most memorable music events of the last fifty years, whether shocking, shameful, uplifting or inspiring. Unfolding chronologically the moments from music history to include the great album launches, the killer hit singles, the Broadway musical openings, the rock star excesses, the sad demises and the monster music festivals such as Live Aid, Woodstock and the 2006 Make Poverty History concerts around the world, which ended with a once-only reunion of Pink Floyd. Each event is featured in a double-page spread along with news and trivia from the time. Starting in 1955, the year that Bill Haley performed Rock Around The Clock in the film Blackboard Jungle and moving through to 2007, every year has its own timeline entry listing the key album and single No.1s, plus other groundbreaking records and news. These are combined with quotes from some of the major players and additional background information in box-outs. 'Massive Music Moments' is a comprehensive and accessible record of music history covering the last fifty years.

One of the most instantly recognized images in the world--the peace sign--celebrates its 50th anniversary. Miles uses a combination of research and personal recall to recount the evolution of this iconic image. Illustrated.

A collection of posters "produced by students at a Political Poster Workshop in May of 1970 at the University of California at Berkeley...under the radical gaze of the political activist, poster designer and co-founder of the Mexican American Liberation Front, Malaquías Montoya."

This incredible book contains an astonishingly detailed chronology of gigs, venues, quotes and memorable dates.It exposes the unvarnished stories of the four band members, uncovering the quarrels, sex and the drugs as well as the personal triumphs.

The second half of the 1960s was a time of constant changes and tireless exploration for the generation born after World War II. A great exchange of ideas occurred that would have a great impact on the politics, morals, philosophy, and customs of the time, and on those of generations to come. This book is a tribute to the hippie movement and an enlightening study of the consequences those multidisciplinary initiatives would have on that generation and those to come. In addition to the chronicle of one of the key figures of the movement, author Barry Miles, other distinguished activists of the time contribute to this book. This is an illustrated and psychedelic panoramic view of that which transpired between the years 1965 and 1971, and of what came afterward. La segunda mitad de la década de los sesenta fue una época de cambios constantes y de infatigable exploración para la generación nacida después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Se produjo un gran intercambio de ideas que iban a tener una incidencia notable en la política, la moral, la filosofía y las costumbres de la época, y en las de las generaciones venideras. Este libro es un tributo a dicho movimiento y un alumbrador estudio de las consecuencias que esas iniciativas multidisciplinarias iban a tener en aquella generación y en las venideras. Junto a la crónica de una las figuras clave del movimiento, el autor Barry Miles, se presentan las contribuciones de los activistas más destacados de la época. Es una panorámica ilustrada y psicodélica de cuanto transcurrió entre los años 1965 y 1971, y de todo lo que sucedió en adelante.

Traces the life of ground-breaking musician Frank Zappa from his Italian American childhood roots to his ultimate success as a composer and rock star.

A detailed chronology of gigs, venues, quotes, and memorable dates relating to The Beatles.