Thursday, June 18, 2026

Dom Mariani & The Majestic Kelp • Underwater Casino




Dom Mariani (born 1958) is an Australian guitarist, vocalist, producer, and songwriter. Mariani has been a member of several bands since the early 1980s, including The Stems, The Someloves, DM3, Datura, The Majestic Kelp and the Domnicks. The Stems is the best-known and most successful of Mariani's projects. Australian musicologist Ian McFarlane described the power pop group as "one of the best live bands on the Australian scene". Full Info ...

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Dom Mariani (nacido en 1958) es un guitarrista, vocalista, productor y compositor australiano. Mariani ha sido miembro de varias bandas desde principios de la década de 1980, incluyendo The Stems, The Someloves, DM3, Datura, The Majestic Kelp y los Domnicks. The Stems es el más conocido y exitoso de los proyectos de Mariani. El musicólogo australiano Ian McFarlane describió al grupo de power pop como "una de las mejores bandas en vivo de la escena australiana".


 


Free Jazz • Black Power



In 1971, French jazz critics Philippe Carles and Jean-Louis Comolli co-wrote Free Jazz/Black Power, a treatise on the racial and political implications of jazz and jazz criticism. It remains a testimony to the long ignored encounter of radical African American music and French left-wing criticism. Carles and Comolli set out to defend a genre vilified by jazz critics on both sides of the Atlantic by exposing the new sound's ties to African American culture, history, and the political struggle that was raging in the early 1970s. The two offered a political and cultural history of black presence in the United States to shed more light on the dubious role played by jazz criticism in racial oppression.
This analysis of jazz criticism and its production is astutely self-aware. It critiques the critics, building a work of cultural studies in a time and place where the practice was virtually unknown. The authors reached radical conclusions--free jazz was a revolutionary reaction against white domination, was the musical counterpart to the Black Power movement, and was a music that demanded a similar political commitment. The impact of this book is difficult to overstate, as it made readers reconsider their response to African American music. In some cases it changed the way musicians thought about and played jazz. Free Jazz / Black Power remains indispensable to the study of the relation of American free jazz to European audiences, critics, and artists. This monumental critique caught the spirit of its time and also realigned that zeitgeist.
 
 
 
 


The Gibson Les Paul: The Illustrated Story of the Guitar That Changed Rock

 


The Gibson Les Paul is possibly the electric guitar most associated with rock ’n’ roll. The result of a collaboration between Gibson’s Ted McCarty and jazz guitarist Les Paul in response to the success of Fender’s Telecaster, the Les Paul has gone on to become a prized instrument played by most of the greatest guitarists in rock history. This massive illustrated history of the guitar examines its prehistory and origins as well as its evolution in the 60-plus years since its 1952 introduction. In addition to the Standards and Customs guitarists admire so much, author Dave Hunter also gives ample coverage to variations like Les Paul Juniors, Melody Makers, and SGs. And to bring the music to life, there are profiles of players well known for using Les Pauls and their offspring through the years, including Hubert Sumlin, Carl Perkins, Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield, Peter Green, Paul Kossoff, Jimmy Page, Neil Young, Peter Frampton, Keith Richards, Bill F Gibbons, Bob Marley, Mick Ronson, Steve Jones, Johnny Thunders, Angus Young, and more. Illustrated throughout with studio photography of the guitars, candid and performance photography of the artists, and relevant memorabilia, this book is prefect for music lovers and guitar enthusiasts.

 

Dave Hunter (Author)  

 

The Routledge Companion to Popular Music History and Heritage

 


The Routledge Companion to Popular Music History and Heritage examines the social, cultural, political and economic value of popular music as history and heritage. Taking a cross-disciplinary approach, the volume explores the relationship between popular music and the past, and how interpretations of the changing nature of the past in post-industrial societies play out in the field of popular music.

In-depth chapters cover key themes around historiography, heritage, memory and institutions, alongside case studies from around the world, including the UK, Australia, South Africa and India, exploring popular music’s connection to culture both past and present.

Wide-ranging in scope, the book is an excellent introduction for students and scholars working in musicology, ethnomusicology, popular music studies, critical heritage studies, cultural studies, memory studies and other related fields.

 

 

 Routledge ...

 

The Sound of Stevie Wonder: His Words and Music

 


Since his professional debut in 1962, Stevie Wonder has recorded sixty-four singles that have made the Billboard top 100, including ten that reached number one. Wonder was one of the first Motown artists to have complete control over the writing, arranging, and recording of his songs, and achieved that stature before he was 20 years old. He has won 17 Grammy awards, was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, and earned the Grammy's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. Equally important, his work as a producer, arranger, and instrumentalist on other artists' recordings has put him in the highest rank of musical collaborators. This is the first work of criticism on this important documentarian of American life, as well as the introductory volume in The Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection. Through a combination of biography and critical analysis, James Perone's groundbreaking new book reveals the many ways in which Stevie Wonder's body of work emerged, developed, reflected its time, and influenced myriad other artists.

After revealing the social, cultural, and political context of Wonder's work, the book provides detailed analysis of his compositions and recordings, with a focus on both his well-known songs and those known only to his hardcore fans. The volume also contains discussions of cover versions of Wonder's compositions, a discography of his recordings, a song title index, an annotated bibliography, and a general index.

 

James E. Perone (Author)