Omnibus Press Catalogue 2018 2018 CATALOGUE CONTENTS Omnibus Press is the UK’s biggest publisher of music books. For over forty years, we have been publishing genre defining books covering any style you care to name: pop, rock, NEW RELEASES 4 classical, metal, country, psychedelic, prog, electronic, dance, ROCK 33 hip hop, jazz… the list goes on. THE BEATLES 41 With approximately 30 new titles a year, and a backlist of over 270 titles in print, Omnibus Press is the market leader in the field. But quality is equally as important as quantity to us. It was therefore incredibly gratifying when our books POP 42 were named Book of the Year in both Mojo and Uncut last year. They have also featured in the book of the year lists PUNK & ALTERNATIVE 44 in No Depression, The Sunday Telegraph, Scottish Herald, Rough Trade and Monorail, as well as being longlisted for the Penderyn Music Book Prize. METAL 46 We’re also pleased to publish in a wide variety of formats: graphic novels, oral histories, biographies, GRAPHIC NOVELS 47 autobiographies, photo and art books, limited collector’s editions. Among our earliest titles was Rock Family Trees by PHOTOGRAPHY 48 acclaimed writer Pete Frame, which we’re not only proudly still selling to this day but has also been the basis of two BBC TV series. Over the succeeding decades we have followed up with definitive, best-selling biographies on some CLASSICAL 49 of rock’s most intriguing characters. Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance by Johnny Rogan, Dear Boy: The Life Of Keith Moon by Tony Fletcher, Uptight: The Velvet Underground Story by Victor Bockris, Catch A Fire: The Life of Bob OTHER 50 Marley by Timothy White and Under The Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush and George Harrison: Behind The Locked RED PLANET 51 Door, both by Graeme Thomson. All are regularly cited by magazines and critics as being amongst the finest rock biographies ever published. RHINEGOLD EDUCATION 58 We have many more exciting prospects in the pipeline for 2018 and beyond… so take a look! THE LITTLE BLACK SONGBOOK 59 INDEX 61 CONTACTS 66 NEW RELEASES NEW RELEASES Without Frontiers Tales of The Smiths Graphic The Life and Music of Peter Gabriel A Graphic Biography Daryl Easlea Con Chrisoulis He became famous with Genesis but simply A comic book retelling of the band to call Peter Gabriel a pop star would be to members’ teenage years before the sell him very short indeed. A quintessential group was famous, including fascinating Englishman, he has since pursued several digressions about their influences and the overlapping careers, bringing to each of times in which they were growing up. them his trademark preoccupation with quality control and restless curiosity. The story reaches its climax with the meeting of Morrissey and Marr, the formation of the band in 1982 and their first In 1975, after leaving the band that made him famous he gig as The Smiths. diversified into writing movie soundtracks, became world music’s most illustrious champion, launching the WOMAD With an introduction by drummer and early Smiths festival and recording solo albums that featured musicians associate Simon Wolstencroft. from every corner of the globe. Taken from hundreds of hours of new interviews with key friends, musicians, aides and confidants, Without Frontiers gets to the very heart Rights available, please contact Robert Lecker Agency for and soul of Peter Gabriel, his music and his complex life. more information. Product details… Rights available, please contact Robert Lecker Agency for 464pp more information. 244x166mm Product details… OP55924 Print ISBN: 9781783055876 448pp eBook ISBN: 9781783233960 198x129mm Paperback £25.00 OP57585 22.03.18 Print ISBN: 9781785588501 eBook ISBN: 9780857128607 Paperback £9.99 19.03.18 About the author… About the author… Daryl Easlea has written for Mojo, Record Collector and bbc.co.uk. He is also the author of Sparks: Talent is an Con Chrisoulis is a Greek-Australian comic book artist. Asset and Whatever Happened to Slade?, also published Having enjoyed a long career in indie and mainstream by Omnibus Press. He compiles and annotates CDs, has comics in Greece in 2012, he began publishing online a DJ’d at festivals and is a regular on TV and radio music daily comic strip devoted to the early and unknown days documentaries. of the seminal indie band, The Smiths. 4 5 NEW RELEASES NEW RELEASES Boys Keep Swinging Grant & I A Memoir Inside and Outside The Go-Betweens Jake Shears Robert Forster `On the stage, Jake Shears is a triumphant BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 explosion of unembarrassed carnality MOJO MAGAZINE & UNCUT MAGAZINE and charm. On the page, he’s very much the same. Boys Keep Swinging is “In early ‘77 I asked Grant if he’d form a band with me. one courageous joyride of a memoir. It `No,’ was his blunt reply.” Grant McLennan didn’t want to be in a band. He couldn’t play an instrument; Charlie should be illegal for rock stars to write so Chaplin was his hero du jour. And yet, when Robert Forster beautifully.’ - Armistead Maupin wrote Hemingway, Genet, Chandler and Joyce into his lyrics, McLennan couldn’t resist a second invitation to `The purpose of my life is to entertain. It’s a become eighties indie sensation The Go-Betweens. The constant feedback loop.’ friends would collaborate for three decades, until Grant’s premature death in 2006. Before becoming lead singer in the fabulous Scissor Sisters, Jake Shears was Jason Sellards, just a kid with Beautifully written - like lyrics, like prose - Grant & I is a an unfathomable imagination and a love of He-Man rock memoir akin to no other. Part `making of’, part music dolls. Splitting life between Arizona and the Pacific West industry expose, part buddy-book, this is a delicate and Coast, his childhood was marked by school bullies and perceptive celebration of creative endeavour. With wit the terror of the rise and misunderstanding surrounding the and candour, Robert Forster pays tribute to a band who AIDS virus. With changes in age and geography Shears found huge success in the margins, having friendship at its gradually found a sense of belonging - first in Seattle, heart. Product details… then in the street life and lights of New York City in the late Product details… 90s where, with friends and musicians also thirsting for 352pp freedom and the stage, he would form Scissor Sisters and 352pp Please contact Penguin Australia for rights information. 234 x 156mm 198x129mm OP57739 go on to sell out venues worldwide. OP57728 Print ISBN: 9781785589690 Print ISBN: 9781785589683 eBook ISBN: 9781787590199 This is a wide-eyed and determined coming-of-age story Paperback £9.99 Hardback £20.00 29.03.18 29.03.18 from a world famous LGBTQ+ icon, but its heartbeat is Shears’ friendship with Mary Hanlon, who he met via The Edge, a prehistoric chatroom, when he was 15 and she was 21. For years Shears lived in New York with a landline for which only Mary knew the number. Although long-distance, self-absorption and changing circumstances would take their toll on the friendship, this was the safe-house that sheltered a pair of misfits from the unthinking prejudices of a fearful world, a haven to which About the author… both would always return, and for which Shears wrote the About the author… song ‘Mary’. Robert Forster is an Australian singer-songwriter, best known for his work with songwriting partner Grant Jake Shears is the lead singer of the multi-platinum selling McLennan, with whom he co-founded The Go-Betweens. glam rock band Scissor Sisters. Born in Arizona, he grew up in the Seattle area before moving to New York City, In 2005, Robert Forster started writing a regular column where he studied fiction writing at The New School. He Please contact Atria for rights information. for The Monthly, an Australian magazine covering the wrote the music for Tales of the City, a 2011 stage musical arts, politics and society, receiving The Pascall Award for based on Armistead Maupin’s bestselling book series of Critical Writing. On 6th May 2006 Grant McLennan died, the same name. He divides his time between Los Angeles bringing an end to The Go-Betweens. This is Forster’s third and New Orleans. book. 6 7 NEW RELEASES NEW RELEASES Halfway to Paradise I’m With The Band The Life of Billy Fury Confessions of a Groupie David and Caroline Stafford Pamela Des Barres Ronald Wycherley was pushed on stage Pamela Des Barres was a regular on the at the Birkenhead Essoldo on October 1st, Sunset Strip, where she knocked on rock 1958, after offering some of his songs to stars’ backstage doors and immersed pop manager Larry Parnes, to make his herself in the drugs, danger, and ecstasy stage debut as a singer. The next day he of the freewheeling sixties. Over the next joined the The Larry Parnes Extravaganza ten years she had affairs with Mick Jagger, and Billy Fury was born. Jimmy Page, Keith Moon and Jim Morrison, among others. As a member of the GTO’s, Censured for his stage act, beloved as a singer, songwriter a girl group masterminded by Frank and actor, Billy Fury was an overnight sensation, with Zappa, she was in the thick of the most The Beatles auditioning to be his backing band, but a revolutionary renaissance in the history of childhood bout of rheumatic fever would leave with the ailment that caused his death at the age of forty-two. The modern popular music. first major biography of Billy Fury, Halfway To Paradise covers the rise and fall of the teen idol, from his days as a Warm, witty, and sexy, this kiss-and-tell–all stands out as docker in Liverpool to his tragic death on the cusp of his the perfect chronicle of one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most thrilling comeback album release.