Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
5
result(s) for
"Scanlan, John, 1964- author"
Sort by:
Sex pistols : poison in the machine
The explosive story of the Sex Pistols is now so familiar that the essence of what they represented has been lost in a fog of nostalgia and rock 'n' roll cliche. In 1976 the rise of the Sex Pistols was regarded in apocalyptic terms, and the punks as visitors from an unwanted future bringing chaos and confusion.John Scanlan considers the Sex Pistols as the first successful art project of their manager, Malcolm McLaren, a vision born out of radical politics, boredom and his deep and unrelenting talent for perverse opportunism. McLaren deliberately set a collision course with establishments, both conservative and counter-cultural, and succeeded beyond his highest expectations. Scanlan tells the story of how McLaren's project - designed, in any case, to fail - foundered on the development of the Pistols into a great rock band and the inconvenient artistic emergence of John Lydon.Moving between London and New York, and with a fascinating cast of delinquents, petty criminals and misfits, Sex Pistols: Poison in the Machine is not just a book about a band.It is about the times, the ideas, the coincidences and the characters that made punk, that ended with the Sex Pistols - beaten, bloody and overdosed - sensationally self-destructing on stage in San Francisco in January 1978, and that transformed popular culture throughout the world.
Book
Memory
When we think of getting older, we know we will slowly lose more and more of our memory—and with it, our sense of where we belong and how we connect to others. We might relax a little if we considered the improvements in computer data storage, which may lead us into a future when the limits of our memory become less constricting. In this book, John Scanlan explores the nature of memory and how we have come to live both with and within it, as well as what might come from memory becoming a process as simple as retrieving and reading data. Probing the ways philosophers look at memory, Scanlan reveals that some argue that being human means having the ability to remember, to see oneself as a being in time, with a past and future. At the same time, he shows, our memories can undo our present sense of time and place by presenting us with our past lives. And in a digital age, we are immersed in a vast archive of data that not only colors our everyday experiences, but also supplies us with information on anything we might otherwise have forgotten—breaking down the distinction between the memories of the individual and the collective. Drawing on history, philosophy, and technology, Memory offers an engaging investigation of how we comprehend recollection and how memory, as a phenomenon, continually remakes everyday life.
eBook
Van Halen
Van Halenare known for classic songs like \"Runnin' with the Devil, \" \"Panama, \" and \"Jump, \" but also for the drama surrounding the exits of its former members. While many have attempted to discover the secrets of Van Halen through an analysis of their musical role models, John Scanlan looks at deeper aesthetic and philosophical influences in Van Halen, a groundbreaking account of this extraordinary band.
Following the band's pursuit of the art of artlessness, Scanlan describes how they characterize what historian Kevin Starr terms \"Zen California\"—a state of mind and way of being that above all celebrates the now, and in rock and roll terms refers to the unregulated expenditure of energy and youthful exuberance destined to extinguish itself. Scanlan sheds light on key events and influences—the decaying of Hollywood in the 1970s; Ted Templeman's work as a producer at Sunset Sound Studios; Top Jimmy, a blues rock singer who performed at the Zero Zero club; and the building of Eddie Van Halen's Hollywood Hills studio in 1983—that show how 1970s California was the only time and place that Van Halen could have emerged. Along the way, Scanlan also explores the relationship between David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen, the climate of Southern California and its relation to a sense of cultural exuberance, the echoes of Beat aesthetics in David Lee Roth's attitude to time, Eddie Van Halen's bebop sensibility, and the real roots of the so-called \"Brown\" sound. An illuminating look at a classic rock group and the cultural moment in which they came of age, Van Halen is a book for fans of the band and the history of rock and roll.
eBook
Rock 'n' Roll plays itself : a screen history
When rock 'n' roll burst into life in the 1950s the shockwaves echoed around the world, amplified by images of untamed youth projected on cinema screens. But for the performers themselves showbusiness remained in control, contriving a series of cash-in movies to exploit the new musical fad. In this riveting cultural history, John Scanlan explores rock's relationship with the moving image over seven decades in cinema, television, music videos, advertising and YouTube. Along the way he shows how rock was exploited, how it inspired film pioneers, and, not least, the transformations it caused over more than half a century. From Elvis Presley to David Bowie, and from Scorpio Rising to the films of Scorsese and DIY documentarists like Don Letts, this is a unique retelling of the story of rock - from birth to old age - through its onscreen life.
Book