Disco's Out...Murder's In!

Author: Heath Mattioli
Publisher: Feral House
ISBN: 1627310231
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Book Description
Famous for its revolutionary aspects in musical, political, sexual identity and consumerist ideas, punk rock also has its lesser-known gangster ethos as well, explained here by players in the various punk gangs. The Los Angeles, Orange County, and South Bay punk scenes, populated by blue collar kids who responded to the violence and aggression of punk songs and shows. A number of them formed punk gangs that got into beatings, drug dealing and murder. Among them, no gang was more notorious than La Mirada Punks, or LMP. Says LMP chieftain Frank the Shank after getting arrested by police for murder: "After having my hands in so much bloodshed over the years, I most certainly had it coming. I deserved whatever I got." Unexpectedly Frank was bailed out from prison by his father's friend, a mob gangster. "Too many people died at the hands of punk rock violence," said Frank. "I got lucky, some didn't. As an ultra-violent punk rock gangster, I admit my part in ruining the scene. L.A. punk was a magical moment of youth expression like no other. And the gangs ruined punk rock. I still have people telling me today that they quit punk because of LMP. I dig graves at a small cemetery just outside Los Angeles. What else would you expect for Frank the Shank?" Cover illustration by the renowned Raymond Pettibon.

Joe Cinque's Consolation

Author: Helen Garner
Publisher: Picador Australia
ISBN: 1742623875
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A true story of death, grief and the law from the 2019 winner of the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. In October 1997 a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests-most of them university students-had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a massive dose of rohypnol and heroin. His girlfriend and her best friend were charged with murder. Helen Garner followed the trials in the ACT Supreme Court. Compassionate but unflinching, this is a book about how and why Joe Cinque died. It probes the gap between ethics and the law; examines the helplessness of the courts in the face of what we think of as 'evil'; and explores conscience, culpability, and the battered ideal of duty of care. It is a masterwork from one of Australia's greatest writers. Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime 2005 Winner of the ABIA Book of the Year 2004 PRAISE FOR JOE CINQUE'S CONSOLATION "Garner's book is a writer's profound response to a tragedy and to questions about human responsibility over time as well as at precise moments" The Age "This is a work of great passion and of countervailing humanity - a book of witness..." Australian Book Review

Clubland

Author: Frank Owen
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767917359
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
Outrageous parties. Brazen drug use. Fantastical costumes. Celebrities. Wannabes. Gender-bending club kids. Pulse-pounding beats. Sinful orgies. Botched police raids. Depraved criminals. Murder. Welcome to the decadent nineties club scene. In 1995, journalist Frank Owen began researching a story on Special K, a designer drug that fueled the after-midnight club scene. He went to buy and sample the drug at the internationally notorious Limelight, a crumbling church converted into a Manhattan disco, where mesmerizing music, ecstatic dancers, and uninhibited sideshows attracted long lines of hopeful onlookers. Owen discovered a world where reckless hedonism was elevated to an art form, and where the ever-accelerating party finally spun out of control in the hands of notorious club owner Peter Gatien and his minions. In Clubland, Owen reveals how a lethal drug ring operated in a lawless, black-lit realm of fantasy, and how, when the lights came up, their excesses left countless victims in their wake. Praised for his risk-taking and exhilarating writing style, Frank Owen has spawned a hybrid of literary nonfiction and true crime, capturing the zeitgeist of a world that emerged in the spirit of “peace, love, unity and respect,” and ended in tragedy.

That's That

Author: Colin Broderick
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307716341
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Book Description
A brutally honest and deeply affecting memoir about growing up in the countryside in rebel country in Northern Ireland. Colin Broderick was born in 1968 and spent his childhood in Tyrone county, in Northern Ireland. It was the beginning of the period of heightened tension and violence known as the Troubles, and Colin's Catholic family lived in the heart of rebel country. The community was filled with Provisional IRA members whose lives depended on the silence and complicity of their neighbors. At times, that made for a confusing childhood. We watch as he and his brothers play ball with the neighbor children over a fence for years, but are never allowed to play together because it is forbidden. We see him struggle to understand why young men from his community often just disappear. And we feel his confusion when he is held at gunpoint at various military checkpoints in the North. But even when Colin does ask his parents about these events, he never receives a clear explanation. Desperate to protect her children, Colin's mother tries to prevent exposure to or knowledge of the harm that surrounds them. Spoken with stern finality, "That's that" became the refrain of Colin's childhood. The first book to paint a detailed depiction of Northern Ireland's Troubles is presented against a personal backdrop and is told in the wry, memorable voice of a man who's finally come to terms with his past.

Dead, Undead, Or Somewhere in Between

Author: J. A. Saare
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
ISBN: 9781619228191
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Book Description
One bad corpse can ruin your whole day. Rhiannon's Law, Book 1 After leaving the flash and sass of Miami for the no-nonsense groove of New York, Rhiannon Murphy is eager for a clean slate and fresh start. A bartender by trade, a loud mouth by choice, and a necromancer by chance, she's managed to keep her nasty habit of seeing dead people hidden from those around her-until now. The dangerous and deliciously sexy vampire, Disco, knows her secret. When he strolls into her club to ask for help investigating the mysterious disappearances of his kind, she quickly gets the vibe that he's not exactly the kind of guy you tell no. Yet in a world where vampires peddle their blood as the latest and greatest drug of choice, it's only a matter of time before the next big thing hits the market. Someone is killing vampires to steal their hearts and, unlike Rhiannon, this isn't their first stroll around the undead block. Warning: Includes violence, strong language, and references to sexual abuse that may disturb some readers. Oblique references to '80s films are hidden here and there, which could result in tickling your geek-like fancy.

The Black Monastery

Author: Stav Sherez
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571252176
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
People used to come to the small Greek island of Palassos for the historic ruins. Now they come to take drugs and party all night. But the horrific ritual murder of a boy in the grounds of an old monastery brings back memories of two similar deaths in the mid-1970s, and of a mysterious cult who once dwelt in the island's interior, memories the island has tried hard to forget. As Nikos, the police chief who has been persuaded back to his home island for the final years of his career, begins his investigation, two Brits arrive on the island: the bestselling crime writer Kitty Carson, on a break from the pressures of work and her strained marriage, and Jason, an aspiring writer with a secret of his own. When a second body is discovered - further endangering the island's lucrative tourist trade - these three characters are thrown together, as the gruesome secrets of the past begin to emerge. Brilliantly paced, and featuring a memorable cast of characters, The Black Monastery is a blistering portrait of paradise gone wrong.

Disgraceland

Author: Jake Brennan
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1538732130
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
From the creator of the popular rock 'n' roll true crime podcast, Disgraceland comes an off-kilter, hysterical, at times macabre book inspired by true stories from the highly entertaining underbelly of music history. You may know Jerry Lee Lewis married his thirteen-year-old cousin but did you know he shot his bass player in the chest with a shotgun or that a couple of his wives died under extremely mysterious circumstances? Or that Sam Cooke was shot dead in a seedy motel after barging into the manager's office naked to attack her? Maybe not. Would it change your view of him if you knew that, or would your love for his music triumph? Real rock stars do truly insane thing and invite truly insane things to happen to them; murder, drug trafficking, rape, cannibalism and the occult. We allow this behavior. We are complicit because a rock star behaving badly is what's expected. It's baked into the cake. Deep down, way down, past all of our self-righteous notions of justice and right and wrong, when it comes down to it, we want our rock stars to be bad. We know the music industry is full of demons, ones that drove Elvis Presley, Phil Spector, Sid Vicious and that consumed the Norwegian Black Metal scene. We want to believe in the myths because they're so damn entertaining. Disgraceland is a collection of the best of these stories about some of the music world's most beloved stars and their crimes. It will mix all-new, untold stories with expanded stories from the first two seasons of the Disgraceland podcast. Using figures we already recognize, Disgraceland shines a light into the dark corners of their fame revealing the fine line that separates heroes and villains as well as the danger Americans seek out in their news cycles, tabloids, reality shows and soap operas. At the center of this collection of stories is the ever-fascinating music industry--a glittery stage populated by gangsters, drug dealers, pimps, groupies with violence, scandal and pure unadulterated rock 'n' roll entertainment.

Violence Girl

Author: Alice Bag
Publisher: Feral House
ISBN: 1936239124
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Book Description
The birth of the 1970s' punk movement as seen through the eyes of Chicana feminist and punk musician Alice Bag.

My Damage

Author: Keith Morris
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306824078
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 335

Book Description
Keith Morris is a true punk icon. No one else embodies the sound of Southern Californian hardcore the way he does. With his waist-length dreadlocks and snarling vocals, Morris is known the world over for his take-no-prisoners approach on the stage and his integrity off of it. Over the course of his forty-year career with Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, and OFF!, he's battled diabetes, drug and alcohol addiction, and the record industry . . . and he's still going strong. My Damage is more than a book about the highs and lows of a punk rock legend. It's a story from the perspective of someone who has shared the stage with just about every major figure in the music industry and has appeared in cult films like The Decline of Western Civilization and Repo Man. A true Hollywood tale from an L.A. native, My Damage reveals the story of Morris's streets, his scene, and his music-as only he can tell it.

Past Mortem

Author: Ben Elton
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448167485
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 464

Book Description
'A writer who provokes, almost as much as he entertains' Daily Mail 'Engaging and smartly plotted' Observer ___ With old friends like these, who needs enemies? It's a question mild mannered detective Edward Newson is forced to ask himself when, in romantic desperation, he logs on to the Friends Reunited website in search of the girlfriends of his youth. Newson is not the only member of the Class of '88 who has been raking over the ashes of the past. As his old class begins to reassemble in cyberspace, the years slip away and old feuds and passions burn hot once more. Meanwhile, back in the present, Newson's life is no less complicated. He is secretly in love with Natasha, his lovely but very attached sergeant, and failing comprehensively to solve a series of baffling and peculiarly gruesome murders. A school reunion is planned and as history begins to repeat itself, the past crashes headlong into the present. Neither will ever be the same again. ___ What readers are saying: ***** 'Fun, frightful and relentlessly gripping.' ***** 'Clever and original . . . a great read' ***** 'Darkly comic, intriguing . . . and with a real twist in the tail.'