The Generalized System of Preferences Gsp Investment and Business Guide (Us Regional Investment and Business Library)

Book Description

Linocut prints in crisp blacks and whites reflect traditional work from Zulu, Masai, and dozens of other tribes. Masks, abstract motifs, and much more.

Customer Reviews:

Not What I Expected.......2007-01-09

Another book that didn't have what I thought it would have in terms of designs. I have since stopped buying books like this because I will be adding to the bottom line of companies that produce books that don't meet my needs.

A useful resource for graphic artists and others.......2001-06-03

As someone who grew up in Africa, I find myself drawn to African culture. I have used some of the nearly 400 illustrations in this book for various purposes, from website design artifacts to home decoration. Designs can be used at will. The designs are well categorised. North Africa and East Africa are not as well represented as the other parts of the continent, but you'll still find a good variety an this book's pages. Dates, and an index by region would have been useful.

African Designs from Traditional Sources.......2000-08-03

Published in 1971, this book is a pictorial archive of African design. Taken largely from carved art in wood and stone, most of the designs are presented as black and white linocut prints, and each design includes a brief description of its geographic and tribal origin. A map of Africa is included as well as source references from museums, collections and publications for each of the artifacts that the designs have been extracted from, more than 200 in all. This is an excellent resource for artists as well as school age children and it is an exceptional value. I'm holding out on that last star only because no dates are given for the works cited.

African Designs from Traditional Sources: 378 Illustrations

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African Designs from Traditional Sources: 378 Illustrations
Geoffrey Williams
Manufacturer: Dover
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K4XSB4

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Flameworking: Creating Glass Beads, Sculptures & Functional Objects
Elizabeth Mears
Manufacturer: Lark Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Glass & Glassware | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Complete Book of Glass Beadmaking

Contemporary Lampworking: A Practical Guide to Shaping Glass in the Flame (2 volume set)

The Art & Soul of Glass Beads: 17 Bead Artists Share Their Inspiration & Methods

Beads of Glass

Warm Glass: A Complete Guide to Kiln-Forming Techniques: Fusing, Slumping, Casting

ASIN: 1579907415

Book Description

New in Paper
You can easily form beads, candlesticks, and art objects from just a rod of cold glass and a torch. Heat it, manipulate it a bit, and almost instantaneously beautiful and new figures emerge from the fire. That's flameworking. A top teacher of the craft explains how to do it all, providing exactly the same information and exercises she gives her beginner's workshops. Lavish illustrations capture the entire artistic process. Look into the different types of glass to choose from, and find out how to melt a ball at different points of the rod; flatten it into a disc; and shape it into hearts, wings, butterflies, and the moon. Turn those designs into jewelry, hanging sculptures, and stirrers. The results are amazing!

Book Description

* Comprehensive history of British housing
* Specific sections on Scottish and Northern Ireland housing
* Foreword by the President of the RIBA, David Rock
* Key design issues
* Highly illustrated throughout

'RIBA Book of 20th Century British Housing' arises from Ian Colquhoun's membership of the RIBA Housing Group, and reflects the numerous requests for information on British housing received from architects in the UK and overseas. The resulting book looks at the design solutions developed during this century and is illustrated from around 200 of the best projects.

Ian Colquhoun's book is both a guide to the most significant schemes built in Britain during the century, and a resource for practitioners in housing development and students of architecture and other courses relating to the built environment. The book provides an overview of the evolution of housing development in the 20th century, describing and illustrating projects with key plans, drawings and photographs. It includes present-day schemes and estate regeneration as well as special sections on housing in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Ian Colquhoun is a Professor of Architecture at the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside and an architect and town planner. He has written three major books on housing design and urban regeneration.

Comprehensive history of British housing
Specific sections on Scottish and Northern Ireland housing
Key design issues

Book Description

Takes a hard look at the consequences of intense conflict between divorced parents

This book explores both the causes and consequences of high-level, stressful conflict between divorced parents on their children's development. It also provides concrete advice to help parents work together to the benefit of all involved, most importantly the children.

Customer Reviews:

More Japan Please!.......2007-08-28

Although this book is very interesting, it should have spent more time covering Japan. Way more time....

Sylvian Unveiled?.......2000-02-26

Martin Powers undertakes the difficult task of illustrating David Sylvian, the most elusive artist. This book is very interesting because the author takes you on a journey through the history of David's artistic career, and also provides the foundation during the new wave era. I highly reccomend this book.

Much needed biography, but could have been a bit better.......2000-01-24

It's about time someone write a biography of David Sylvian and Japan. This is a good book, great cover photo, nice appropriate title, but contains too much info. on David's later solo career and material, and is disappointingly sparce on his years with Japan, (which made him famous in the first place). I have a feeling this is the biography Sylvian would want you to read, but not the biography that YOU would want to read!

Full of facts but not enough soul.......1999-05-23

This first proper biography of David Sylvian offers a good introduction to this wonderfull but often misunderstood artis. For the diehard followers, who have waited some time to get to know better the complex man behind the music, this work is slightly unsatisfying.

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Japan's ex-frontman Sylvian...a prolific poet & Musician

David Sylvian: The Last Romantic
Martin Powe
Manufacturer: Omnibus Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

Japan's ex-frontman Sylvian...a prolific poet & Musician.......2001-01-29

Beauty, sensitivity, honesty, and passion are all evident in the work of a man who can only be described as this countries most eclectic and prolific private musician, with work spanning four decades David Sylvian has nothing to prove, with a dedicated following he can confidently move on into any genre he feels willing to explore, this book shows his complex thoughts and ideals. Trophies 2 points specifically to his past and present lyrics and helps to understand the music and the textures he creates, this is'nt just for the besotted Sylvian follower but for the writers and poets of the next generation.

Customer Reviews:

Saying a qualified no to Mr. Mandel's book........2002-12-13

Mr. Mandel's book, "Saying No to Power" serves primarily as an apology and justification for 20th century's second most oppressive dictatorship - the Soviet Union. The author is a well-known Soviet sympathizer and apologist, and has been one throughout his life.Saying no to power? Not quite, Mr. Mandel is in fact saying yes to Soviet power.

Saying a Qualified OK to This Book.......2001-06-01

....

Its a very interesting life story in any case. William Mandel grew up in a milieu which is long gone: a highly literate, politically active, urban working class. He spent a significant part of his childhood in the Soviet Union; was deeply, though ambivalently, involved in the Communist Party U.S.A(CPUSA) - (he was kicked out and then readmitted, at which point he resigned); He was interrogated twice by HUAC, as well as by Roy Cohn during the McCarthy hearings; He was the victim of red-baiting through-out his career; He was involved in the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley; he is a principle actor in the current Pacifica Radio fracas.

Along the way William Mandel has encountered a huge number of characters, ranging from Eleanor Roosevelt, to Paul Robeson, to Jerry Rubin. His political outlook has changed from Marxist-Leninism to his current disavowal of Socialism.

He is such an acclaimed scholar of the late Soviet Union that he was, for a time, a member of the Hoover Institute, a bastion of right-wing American triumphalism.

In short, William Mandel has led an exciting life. His autobiography should be an exciting read.

Sadly - it ain't so. Outside of the first few chapters about his boyhood, which are charming, this book is a chore. Mr. Mandel appears distraught that his contributions to the history of the American Left have been under-appreciated and is therefore concerned with setting the record straight. There are more references to personal correspondence extolling Mr. Mandel's impact on the world then there are to Mandel’s own writings!

Fascinating questions are left unanswered. He infers that he has given up on Marxian Socialism since it has proved to be as utopian as the 19th Century socialisms that it sought to replace. He suggests that civil libertarian concerns gnawed at him while he was a practicing Communist. But he never presents a critique of Marxism. Given that this is a relatively recent intellectual development for Mr. Mandel, one would expect some substance in this regard.

There are also the odd omissions and tantalizing facts that are not followed through upon. William Mandel offers a seemingly cogent case for the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact: tying together Stalin's desire for a secure western border with the incursion into Finland. Mandel seeks to make us understand that this pact was primarily a vehicle for the defense of the Soviet Union against a set of hostile and intractable enemies. trange...there is no mention of the invasion and division of Poland.

As for tantalizing facts, there is one point where William Mandel mentions a recent CPUSA convention wherein the Commies called the Cops! Apparently there was a group of dissidents who were attempting to participate, and the Cleveland Police Department was called upon to enforce Party Disciplne. But this incident is not expanded upon. (This is, in fact not merely an offhand anecdote. The CPUSA subsequently split into two groups: one of which expounds Social Democracy ala Western Europe – and which has left the Party, the other is a bunch of aging ideologues. This has spelled the end of the CPUSA as a viable force, even in left-sectarian terms. Given the sturm and drang that followed the CPUSA throughout its history, and inspired Mandel’s most courageous moments – indeed, given the force that the CPUSA had in Mandel’s personal life, from childhood forward, one would think that the Party’s demise is worthy of comment.

Perhaps William Mandel could author a follow-up volume which details and analyzes the history of the American Left in the 20th Century. He would be in a unique position to do so, and it would be an exciting and entertaining book.

Bottom line: if you're building a library on the American Left, get this book for the sake of completeness.

Otherwise look for William Mandel's other works on the Soviet Union. I note that there is a new one due in July.

No to "power," "yes" to the world's bloodiest dictatorship.......2001-05-16

This is a profoundly sad book that encapsulates the intellectual tragedy of our times and as such, is illuminating, though not in the manner its author and his supporters would prefer. Mandel's was perhaps the loudest and most articulate voice serving, in effect, as a propoganda arm of the Soviet Union through decade after decade when the extraordinary brutality of Stalinist dictatorship devoured its own children and created unparalleled police states in Eastern Europe and around the world. Mandel never seemed to realize that the Soviet Union of his dreams was one vast Potemkin village barely masking an unending daily terror. The enormous irony of Mandel hysterically proclaiming his civil liberties before HUAC is apparently lost on both himself and those fellow communists who for some odd reason always want to drape themselves with the grand banners of "fighter for world peace and justice." But no apologist for state fascism could ever publish a self aggrandizing book in America entitled "Saying No to Power" merely for their vigorous assertion of their own first amendment rights to praise dictatorships and deride the one nation on earth whose commitment to freedom of speech has been made foundational. Very very few passionate counterpart activists for freedom and justice within the former Soviet Union ever lived through the Gulags (or even through the basement of that ghastly tower on Dzerzhinsky Square). Commisars Yagoda, Yeskov, and Beria failed to provide microphones, news cameras, and printing presses to the dissidents of the Soviet Union, although for five decades the inhuman screams from the interrogation rooms hardly needed amplification. They were, of course, never heard as far as Mandel's Berkeley. No to power? George Orwell is smiling even now.

What's it like to spend your lifetime fighting for social ch.......2000-09-04

Book review by: Mike Rhodes

What's it like to spend your lifetime fighting for social change? SAYING NO TO POWER takes you on a journey that puts you on the front line in the struggle for peace, social justice and socialism. Mr. Mandel is a "red diaper baby" who had graduated from high school at fourteen when his parents took him to the Soviet Union in 1931 to help build socialism. Back in the U.S., he joined the Communist Party at eighteen and was assigned to industrial Ohio where the steel, auto, and rubber unions were being built. In the 1950's when McCarthyism was looking for commies under every bed, they found Bill and ordered him to appear before all three witch-hunting committees, two in the U.S. Senate and also in the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities. Instead of being intimidated, Mandel turned the tables on Senator Joe McCarthy and demanded an end to the witch-hunt. He had faith in the American people's desire for free speech as stated in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

We follow Mandel into the 60's and learn about the significant role he played in the Free Speech Movement and as a commentator on KPFA (KFCF 88.1 FM, our local progressive radio station). He is one of the most knowledgeable experts in the country on the former Soviet Union. In the 90's he was removed from the air for "deviating" from the subject matter of his regular program.

If you want to learn about the life of someone who has spent most of the last century in the struggle to build a better America, read SAYING NO TO POWER.

###

A tool for peace.......2000-02-23

"Saying No to Power" is a well-documented account of the U.S. climate and history of the past 7-8 decades, a gigantic mural painted with heart. For decades now, Bill Mandel's life has obviously been devoted to promoting world peace by fostering a deeper understanding between his country and the USSR. His insights into the Russian people are priceless, not only because he speaks Russian but, more importantly, because he speaks Human. Came the Cold War and the demonizing of the USSR, and he became a symbol of courage and free speech among the people of the United States when he stood up to McCarthy himself. Over the years, I met many people with extraordinary stories about the McCarthy era, and it was enriching to see them all in context, thanks to this book. Integrity, courage, a burning sense of justice and fairness, a spirited stand for peace and freedom for all, within and without the United States, Bill Mandel has this in common with all those friends I have met along my path. Without people like them, what would have happened to free speech? I also treasure his genuine respect for women and his ongoing fight against racism. I believe that everybody who wants an in-depth look at the main roadblocks to world peace will find this book useful and inspiring. It found its niche among my reference books, as I'm sure I won't lack opportunities to consult it now and again.

Dr. Viviane Lerner, Ph.D.

Book Description

While the process of financial planning and investing may be made "mysterious" by Wall Street, anyone can learn it. With Money Moves, readers can take charge of their own financial fitness! From setting goals, to making good decisions. From learning the "secrets of the Masters" to applying them to their own investments, this book will take the reader by the hand and walk them towards their financial dreams. Choked full of easy to read charts and complete with worksheets and forms, readers won't want to make a money move without it!

Customer Reviews:

I recommend this book to anyone who cares about their money!.......1999-04-03

Mr. Yockey is brilliant. His approach to money management is easy and effective. I wish I would have read this book years ago.

Road Map takes complex concepts and breaks them down simply........1999-03-19

Road Map concentrates on the most meaningful issues surrounding money. "Money is not magic, it is what you do with money that is magic." While Wall Street tries to cloak investment techniques and information in complexity, Road Map to Wealth simplifies the whole process. From setting financial objectives, to picking stocks or planning your retirement this book makes it all easy.

Written in an easy, humorous style, Road Map gives you a real chance to meet your long term goals with intelligent choices. You can find out how to select the right mutual fund, stocks or bonds. Four information loaded chapters on mutual funds, including the Hype and Hazards of Funds. And if you need a financial advisor, how to pick one and the book explains how they get paid. You must have Road Map to Wealth.

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Custer and the Epic of Defeat
Bruce A. Rosenberg
Manufacturer: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0271011726

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Custer and the Epic of Defeat
Bruce A. Rosenberg
Manufacturer: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORAAVI

Book Description

Few figures in modern American anthropology have been more controversial or influential than Leslie A. White (1900–1975). Between the early 1940s and mid-1960s, White’s work was widely discussed, and he was among the most frequently cited American anthropologists in the world. After writing several respected ethnographic works about the Pueblo Indians, White broke ranks with anthropologists who favored such cultural histories and began to radically rethink American anthropology. As his political interest in socialism grew, he revitalized the concept of cultural evolution and reinvigorated comparative studies of culture. His strident political beliefs, radical interpretive vision, and often combative nature earned him enemies inside and outside the academy. His trip to the Soviet Union and participation in the Socialist Labor Party brought him to the attention of the FBI during the height of the Cold War, and near-legendary scholarly and political conflicts surrounded him at the University of Michigan.

Placing White’s life and work in historic context, William J. Peace documents the broad sociopolitical influences that affected his career, including many aspects of White’s life that are largely unknown, such as the reasons he became antagonistic toward Boasian anthropology. In so doing, Peace sheds light on what made White such a colorful figure as well as his enduring contributions to modern anthropology.

Customer Reviews:

Towards ending the history of anthropology coverup.......2004-04-09

In Peace's preface he writes of anthropology's historians Geo Stocking and Dick Handler "failures to consider the political beliefs and actions" of the anthropologists they chronicle--a charge that well summarizes the central devastating shortcoming of the history of anthropology for the past 30 years. This biography goes a long ways towards suggesting how anthropologists can reintegrate politics back into their disciplinary histories. Peace builds an interesting historical account of White and establishes the deep impact of Marx and socialism on White's life and theory.

Fascinating biography.......2004-03-26

Author Peace has done a masterful job in exploring the work of this eccentric and complicated anthropoligist.
His work and personality are examined and startling facts sensitively revealed.
It is well written, informative and shows a true understanding of the man's personality and brillaint theories.
Well worth reading!
Kathy Boncuk

Book Description

This 200-page book features note-for-note transcriptions of every instrument used on 13 songs from the classic Stones album: Black Angel * Casino Boogie * Happy * Just Wanna See His Face * Let It Loose * Rip This Joint * Rocks Off * Shake Your Hips * Soul Survivor * Torn and Frayed * Tumbling Dice * Turd on the Run * Ventilator Blues. Includes tab.

Customer Reviews:

Buyer Beware.......2007-03-13

Buyer beware...this item is falsely advertised. It is actually "Selections from Exile on Main Street" and not the complete score. Whomever made the 'selections' is an idiot, in my opinion, as they left the best songs out. It's like buying a painting and sections of it are missing. It is beyond me why the integrity of a work of art like this album would be messed with in this manner and sold as complete. This product is a complete falsehood. Do not buy this garbage!

Excellent except..........2006-12-03

I found the transcriptions very accurate and give it 5 stars for that, but there are a couple of things you should be aware of before purchasing:

1. To get all the parts on a page, they made the type rather small. This is probably only a concern to those of us that were alive when the album was first released and are now wearing bifocals.

2. If you look closely at the title on the book, you'll see "Selections From". Songs from the album that were missing from the book are: Sweet Virginia, Loving Cup, All Down the Line, Stop Breaking Down, and Shine a Light.

I don't want to discourage you from choosing this book. It's very good and you'll really enjoy learning this great selection of tunes from an excellent album.

Great Book.......2004-01-01

This book is a transcription of the Rolling Stones album that had rock & roll, blues, soul, and country all buried into it. The guitars in this album are excellent mostly blues progressions so if you are interested in blues guitar learn it from Kieth Richards and Mick Taylor who were the guitarists of this album. This is book is great for beginners and masters of the guitar.

Schirmer's Classic Rock Albums Series, Editor Clinton Heylin: Exile On Main St.; The Rolling Stones, By John Perry

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Schirmer's Classic Rock Albums Series, Editor Clinton Heylin: Exile On Main St.; The Rolling Stones, By John Perry
Series editor Clinton Heylin
Manufacturer: Schirmer Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Operating Systems | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000ML96HK

Exile on Main Street: A Season in Hell With the Rolling Stones

Average customer rating:

Style Over Substance, Always!
Another "Music" book which skips the "music"
Not Much About the Record Itself
don't bother reading/buying
Exiled! Get the Janovitz book instead.

Exile on Main Street: A Season in Hell With the Rolling Stones
Robert Greenfield
Manufacturer: Da Capo Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 030681563X

Book Description

Recorded during the blazing hot summer of 1971 at Villa Nellcôte, Keith Richards's seaside mansion in southern France, Exile on Main Street has been hailed as one of the greatest rock records of all time. Yet its improbable creation was difficult, torturous...and at times nothing short of dangerous.

In self-imposed exile, the Stones--along with wives, girlfriends, and an unrivaled crew of hangers-on--spent their days smoking, snorting, and drinking whatever they could get their hands on, while at night, Villa Nellcôte's basement studio became the crucible in which creative strife, outsized egos, and all the usual byproducts of the Stones' legendary hedonistic excess fused into something potent, volatile, and enduring.

Here, for the first time, is the season in hell that produced Exile on Main Street.

Customer Reviews:

Style Over Substance, Always! .......2007-10-13

Here, Hear! Folks, Let's not all get our panties in a wad! I give the book 4 stars and I haven't even seen it, much less read it!
I like the title and I love the cover so once I HAVE read it, I will give it 5ice (5ive nice) stars, if I can dance to it and it has a nice beat, that is! Meanwhile, can't we all just get along?!?!?

Another "Music" book which skips the "music" .......2007-09-10

I just finished this book. It is similar to the recent one on Derek and the Dominoes. All kinds of tabloid info on drugs, women and other debauchery but extremely short on the music. There are also glaring mistakes: 1. the author claims Jumpin' Jack Flash was on the Sticky Fingers album (wrong - it was a single released two years earlier). 2. he claims that Mick Taylor replaced Clapton in the Bluesbreakers (wrong, Taylor replaced Peter Green). 3. He claims the song "Dandelion" was on the album Satanic Majesty's Request. False. This is basic information and there is no excuse for getting it wrong. Not an auspicious beginning to the book. At the end of the book a few pages are thrown in discussing the music (which he claims are for (paraphrase - not exact words) eccentric people who like all this music stuff - I guess he means those of us who are not interested in tabloid gossip). If you're interested in what drugs Mick and Keith were taking or how many people Anita Pallenberg slept with, get this book. If you're interested in music, however, consider looking elsewhere. This book is a big disappointment. It is akin to a teen going out on a date waiting to kiss the girl good night and at the end she just says "see 'ya" and leaves you on the street. Not at all recommended.

Not Much About the Record Itself.......2007-08-02

I picked this up while waiting for a plane to Philly. As a musician, I was pleased to find a book that (I thought) was about the making of one of my favorite recordings. This is a fast read. It's really just about the debauchery that took place while the record was being made and readied for market. Those of us who were old enough to remember this period of music history will learn absolutely nothing new here. I like the earlier review with the sarcastic proclamation "oh my God! Keith Richards took drugs!" That about sums it up. There's really very little (maybe a couple of sentences) about the actual sessions. I don't recommend it. I left it in the hotel room in Philly.

don't bother reading/buying.......2007-07-06

Read 'Terry (Milwaukee)''s comments first. Dead-on analysis of this book; poorly written and often distracting - somewhere between a sophmore book report and a gossip column. Oddly organized and consistently annoying with the "music lyric seques"... it was a frustrating chore to read this book.

One thing I never figured out - was the author even at Nellcote (Cote d'azur in France)? I was never able to determine what, if any, relationship he actually had to the Rolling Stones...

Exiled! Get the Janovitz book instead........2007-06-26

I just finished reading this and the whole time I was making notes about the problems -- the factual errors, the reliance on Sanchez's shady material, the bad wordplay and the author's irritating use of the present tense.

But then I came to this page and realized that the book has already been slammed again and again for those very same reasons.

So, my short review: Word.

Slightly longer review: Greenfield's usually pretty good (regarding his book on Bill Graham I have to drop the music geek cliche: "seminal") but this book is a bust. Without referencing the music this book loses all context and it could almost be about any band, any party. Still, if you want dirt, dirt you get.

** A much better recent book is Bill Janovitz's book about "Exile" in the 33-1/3rd series. **

Janovitz (who led the band Buffalo Tom and writes extensively for AMG) covers the music with a musician's expertise without getting boring, and he brings to the table the genuine enthusiasm of a Stones fan. Plus, it's cheaper and cool and hip-pocket sized without being too small.

Exile on Main Street: The Rolling Stones (Classic Rock Album Series)

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"Shine a Light...."
An x-ray of Exile
Highly Acute and Witty Look at Stones Debauchery
Lost On Main Street

Exile on Main Street: The Rolling Stones (Classic Rock Album Series)
John Perry
Manufacturer: Music Sales Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

"Shine a Light....".......2004-03-22

I can't really explain why but the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street" is my absolute favorite collection of music. Sometimes I wish my absolute favorite album could be something a little prettier, a little more melodic like "Pet Sounds" or "Abbey Road" or "Astral Weeks" or "The Band" or "Blood on the Tracks." And all those *are* extremely high up there.

But the bottom line is, if I were being shot into space tomorrow and could only bring one album with me, I wouldn't even have to think about it, it would be "Exile." I might consider "Kind of Blue" for a second but then I'd think, "I'm going into space, I have to have 'Shine a Light' with me!" "Exile" has been the background music for so many drives and so many sitting around evenings, so many hours of my life, and it's never gotten old, I never seem to tire of it or stop hearing new things in it.

I'm going to get to the book itself in a second but here's something I found while Googling yesterday. The late, great critic, Lester Bangs wrote this about the album: "Exile is dense enough to be compulsive: hard to hear at first, the precision and fury behind the murk ensure that you'll come back hearing more with each playing. What you hear sooner or later is two things: an institution for nonstop getdown... and a strange kind of humility and love emerging from a dazed frenzy."

That's it. He nailed it. And writer John Perry does a good job of digging behind the murk with his examination of the album. He's clearly a big time fan of the music and shares a lot of insight into it with a track-by-track analysis. Most importantly, the book also includes contemporary magazine reviews of the album that ran when it first came out. Since "Exile" is an album that almost has to grow on a listener to some extent, some of the conclusions the writers make are amusing to say the least. He also includes essays about the album and a little history.

The book isn't perfect -- Perry is interesting but he doesn't have a dead-serious critical edge, and I really wish the publishers had had access to better archive pictures and better reproduction. But this is still a good book to have if you want a better understanding of one of the greatest pieces of pop culture ever created. It even pointing out a snore (presumably Keith's) which I'd never heard before.

An x-ray of Exile.......2002-04-14

So much has been written about the Rolling Stones and their music and so much has been rubbish. Most writers have not had access to the band members and fall back on well-worn second or third-hand stories. John Perry doesn't recycle anything, he writes about what he knows, beginning with the historical background of Exile and following with a song-by-song examination of the album itself. Although he clearly has a deep love for this music, he is no star-struck fan, he sees the Stones' human flaws, but he isn't distracted by them, this is no parade of scandals as are so many books about this band. And in contrast to most rock writers, Perry actually knows and plays music, and his detailed breakdown of this great album literally note-by-note is superb. The combination of rich historical background and detailed musical analysis makes this a rare gem in the Rolling Stones library. I recommend this book highly, especially for musicians or those interested in the flesh-and-blood of what many consider one of rock's most important albums. My only complaint is that it isn't a hundred pages longer.

Highly Acute and Witty Look at Stones Debauchery.......2001-06-09

Like Perry's previous biog on the making of The Who's masterpiece 'Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy', he returns here with an interesting, witty and inciteful look at the both the state of the Stones circa the making of Exile and the wonderfully dirty rhythm and blues double album that emerged at the end of the debauched sessions in France.

Clearly previous reviewers have missed the rather large fifty page chapter entitled 'The Songs', that goes into extremely well argued and meticulously researched detail from a professional guitarists point of view of just what the album is made of.

Highly recommended.

Lost On Main Street.......2001-03-22

Exile On Main Street is arguably the Rolling Stones greatest work. A double album consisting of down and dirty, bluesy songs about the decadence the band was spiraling down into. They were drinking heavily and doing alot of the drugs and the music mirrored their state of mind. John Perry does alot of writing about the band, but seemingly glosses over the album itself. Normally the books in this series are superb, but unfortunately this one does not live up to the other volumes or the album it covers.

Exile on Main Street: the Rolling Stones (Classic Rock Albums)

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Exile on Main Street: the Rolling Stones (Classic Rock Albums)
John Perry
Manufacturer: Schirmer Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KWGZ2U

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