“...to the Creative Spirit that let me in, and to all my Music Buds who took the journey back then, and by guile, gall, hand, heart, and mind, sound or otherwise, had the will, persistence, tenacity, and desire to succeed back when it was still fun, yeah.” Promo Monkey: My Life as a BellHop in the Waldorf Hysteria is written in the key of R2 major. This alphabetical encyclopedia is a reflection on the real experiences and impressions of RayMan Ramsay during his career as Promo Rep/Manager at Quality Records/TPC Distribution and RCA/BMG Canada/Vancouver. Though he may take some flak for the way he portrays history, he has chosen to err on the side of passion rather than caution, and damn the tomatoes! Funny, clever, and entertaining, this book takes an in-depth and intimate look at the “Biz.” Because it’s always about the music. Always.

“If the music biz is legit, then roller derby is an Olympic event.” In this bitingly hilarious memoir, Promo Monkey: Monkey See, Monkey TWO, RayMan Ramsay gives readers a backstage pass into the heart, soul (and, often, bowels) of the music industry. On April Fool’s Day in 1968, a wise-cracking, opinionated 19-year-old Ramsay landed a warehouse job at Quality Records/TPC. Music became part of his DNA. Ramsay ultimately spent 36 years in the business, hustling as a promotions rep and manager in the Vancouver and B.C. markets for Quality/TPC and RCA/BMG. In Promo Monkey, each chapter (Ramsay calls them “chatters” in his signature style, laden with puns, jokes and double entendres) breaks the music industry open, giving readers a peek inside at artists, acts and their “peeps,” through missives on artists such as Sammy Davis Jr., Otis Redding and Kenny Rogers, along with his trials and triumphs as a promo rep. Written in “Wryman” vernacular (and sometimes, dialect), he also unleashes screeds on punk rock, The Beach Boys and Chuck Berry, while dedicating plenty of airtime to icons such as David Bowie, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones. Ramsay’s at his best, p’raps (as he’d put it), when unleashing rhapsodies about Canadian artists such as the late John Bottomley and Doug & the Slugs, as well as the many hardworking colleagues and industry pros he laboured and laughed with throughout the years on one very wild and musical ride.

The invention of mass marketing led to cigarettes being emblazoned in advertising and film, deeply tied to modern notions of glamour and sex appeal. It is hard to find a photo of Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacall without a cigarette. No product has been so heavily promoted or has become so deeply entrenched in American consciousness. And no product has received such sustained scientific scrutiny. The development of new medical knowledge demonstrating the dire harms of smoking ultimately shaped the evolution of evidence-based medicine. In response, the tobacco industry engineered a campaign of scientific disinformation seeking to delay, disrupt, and suppress these studies. Using a massive archive of previously secret documents, historian Allan Brandt shows how the industry pioneered these campaigns, particularly using special interest lobbying and largesse to elude regulation. But even as the cultural dominance of the cigarette has waned and consumption has fallen dramatically in the U.S., Big Tobacco remains securely positioned to expand into new global markets. The implications for the future are vast: 100 million people died of smoking-related diseases in the 20th century; in the next 100 years, we expect 1 billion deaths worldwide.

The fads, fashions, and media in popular consumer culture frequently make recreational and ideological "fun" of poverty and lower class living. In this book, Halnon delineates how incarceration, segregation, stigmatization, cultural and social consecration, and carnivalization work in the production and consumption of inequality.

As Bing Crosby once put it, Tiny Tim represents 'one of the most phenomenal success stories in show business'. In 1968, after years of playing dive bars and lesbian cabarets on the Greenwich Village scene, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Bob Dylan and Lenny Bruce, the forty-something falsetto-voiced, ukulele-playing Tiny Tim landed a recording contract with Sinatra's Reprise label and an appearance on NBC's Laugh-In. The resulting album, God Bless Tiny Tim, and its single, 'Tip-toe Thru' The Tulips With Me', catapulted him to the highest levels of fame. Soon, Tiny was playing to huge audiences in the USA and Europe, while his marriage to the seventeen-year-old 'Miss' Vicki was broadcast on The Tonight Show in front of an audience of fifty million. Before long, however, his star began to fade. Miss Vicki left him, his earnings evaporated, and the mainstream turned its back on him. He would spend the rest of his life trying to revive his career, with many of those attempts taking a turn toward the absurd. But while he is often characterized as an oddball curio, Tiny Tim was a master interpreter and student of early American popular song, and his story is one of Shakespearean tragedy framed around a bizarre yet loveable public persona. Here, drawing on dozens of new interviews, never-before-seen diaries, and years of original research, author Justin Martell brings that story to life with the first serious biography of one of the most fascinating yet misunderstood figures in popular music.

Tony Bramwell's remarkable life with The Beatles began in a post-war Liverpool suburb where he was childhood friends with John, Paul and George. By the time he unexpectedly ran into George Harrison on top of a bus, Tony was well into a life story absolutely unlike any other. At Apple Record's insistence, Tony stayed with The Beatles for every step of their meteoric rise. His story has been sought for over thirty years, and here it is, detailing with an insider's shrewd eye the incomparable success and inevitable failure of the Apple empire; Brian Epstein's frolics; Ken Kessy's Merry Pranksters; Phil Spector's eccentric behaviour; as well as never-heard-before stories about Yoko Ono. 'Magical Mystery Tours' reveals fresh insights that have never been published in any of the 800 plus books already on the market, including compelling details of the early recordings and songwriting and Yoko's pursuit of John and her growing influence over The Beatles' lives. From the first number one to the last and from scraps of song lyrics to the discovery of the famous Mr Kite circus poster, this is a broad ranging account of the swinging sixties and the decade's most successful rock band.

An easy-to-use dictionary of over 80,000 rhyming words.