Arriving on the music scene in 2003, the Kings of Leon embarked on a sex, drug and booze-fuelled rampage through the London music and fashion scene, never afraid to reveal all to the press and somehow surviving to tell the tale. Joel McIver's new book, the first ever Kings of Leon biography, digs deep into their history to reveal a band like no other.

This is a guide to one of the most influential rock bands of the last few years, the Kings of Leon.

Rock music today is universal and its popular history is well known. Yet few know how and why it really came about. Taking a fresh look at events long overlooked or misunderstood, this book tells how some of the most disenfranchised people in a free and prosperous nation strove to make themselves heard--and changed the world. Describing the genesis of rock and roll, the author covers everything from its deep roots in the Mississippi Delta, key early figures, like deejay "Daddy-O" Dewey Phillips and gospel star Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and the influence of so-called "holy rollers" of the Pentecostal church who became crucial performers--Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard.

The best of the cult-favorite music magazine Roctobers conversations with overlooked or forgotten artists, from the Outlaw Country singer David Allan Coe to the frustrated interstellar glam act Zolar X.

What I Did On My Rock n' Roll Vacation is the story of friendship, life and good old fashioned rock n' roll. It is a true-to-life fictional tale of a group of friends that put a band together, even though none of them have any musical talent what-so-ever. After being signed by a local producer as a national media experiment, to see if they could brainwash a nation into liking the worst band on the planet, they tour the country and grow up in the process. It is a wild and scary roller coaster ride through the world of music, life and living your dreams at all costs. The book features a foreword by music legend Ronnie Hawkins, and original quotes from some of Canada's most prominent musicians, written only for this novel, such as Brad Roberts (Crash Test Dummies), Safwan Javed (Wide Mouth Mason), Brian Vollmer (Helix), Joey Keithley (DOA), Tim White (Headstones) and Dave Bidini (Rheostatics).

"We are the remembered cord that stretches across the abyss of all that we’ve forgotten," sang Vela. Journey through the many stories and worlds of the immortal Vela, the Samoan song maker, poet, and storyteller—Vela, who was so red and ugly at birth they called him the Cooked; Vela the lonely admirer of pigs and the connoisseur of feet; Vela the lover of song maker Mulialofa. Follow Vela down through centuries as he encounters the single-minded society of the Tagata-Nei and the Smellocracy of Olfact and recounts the stories of Lady Nafanua, the fearless warrior queen, before whom travelling chroniclers still bow down today. A Pacific epic, this novel stretches hundreds of years before the arrival of Papalagi to the present day and fuses the great indigenous oral traditions of storytelling and Western poetry.