'Jill Gower's poems take us on journeys - back into her own past; into foreign countries; into the natural world of the bush and her garden which she so obviously loves and into the lives of others. Jill can recount a memory, evoke sympathy or capture a particular moment in time with honesty, colourful description or deft haiku. Jill also takes us on trains - and it is within her observations of fellow travellers and travelling companions (the man who "sat down, stood up, sat down" and Petra, who "didn't have a window") that I find the quirky humour which makes these poems my favourites in this collection.' - Judy Dally
First Published in 2002. It is easy to see that we are living in a time of rapid and radical social change. It is much less easy to grasp the fact that such change will inevitably affect the nature of those disciplines that both reflect our society and help to shape it. Yet this is nowhere more apparent than in the central field of what may, in general terms, be called literary studies. ‘New Accents’ is intended as a positive response to the initiative offered by such a situation. Each volume in the series will seek to encourage rather than resist the process of change. To stretch rather than reinforce the boundaries that currently define literature and its academic study.
Is there a place in our hearts or a second chance for those on the periphery of fame; for those who burned in a blaze of short-lived glory, then fizzled out like a fart on the breeze?There once was a band that emerged from humble origins to almost compete with the best; then disappeared without trace or fanfare. In touching distance of celebrity and acclaim, then gone; forever?Follow Bill, Tom, Clive and Ray as they emerge from the shadows of their past; meet ex Hell's Angel, Gabriel, and Russian reggae's ambassador, Ras Putin; reminisce about the antics of former drummer, Stan, God rest his soul; and solve the mystery of the enigmatic lady who inhabits their best-known song.This is the Resurrection of Skinny Ted and the Brothel Creepers!!
With striking intimacy and candor, Eric Clapton tells the story of his eventful and inspiring life in this poignant and honest autobiography. More than a rock star, Eric Clapton is an icon, a living embodiment of the history of rock music. Well known for his reserve in a profession marked by self-promotion, flamboyance, and spin, he now chronicles, for the first time, his remarkable personal and professional journeys. Born illegitimate in 1945 and raised by his grandparents, Eric never knew his father and, until the age of nine, believed his actual mother to be his sister. In his early teens his solace was the guitar, and his incredible talent would make him a cult hero in the clubs of Britain and inspire devoted fans to scrawl “Clapton is God” on the walls of London’s Underground. With the formation of Cream, the world's first supergroup, he became a worldwide superstar, but conflicting personalities tore the band apart within two years. His stints in Blind Faith, in Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and in Derek and the Dominos were also short-lived but yielded some of the most enduring songs in history, including the classic “Layla.” During the late sixties he played as a guest with Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, as well as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and longtime friend George Harrison. It was while working with the latter that he fell for George’s wife, Pattie Boyd, a seemingly unrequited love that led him to the depths of despair, self-imposed seclusion, and drug addiction. By the early seventies he had overcome his addiction and released the bestselling album 461 Ocean Boulevard, with its massive hit “I Shot the Sheriff.” He followed that with the platinum album Slowhand, which included “Wonderful Tonight,” the touching love song to Pattie, whom he finally married at the end of 1979. A short time later, however, Eric had replaced heroin with alcohol as his preferred vice, following a pattern of behavior that not only was detrimental to his music but contributed to the eventual breakup of his marriage. In the eighties he would battle and begin his recovery from alcoholism and become a father. But just as his life was coming together, he was struck by a terrible blow: His beloved four-year-old son, Conor, died in a freak accident. At an earlier time Eric might have coped with this tragedy by fleeing into a world of addiction. But now a much stronger man, he took refuge in music, responding with the achingly beautiful “Tears in Heaven.” Clapton is the powerfully written story of a survivor, a man who has achieved the pinnacle of success despite extraordinary demons. It is one of the most compelling memoirs of our time.
First Published in 2004. This book provides a novel understanding of current thought and enquiry in the study of popular culture and communications media. The populist sentiments and impulses underlying cultural studies and its postmodernist variants are explored and criticized sympathetically. An exclusively consumptionist trend of analysis is identified and shown to be an unsatisfactory means of accounting for the complex material conditions and mediations that shape ordinary people’s pleasures and opportunities for personal and political expression. Through detailed consideration of the work of Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall and ‘the Birmingham School’, John Fiske, youth subcultural analysis, popular television study, and issues generally concerned with public communication (including advertising, arts and broadcasting policies, children’s television, tabloid journalism, feminism and pornography, the Rushdie affair, and the collapse of communism), Jim McGuigan sets out a distinctive case for recovering critical analysis of popular culture in a rapidly changing, conflict-ridden world. The book is an accessible introduction to past and present debates for undergraduate students, and it poses some challenging theses for postgraduate students, researchers and lecturers.
DIVA veteran returns from war to find a city torn apart by poverty and crime/div DIVA year after the end of World War II, Jack Smeaton has returned to Newcastle, a nineteen-year-old with bone-white hair and a memory that cannot be cleansed. After the eye-opening experience of war, he sees his hometown for what it really is: a city so blighted by poverty that it’s hard to believe his was the victorious nation. A visit to a socialist meeting puts Smeaton under the sway of T. Dan Smith, a future city councilman whose dream is to rebuild Newcastle./divDIV /divDIVAs they spend the next decades working to improve the lot of the working man, something sinister bubbles underneath the surface of their new city. In the shadows of the towers Smith builds to house the city’s poor, a psychopath lurks, ready to christen the Newcastle of the future with the blood of the past./div
From twice Booker-shortlisted author Deborah Levy, a feast of observations about everything from the particular beauty of lemons on a table, to the muses that have shaped her life, to the streets of Paris. In The Position of Spoons, Deborah Levy invites us into the interiors of her world, sharing her most intimate thoughts and experiences, as she traces and measures her life against the backdrop of the literary and artistic muses that have shaped her. From Marguerite Duras to Colette and Ballard, and from Lee Miller to Francesca Woodman and Paula Rego, we can relish here the richness of their work and, in turn, the richness of the author’s own. Each page draws upon Levy’s life in exalting ways, encapsulating the wonderful precision and astonishing depth of her writing, as she seamlessly shifts between and mediates on questions of morality, language, suburbia, gender, consumerism, and the poetics of everyday living. From the child born in South Africa, to her teenage years in Britain, to her travels across the world as a young woman, each page is a beautiful, tender composition of the questioning self: a portrait of Deborah Levy’s writing life and intellectual vitality in all its dimensions.
Welcome to the real seventies, where the hair is shaved, the music is funky and the football is violent. Chris Brown was right there in the thick of the action. With his regulation haircut, clip on braces, shrunk Levis and bovver boots, he had the look every self-respecting bovver boy could not be seen without. This is the most amazing story of the most maligned decade in British history. It tells of adrenaline-packed Saturday outings, Tonik suits, aggro on the terraces, funk on the dancefloor and Johnny Rotten inside your head.
The story of The Pogues has been as riotous as their most rabble-rousing songs. From the streets of 80s London the Celtic Punks unleashed their hellraising 20-year career and in the process became legends; mythic troubadours whose popularity endures. This Omnibus Enhanced edition of Kiss My Arse has been revamped with an interactive digital timeline which paints the journey of The Pogues with videos and images of live performances, interviews, memorabilia and more. Also included is an integrated Spotify playlist containing the band’s greatest performances. To tell their story author Carol Clerk has interviewed Shane MacGowan, Spider Stacy, Jem Finer, Andrew Ranken, James Fearnley, Cait O'Riordan, and a clutch of associates, friends and fans. All paint a picture of a fiercely loyal group of musicians, their arguments and drunken spats, their love affairs, the drugs, the hirings and the firings, the marriages and deaths… but, above all, the music. This is their story, bared for all.
George Harrison and Eric Clapton embarked upon a singular personal and creative friendship that impacted rock's unfolding future in resounding and far-reaching ways. All Things Must Pass Away: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Other Assorted Love Songs will trace the emergence of their relationship from 1968 though the early 1970s. In particular, authors Womack and Kruppa devote close attention to the climax of Harrison and Clapton's shared musicianship—the November 1970 releases of All Things Must Pass, Harrison's powerful emancipatory statement in the wake of the Beatles, and Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, Clapton's impassioned reimagining of his art via Derek and the Dominos, the band that he created from the wreckage of Cream and Blind Faith. All Things Must Pass Away will provide readers with a powerful overview of Harrison and Clapton's relationship, especially in terms of the ways their revolutionary musicianship and songwriting would eclipse rock music as an evolving genre. With All Things Must Pass and Layla, Harrison and Clapton bequeathed twin recorded statements that advanced rock 'n' roll from a windswept 1960s idealism into the edgy new reality of the 1970s.
