Before It Went Rotten takes a trip back to the world before punk.When Anarchy in the UK appeared, London enjoyed one of the most vibrant music scenes in the world. A network of mainly Irish owned pubs and clubs provided music every night, much of it free of charge, whilst working as a testing ground for up and coming talent.This book traces the evolution of what was quickly labelled 'pub-rock': from rock and roll revival acts via late blues ...

Looking for a New England covers the period 1975 to 1986, from Slade in Flame to Absolute Beginners.A carefully researched exploration of transgressive films, the career of David Bowie, dystopias, the Joan Collins ouevre, black cinema, the origins and impact of punk music, political films, comedy, how Ireland and Scotland featured on our screens and the rise of Richard Branson and a new, commercial, mainstream. The sequel to Psychedel...

Between 1967 and 1970 Italian auteur Giovanni 'Tinto' Brass directed four feature films in London, each starring a woman as the main character.Exploring the political, cultural and sexual ideas of their time, often in a deliberate pop-art style, they contain much priceless footage of now forgotten neighbourhoods, galleries, clubs and events as well as an abundance of contemporary music.Free Your Mind! describes the films, their stars, how they were made, and their ...

After The Beatles stormed America, every Hollywood and European production company descended on London to be part of the new swinging scene... and they didn't leave until they'd signed up every able-bodied pop group or singer to appear in one of their films.A unique and carefully researched cultural history of UK film, TV and music in the swinging 60s. A time when no film or TV programme was without a group, singer or fantastic soundtrack - and London was briefly the film capital o...

\'Anyone interested in the challenges of housing policy will want to read this methodical analysis of what went well and what did not over much of the last century\' - LORD HESELTINEFor nearly 150 years, living in a house in the country has been what many of us aspire to. This book explores how this idea was imported from the US by Ebenezer Howard, founder of the garden city movement, the impact it has had in the UK and why, on cost and environmental grounds, it\'s...

Every politician's rise to power is a story of success and failure, accompanied by tantalising what-might-have-beens. The career of Winston Churchill was no exception, with his eight months prior to becoming Prime Minister as First Lord of the Admiralty marked by the loss of important warships, the planning of disastrous expeditions and the design of impractical weapons. Based on archival and biographical research, this account argues that Churchill's actions...

Everything AND the Kitchen Sink analyses 'kitchen sink realism' and the birth of 'pop cinema' in the context of contemporaneous debates surrounding politics, civil liberties, sexuality, race, immigration and urbanisation.Covering the lives and careers of well-known figures such as Alan Sillitoe, Shelagh Delaney, David Storey, Edna O'Brien and Albert Finney, as well as charting the rise of iconic British series like Coronation Street and Z-Cars, Simon Matt...

The World Might Be in Chaos, But You Don’t Need to Be.If you feel like you are constantly fighting an uphill battle—exhausted by the grind and overwhelmed by the world around you—the problem isn’t your circumstances. It’s your internal operating system.Stop waiting for the world to get quieter or for your problems to disappear. The truth is, you are in complete control of how you experience your life. You just haven’t been given the tools t...

James "Elshender" Alexander was born poor and remained so for the duration of his life. His struggle was one of survival, beset on all sides by the 'laws of the land' which made such a task increasingly difficult. A man who found his way from the lowlands of Scotland to Lower Canada, in search of a life free from interference from over-zealous authorities. On his return to Scotland, to aide his wife's mental health problems, the authorities would not leave him be, and eventually fabricated...

Lone Star State (Book One), of which Lone Star State: Welcome to the Pleasuredome… belongs, contains three main narrative strands: Robyn, a gender ambiguous street-worker in Austin, Texas, lives life for the moment in an attempt to forget the many and regular traumas of the past; Chip Brewsky and Dale Turdlewand, multi-trillionaire tech-company CEOs, believe that they need to buy a country in order to escape from the clutches of oppressive U.S. tax legislation. However, each experiences th...

An anonymous narrator... An anonymous boy... An anonymous girl... None extraordinary... None connected... Does anyone even care?The Way of the World: A Novella is an experimental work dealing with the complications of narrative voice. How 'real' are those voices within our own minds? Which thoughts are worthy of utterance? How do we feel about those areas of the mind which contain disturbing elements? The chaotic impulses of human existence are explored...

Modern pop began in 1952 when the first British chart was published and the first 7" singles were released. It ended (perhaps) in 1995 when Robson and Jerome reached the top of the charts with the first number one not to be available on vinyl since 1953. The internet age ushered in the death rites of over 40 years of pop.A Complete History Pop describes the journey that leads from 'Rock Around the Clock' to 'Crazy in Love'. Raw, thrilling, surprising and sometimes downrigh...