Month: August 2015

Better Know a Bookseller is a new feature on this blog where we’ll introduce one of our wonderful stockists. Publishing this series is only half the battle, and the booksellers in these stores all over the world really help keep us alive. If you are a bookseller or know of a store near you that stocks 33 1/3 please get in touch!  Harvard Book Store 1256 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 Follow Harvard Book Store on Twitter! Answers from Serena Longo, marketing assistant, with contributions from the rest of the staff.  …

Today’s video vault is extra special for several reasons: The artist in this video is Pete Astor, author of our very own 33 1/3 book Richard Hell and the Voidoids’ Blank Generation. This video was premiered earlier this month on Overblown, and we can expect a full-length album in the near future! How to Write About Music made a cameo at 1:02! We are proud to be counted among Pete Astor’s favorite books (and we’re sure he’s not just biased because he published with us).     Check out his…

We are super excited to announce the upcoming release of one of our two October titles, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew by George Grella Jr.! Bitches Brew is still one of the most astonishing albums ever made in either jazz or rock. Seeming to fuse the two, it actually does something entirely more revolutionary and open-ended: Blending the most avant-garde aspects of Western music with deep grooves, the album rejects both jazz and rock for an entirely different idea of how music can be made. Check out our Q&A with George…

Better Know a Bookseller is a new feature on this blog where we’ll introduce one of our wonderful stockists. Publishing this series is only half the battle and the booksellers in these stores all over the world really help keep us alive. If you are a bookseller or know of a store near you that stocks 33 1/3 please get in touch!  Papercuts J.P. 5 Green St, Boston, MA, 02130 Follow Papercuts on Twitter! Answers are from the entire staff: Kate Layte, owner + manager; Katie Eelman, media + events coordinator; and…

We are super excited to announce the upcoming release of one of our two October titles, Phish’s A Live One by Walter Holland! This book considers the music and moment of Phish’s ecstatically inventive 1995 live document, a mix of weirdo acid-psych, ambient moonscapes, vaudevillian Americana, and riotous arena-rock energy, all filtered through bandleader Trey Anastasio’s screwball compositional sensibility and the band’s idiosyncratic approach to spontaneous group creativity. It places Phish and their fandom in historical and cultural context, and picks apart the mechanics of their extended group jams. And…

Remember back in 2011 when you basically could not leave your house without hearing the ear-wormingly catchy backbeat of Kanye West and Jay-Z’s “Niggas in Paris”? I would just like to remind everyone that this parody video also happened. Sorry, it’s stuck in your head forever again. As an aside, as much as I love this BUST approved video, how depressing is the ratio of male to female writers in this? Can we replace Eugenides with Octavia Butler? De Montaigne with de Beauvoir? Barthes with Mulvey? My suggested rewrite: Nerdy boy,…

We are super excited to introduce one of our two new titles for this September, Metallica’s Metallica by David Masciotra! In this book, Masciotra takes readers into the recording studio, giving them Metallica’s account of how their most successful and famous record was born and learned to walk into every radio station and stadium stage around the world. Masciotra not only talks to the band about the making of the album, but also the stories that inspired the songs. Readers will not only learn about “The Black Album,” but they…

We are super excited to introduce one of our two new titles for September, Beat Happening’s Beat Happening by Bryan C. Parker! This is the album that sent a shockwave of empowerment through the nation’s cultural underground. In 1985, Beat Happening released their eponymous debut of lo-fi pop songs on K Records and challenged every conception held about music. At the center of the group was the enigmatic Calvin Johnson and his revolutionary vision of artistic creation. His foresight and industriousness allowed him to recruit to the K Records roster…

Anyone who will be in the Philadelphia area next Saturday (8/15) should make sure to check out this event with our 33 1/3 author of The Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique, Dan LeRoy. Dan and fellow music author Brian Coleman will be meeting at record store Brewerytown Beats next Saturday evening for a discussion of “the Golden Era” of music and records. Flier for the event below: While you’re there, make sure to pick up a copy of Paul’s Boutique from the author himself!

Every month, editorial assistant Michelle Chen will compile the best, weirdest, most interesting music and sound news from the past 30 days and serve it up to you in one handy, easy to digest list. May we present 33 Things that happened in July? July 27th marked the end of our Open Call where we received over 600 proposals! Have a look through the long list of every album proposed this year. This one technically happened in June BUT if you missed the New Yorker’s fantastic feature on Andrew Schartmann’s…