American Hardcore sets the record straight about the last great American subculture--Paper magazine

Steven Blush's definitive treatment of Hardcore Punk (Los Angeles Times) changed the way we look at Punk Rock. The Sony Picture Classics-distributed documentary American Hardcore premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. This revised and expanded second edition contains hundreds of new bands, thirty new interviews, flyers, a new chapter (Destroy Babylon), and a new art gallery with over 125 rare photos and images.

In When Rock Met Reggae, Steven Blush takes a spirited, cross-genre perspective in this illuminating chronicle (Booklist) of the crossover of Jamaican, British, and American sounds that changed the face of popular music. Library Journal notes that Blush's nimble outline of the interplay between reggae and British punk will appeal to music fans.

Bringing the same incisive, cross-genre perspective he offered in When Rock Met Disco, Steven Blush gives a spirited survey of the crossover of Jamaican, British, and American sounds that changed the face of popular music in When Rock Met Reggae. The inspiration of ska, rock-steady, dub, and reggae--heard on independent recordings played on soundsystems from Kingston and Brixton--created a new rock tonality and attitude, spanning from Eric Clapton to The Clash. Meanwhile, the Two Tone sounds--traversing The Specials, Madness, and UB40--fueled the '90s ska revival of Sublime, No Doubt, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and beyond. Attentive to the racial, political, and artistic aspects of this intricate story, Blush gives a memorable account of one of the most fertile cross-pollinations in pop music history.

One of the most important events in modern music remains the late 80s cross-collision of rock and hip hop. Aerosmith/Run DMC, Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique, Public Enemy and Anthrax, Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons, De La Soul and Third Bass, and the 318 hip hop records that sampled Billy Squier's The Big Beat exemplify the era. Rap records sampled rock bands, elevating sampling into an art form, while influencing all other forms of popular music. One of the themes this book will explore is the way the fusion of rap and rock gave hope to a sense of interracial harmony.

In keeping with When Rock Met Disco and When Rock Met Reggae, this title relates the musical cross collision, and cultural fallout that changed music for the better, and remains an influence through today.

We're not ashamed of a little hairspray and makeup. We've always said it takes a real man to wear makeup.--Bret Michaels, Poison

There was a time--not so long ago--when pomp and spandex dominated MTV and pop radio playlists. Nearly 20 years after the first edition, people can't get enough hair metal! The new expanded edition of American Hair Metal visually celebrates this orgy of flamboyance, androgyny, and animal magnetism, of big-haired alpha males and the beautiful women who surrounded them. Interest in hair metal is currently exploding--witness arena-level revival tours, reissue compilations, and documentaries and docudramas that revisit the excesses of the eighties and nineties.

Hundreds of striking photographs are complimented by hedonistic ephemera from bands like Poison, Cinderella, Mötley Crüe, Skid Row, and Stryper. Wild quotes from major players such as David Lee Roth, Jon Bon Jovi, Sebastian Bach, Tommy Lee, Nikki Sixx, Bret Michaels, Don Dokken, and many unsung heroes. The expanded edition includes more photos, more quotes, and a new introduction by Chip Z'Nuff (Enuff Z'Nuff) and an interview with Rik Fox (WASP, Steeler).

Disco began as a gay, black, and brown underground New York City party music scene, which alone was enough to ward off most rockers. The difference between rock and disco was as sociological as it was aesthetic.

At its best, disco was galvanizing and affirmative. Its hypnotic power to uplift a broad spectrum of the populace made it the ubiquitous music of the late '70s. Disco was a primal and gaudy fanfare for the apocalypse, a rage for exhibitionism, free of moralizing. Disco was an exclamatory musical passageway into the future.

1978 was the apex of the record industry. Rock music, commercially and artistically, had never been more successful. At the same time, disco was responsible for roughly 40% of the records on Billboard's Hot 100, thanks to the largest-selling soundtrack of all time in Saturday Night Fever. The craze for this music by The Bee Gees revived The Hustle and dance studios across America.

For all its apparent excesses and ritual zealotry, disco was a conservative realm, with obsolete rules like formal dress code and dance floor etiquette. When most '70s artists went disco, it was the relatively few daring rockers who had the most impact, bringing their intensity and personality to a faceless phenomenon.

Rock stars who went disco crossed a musical rubicon and forever smashed cultural conformity. The ongoing dance-rock phenomenon demonstrates the impact of this unique place and time.

The disco crossover forever changed rock.

What happens when you take the staid game of tennis, add 1970s gonzo marketing, the emergence of women's sports, and some of the greatest players to ever step foot on a court--The pop culture phenomenon of Word Team Tennis.

Bustin' Balls tells the strange but true story of World Team Tennis (1974-1978) that attempted to transform the prim and proper individual sport of tennis into a rowdy blue-collar league. Billie Jean King and her partners merged feminism and civil rights with queer lifestyle, pop culture and a progressive political agenda to create a dazzling platform for the finest tennis players of the day to become overnight stars.
Iconic trailblazer King infamously played a hyped 1973 Battle of the Sexes against Bobby Riggs proving definitively that women athletes were competitive equals and changed the sports landscape forever. The vision of the World Tennis League with its mixed-sex teams and looser rules that encouraged fast and aggressive play, propelled tennis into a television fixture and the players into household names .
Evonne Goolagong who fought racism throughout her life was the first indigenous woman to win at Wimbledon and a member of the Pittsburgh Triangles. Chris Evert of the Los Angeles Strings became America's sweetheart. Billie Jean King played for the Philadelphia Freedoms at the height of Bicentennial fervor and was feted by Elton John in the song, Philadelphia Freedom. While tabloids followed the nightlife exploits and made pin-ups of Ilie Nastase, Jimmy Connors, and Vitas Gerulitis.
Relive the most fun tennis ever had in the photo-filled history, Bustin' Balls.

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