Mark Batty Publisher

MBP Gift Guide, Part 4: The Music Buff

December 14, 2009

Whether your potential gift-receiver is a fan of punk, classical, or indie, we’ve got a book that will appeal to the music buff of any genre – from serious (Notations 21) to hilarious (Celebrity Vinyl).

$25 and Under

Celebrity Vinyl
by Tom Hamling
$24.95
Celebrity Vinyl is a laugh-riot reminder of what happens when famous people decide to (unsuccessfully) give singing a try. The number of celebrities, and pseudo-celebrities, that have indulged such hubris boggles the mind: Burt Reynolds, Shaquille O’Neal, John Travolta, Eddie Murphy, Leonard Nimoy, Alyssa Milano – the list goes on and on, as do the laughs. Over 100 photographs of the album art that houses these celebrity recordings are paired with gut-punch funny captions.

CBGB: Decades of Graffiti
$11.99
CBGB, the music club that helped define New York City’s “punk” scene by introducing the world to such bands as the Talking Heads and Ramones, is little more than a bar, a stage and two bathrooms. Since the club opened in 1973, very little has changed about the physical space, with one exception: the graffiti. The club has never stopped its patrons from adding to the mosaics of ink and pencil that literally cover every square inch of the club’s walls. As grimy and layered with ink as they are, the walls contain the history of the club, from the musicians to the fans.

Xiu-Xiu: The Polaroid Project: The Book
By David Horvitz
$24.95
David Horvitz, road manager for indie rock band Xiu Xiu, devised the idea to document the band’s tours by encouraging fans to bring Polaroid film to shows. Photographs of life on the road – from towering truck-stop beacons reaching out into huge blue sky to motel-room antics – were shot and returned to the fans, but not before Horvitz scanned them and compiled a visual diary that captures the non-musical, bare-naked zen of touring life. These images do more than share with fans the moments in between shows; they mirror the landscapes through which we all may travel, signposted with poignant boredom and sublime absurdity, of which we should all be aware.

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$35 and Up

DIY Album Art
by J. Namdev Hardisty
$34.95
In the early 1990s a renewed spirit of co-operation and do-it-yourself initiative took hold of the North American punk and hardcore scenes. The new DIY approach didn’t stop at booking your own tours and self-releasing records, now it involved putting together the very packaging for those records. Hand-gluing sleeves, silk-screening manila envelopes and raiding thrift stores for LP jackets that could be re-used became the norm.

Notations 21
by Theresa Sauer
$58
Drawing inspiration from John Cage’s, Notations, Notations 21 features illustrated musical scores from more than 100 international composers, all of whom are making amazing breakthroughs in the art of notation. These spectacularly beautiful and fascinatingly creative visual pieces not only make for exciting music, but inspiring visual art as well. The scores are accompanied by written contributions from the artists that explore every facet of their creative processes, from inspiration to execution. Contributors include the likes of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Earle Brown, Halim El-Dabh, Joan La Barbara, and Yuji Takahashi, as well as emerging composers whose compositions are also visually astounding and important.

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