An expansive biography of David Bowie, one of the twentieth century’s greatest music and cultural icons.From noted author and rock ’n’ roll journalist Marc Spitz comes a major David Bowie biography to rival any other. Following Bowie’s life from his start as David Jones, an R & B—loving kid from Bromley, England, to his rise to rock ’n’ roll aristocracy as David Bowie, Bowie recounts his career but also reveals how much his music has influenced other musicians and forever changed t...

A biography and cultural examination of the Rolling Stones' frontman Mick Jagger's spectacular life and the cultural revolution he led.As the Rolling Stones' legendary front man Mick Jagger remains an enigma. He hasn't given an in-depth interview for a decade and a half and never commented on his friend and partner, Keith Richard's often critical biography. Drawing on firsthand recollections from rockers, filmmakers, writers, radicals, and other artists who have be...

The full story of the rise and spectacular comeback of the band hailed as the saviors of punk rock.It's hard to believe that in early 2004 Green Day was considered over—the band was still together, but they were dismissed as a strictly '90s phenomenon, incapable of re-creating the success of their groundbreaking album Dookie. Then American Idiot debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, stayed on the charts for nearly 18 months, and went on to sell more than four mill...

"A marvelous spin through 90s New York . . . This is criticism and memory merged, and it's funny, beautiful and wise . . . It is the music memoir as art." — Buffalo NewsMarc Spitz assumed that if he lived like his literary and rock 'n' roll heroes, he would become a great artist, too. He conveniently overlooked the fact that many of them died young, broke, and miserable. In his candid, wistful, touching, and hilarious memoir, Poseur, the music jour...

Wer Mick Jagger verstehen will, muss dieses Buch lesen. 2012 stehen die Rolling Stones 50 Jahre auf der Bühne, aber ihr legendärer Frontmann Mick Jagger gibt bis heute Rätsel auf. Mit einer Synthese aus Biografie und Kulturgeschichte gelingt dem renommierten Schriftsteller, Dramatiker und Musikjournalisten Marc Spitz ein fesselndes Porträt des Musikers, das Frauen, Freunde und Feinde ebenso mit einbezieht wie Jaggers zahlreiche Rollen abseits der Rockbühne. Jagger, der sexuelle Revoluzzer,...

Reunited more than a decade after their brief flirtation with fame in the early 1990s, the middle-aged members of the Ohio-based Jane Ashers suddenly find themselves hitting the big time, with a new record deal, a hit single, fame, fans, and a tour, that transforms their dream into a nightmare of colliding egos, family pressures, and too much success too late.

New York Times, Spin, and Vanity Fair contributor Marc Spitz explores the first great cultural movement since Hip Hop: an old-fashioned and yet highly modern aesthetic that's embraced internationally by teens, twenty and thirty-somethings and even some Baby Boomers; creating hybrid generation known as Twee. Via exclusive interviews and years of research, Spitz traces Generation Twee's roots from the Post War 50s to its dominance in popular culture today.Vampire We...

Clarence, Tony and Dommy work in a posh clothing store in New York’s retail capital of SoHo. They’re surrounded by fabulous people, drape themselves in the latest fashions, but they take home tiny pay checks and cannot numb themselves enough with drugs, alcohol, cheap sex and even cheaper fads. As 30 approaches fast, they must fact the dying dreams, face their greatest fears, and reckon with the various firebrands, zealots and sugar mommas who make up the women and men in their lives. All...

Four old college friends reunite in Manhattan and what starts as a stiff and awkward game of catch up devolves into a drug and rancor soaked mess when old rivalries and affections boil to the surface; abetted by drugs, professional jealousies, a new cultural divide and the arrival of their favorite college professor; a famous and deeply troubled novelist with a pretty, young girlfriend and a mysterious box in tow. Twenty years on, class is back in session and if they can get out of this c...

There is a light and it never goes out . . . or is there?Welcome to the big Reagan ’80s, where ketchup is a vegetable and the Cold War looms large and chilly. If like Joe Green you were coming of age during this boom era, your main concerns include one or more of the following: a rainbow assortment of Polo shirts worn with the collar flipped up, K-Swiss tennis shoes, a new cable channel called MTV, and Top 40 radio. Stuck in the suburban haze of Long Island, New York, Joe Green kno...

A short, holiday-themed play takes place entirely in a church basement shortly before Christmas; a lonely, intense time of the year for some. During a meeting of a special support group for people with pop music related ailments, three regulars welcome a new member, a Jew with a secret penchant for Christmas songs. Together they share and try to manage their rock related "issues."

Winston Frame is the self described, urban "poet of death and despair." Young, dour, pale and handsome, he is, much like Ian Curtis of Joy Division, also haunted and suicidal. When the pressure of impending success, fatherhood and an affair get too much, he hangs himself. Only his journey is not quite over. Winston finds himself in Purgatory, which is a Weimar style cabaret full of animal acts, exhausted chanteuses and the borscht belt comic Bobby Lemondrops. His guide is "...