“I choose to live by the notion that the entire globe is our playground.” – Alexi Laiho When a punk rocker’s attitude to life is combined with dazzling technical know-how on the electric guitar, a larger-than-life story begins to unfold. Relentless practice, horror movies, and vintage cars. Hard rock and even harder partying. These are the elements that Alexi “Wildchild” Laiho is known for. In his candid biography, the best metal guitarist in the world reveals for the first time what he loves, what he hates, and what he fears. Chaos, Control & Guitar—a veritable “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Alexi”—is the only authorized biography of the founder and frontman of Children of Bodom and Bodom After Midnight. Petri Silas has been writing about music for a quarter of a century. Spanning over 15 years, his professional and personal relationship with Alexi Laiho makes him a uniquely placed ghostwriter for the book.

Mayhem are the most influential Black Metal band in the world, and obviously no strangers to controversy. Death Archives offer never before seen photographs and unique insight into one of music's most extreme subcultures. The Death Archives is a ravishingly illustrated first-person account of the birth of black metal in the Norwegian scene by Jorn "Necrobutcher" Stubberud, the founding member and ongoing bass player in Mayhem. During the band's ongoing career, now spanning thirty years, bass player and only surviving band member from the original line-up, Jorn "Necrobutcher" Stubberud, has collected enormous amounts of photographs, video diaries and memorabilia. In this unique documentary book, Stubberud shares the first groundbreaking years of Mayhem's existence including their first photo-sessions in full corpse regalia; recording sessions, and exclusive stills from live video footage of their earliest gigs. In Necrobutcher's Death Archives he shares rarely seen photos of the band before death of singer Pelle "Dead" Ohlin and murder of guitarist Oystein "Euronymous" Aarseth.

A People Magazine Best Children's Book of the Year ★ "This touching novel is one to savor."—Booklist, Starred Review ★ "A quiet story that may be the tiny push that someone thinking of giving up needs to keep going. . . . Sweetly satisfying."—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review Fourteen-year-old Oscar Dunleavy is missing, presumed dead. His bike was found at sea, out past the end of the pier, and everyone in town seems to have accepted this as a teenage tragedy. But Oscar’s best friend Meg knows he isn’t dead. Oscar is an optimistic and kind boy who bakes the world’s best apple tarts; he would never kill himself, and Meg is going to prove it. Through interwoven narratives, the reader learns what really happened to Oscar. Meg must confront the painful truth of Oscar’s past six months—and the possibility that he might really be gone. Surrounded by grief and confusion, she starts to put the pieces back together. This story of love and friendship reminds us to keep hope in our hearts. For fans of The Thing About Jellyfish and kids who need a reminder that really, all you need is love.

This book defines the key ideas, scholarly debates, and research activities that have contributed to the formation of the international and interdisciplinary field of Metal Studies. Drawing on insights from a wide range of disciplines including popular music, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and ethics, this volume offers new and innovative research on metal musicology, global/local scenes studies, fandom, gender and metal identity, metal media, and commerce. Offering a wide-ranging focus on bands, scenes, periods, and sounds, contributors explore topics such as the riff-based song writing of classic heavy metal bands and their modern equivalents, and the musical-aesthetics of Grindcore, Doom metal, Death metal, and Progressive metal. They interrogate production technologies, sound engineering, album artwork and band promotion, logos and merchandising, t-shirt and jewellery design, and fan communities that define the global metal music economy and subcultural scene. The volume explores how the new academic discipline of metal studies was formed, also looking forward to the future of metal music and its relationship to metal scholarship and fandom. With an international range of contributors, this volume will appeal to scholars of popular music, cultural studies, and sociology, as well as those interested in metal communities around the world.

Bach's masterpieces transcribed for classical guitar.