From the churches and street corners of Harlem and The Bronx to the underground clubs of the East Village, New York City has been a musical mecca for generations, and Rock & Roll Explorer Guide to New York City is the definitive story of its development throughout the five boroughs. Plug in and walk the same streets a young Bob Dylan walked. See where Patti Smith, the Ramones, Beastie Boys, and Jeff Buckley played. Visit on foot the places Lou Reed mentions in his songs or where Paul Simon grew up; where the Strokes drowned their sorrows, Grizzly Bear cut their teeth and Jimi Hendrix found his vision. Rock and Roll Explorer Guide gives fans a behind-the-scenes look at how bands came together, scenes developed, and classic songs were written. Artists come and go, neighborhoods change, venues open and close, but the music lives on. Contents Upper Manhattan and Harlem Upper West Side The Velvet Underground Upper East Side The Beatles John & Yoko Central Park Patti Smith Midtown West Beastie Boys Midtown East Madonna Chelsea & Hudson Yards Jimi Hendrix & Electric Lady Union Square & Madison Square New York Dolls West Village Bob Dylan East Village Blondie Soho & TriBeCa Sonic Youth Lower East Side The Strokes Brooklyn Talking Heads Queens Ramones Simon & Garfunkel The Bronx Kiss Staten Island Rock & roll may not have been born in New York, but this is one of the places it grew up and blew up and presented itself to the world. From the churches and street corners of Harlem and the Bronx to the underground clubs of the East Village, New York City has been a musical Mecca for generations, and The Rock & Roll Explorer Guide to New York City is an historical journey through its development across all five boroughs. The Rock & Roll Explorer Guide to New York City restores a sense of time and place to music history by identifying and documenting critical points of interest spanning genres and eras, and delineating the places in New York City critical to its musical development and ultimate triumphs and tragedies. Through this lens, we can see and understand how bands came together, scenes developed, and classic songs were written. In some cases, the buildings are still there, in others only the address remains, but you still get a sense of the history that happened there. Among the many locations in this book are addresses musicians and other key rock & roll figures once called home. In a very few instances we’ve included current addresses, but only when the location is historically significant and widely known; otherwise, we consciously left current residences out. The Rock & Roll Explorer Guide to New York City is intended as a fun travel guide through music history rather than a means of locating famous musicians. Most New Yorkers understand that everyone has a right to privacy. That’s one of the reasons many of these artists live here. Because of the city’s rich history, this book cannot be a comprehensive encyclopedia of music, rock venues, or the music industry; nor do we present the definitive biographies of the musicians included. The artists and locations chosen represent a sometimes broad look at the history of rock & roll in the city, with an eye on those who either grew up or spent their formative years here. But there’s so much more we couldn’t include, and we hope readers will be inspired to go even further, whether they’re hitting the streets themselves or experiencing the city vicariously from afar. Artists come and go, neighborhoods change, venues open and close, but the music lives on.

San Francisco’s rich and unique cultural history since its time as a gold rush frontier town has long made it a bastion of forward thinking and freedom of expression. It makes perfect sense, then, that both it and the surrounding Bay Area should prove to be a crucible for some of the most enduring and influential music of the rock and roll era. From the heady days of Haight-Ashbury in the ’60s to today, San Francisco and the Bay Area have provided a distinctive soundtrack to the American experience that has often been confrontational, controversial, enlightening, and always entertaining. Perhaps best known for the '60s psychedelic scene which included the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, the Steve Miller Band, Sly & the Family Stone, and Janis Joplin, the Bay Area's rock and roll history twists and turns like Lombard Street itself. The first wave San Francisco punks wrought the Avengers and Dead Kennedys; punk later gripped the East Bay, giving us Green Day and Rancid. From the folk and blues eras through the chart-topping sounds of Journey and Huey Lewis & the News. The rock equivalent of Manifest Destiny carried wave upon wave of young musicians in search of fame, fortune and the great lost chord to Golden Gate City. San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area have collectively produced countless key figures in rock and roll, from musicians to journalists to entrepreneurs. The modern concept of the vast outdoor rock festival took root in and around San Francisco. The Bay Area is also where music history happened to artists from almost everywhere else: San Francisco is where the Beatles played their final concert and the Sex Pistols fell apart; where the Clash recorded much of their second album; where a drug-addled Keith Moon passed out during a concert by the Who only to be replaced behind the drum kit by an eager fan. Rock and roll is baked into the Bay Area’s culture and story to this day. A guide to the places that shaped the local scene and world-famous sound, the Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area will take you to where music makers lived, rocked, performed, recorded, met, broke up, and much, much more.

Whether you’re a visitor or a local looking for something different, New York Off the Beaten Path shows you the Empire State with new perspectives on timeless destinations and introduces you to those you never knew existed––from the best in local dining to quirky cultural tidbits to hidden attractions, unique finds, and unusual locales. So if you’ve “been there, done that” one too many times, forget the main road and venture Off the Beaten Path.

Punk: The Definitive Guide to the Blank Generation and Beyond

Insiders' Guide to Philadelphia & Pennsylvania Dutch Country is the essential source for in-depth travel and relocation information to Pennsylvania's "City of Brotherly Love." Written by a local (and true insider), this guide offers a personal and practical perspective of the area.

Examines the historical, social, and business reasons for the variety of pop musical forms fueled by the San Francisco music scene. Looks at satellite factors to the music such as radio, poster art, nightclubs, and studios. Features individual essays on the more than 100 significant recording bands to have emerged from the Bay Area.

New York Times Editors’ Choice, One of NPR’s Best Books of the Year In this “infinitely readable” biography, award-winning author Mary Gabriel chronicles the meteoric rise and enduring influence of the greatest female pop icon of the modern era: Madonna (People Magazine) With her arrival on the music scene in the early 1980s, Madonna generated nothing short of an explosion—as great as that of Elvis or the Beatles—taking the nation by storm with her liberated politics and breathtaking talent. Within two years of her 1983 debut album, a flagship Macy's store in Manhattan held a Madonna lookalike contest featuring Andy Warhol as a judge, and opened a department called “Madonna-land.” But Madonna was more than just a pop star. Everywhere, fans gravitated to her as an emblem of a new age, one in which feminism could shed the buttoned-down demeanor of the 1970s and feel relevant to a new generation. Amid the scourge of AIDS, she brought queer identities into the mainstream, fiercely defending a person's right to love whomever—and be whoever—they wanted. Despite fierce criticism, she never separated her music from her political activism. And, as an artist, she never stopped experimenting. Madonna existed to push past boundaries by creating provocative, visionary music, videos, films, and live performances that changed culture globally. Deftly tracing Madonna’s story from her Michigan roots to her rise to super-stardom, master biographer Mary Gabriel captures the dramatic life and achievements of one of the greatest artists of our time.