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Four Strings Book by Sal Maida – Expanded Third Edition

Shipping March 2024

ORDER NOW: FOUR STRINGS, Phony Proof, 300 45s, & Bottom’s Up by Sal Maida

Expanded 3rd edition of 300 with NEW 142-page Bottom’s Up section on Sal’s Top Bass Players of 1960-1970:

HoZac Books is proud to present Four Strings, Phony Proof, 300 45s, & Bottom’s Up, written by Sal Maida, one of the most interesting 1970s rock figures you just don’t know enough about. As a member of TWO such integral and ground-breaking 70s bands, ROXY MUSIC and SPARKS, not to mention NYC glam/power pop impresarios MILK ’N COOKIES, as well as studio work with the RUNAWAYS and Robert Calvert’s post-Hawkwind solo material, it’s no secret that Maida was in the right place at the right time, more times than we can count. His first book is presented here for the first time, along with his stash of personal UNPUBLISHED/UNSEEN photographs (including meeting Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Mick Jagger in 1969) on his first of many trips to the UK in the late 1960s, as well as many bands he witnessed in their embryonic states just as the monumental shift in music was taking place at the end of the psychedelic era. From his intricately-detailed stories about growing up in Little Italy’s protected confines, and his far-ahead-of-the-curve craze for record “collecting” before that was even a concept, this book takes you on a ride through Martin Scorsese’s mob territory (they grew up only a few blocks apart) and how it’s inescapable soundtrack influenced him deeply, as well as the unbeaten paths deep within the music-obsessed trenches we all love so well.

Sal Maida’s laid-back personality and his dextrous musical adaptability ensured he’d be in high demand once his chops were in place, and Four Strings, Phony Proof, and 300 45s solidifies his incredible knack for catching a rare opportunity every time it came across his path. His stories are nothing short of fascinating glimpses into a far-gone era, even to those of us with extensive piles of punk history books will rejoice at hearing. Watching a young, pre-X Exene Cervenka and “punk groupie” Farrah Fawcett Minor getting kicked out a Rick Derringer show in early 1977, which led to them becoming close friends and roommates, or Tom Waits getting into a fight with a cop in Sal’s defense in an LA diner, or seeing David Bowie perform an acoustic set with Mick Ronson in 1971 to a small room of people, it all has to be read to be believed, as well as all the other incredibly eye-opening tales contained therein.

Maida just happened to be in so many places when so many historic events transpired it will quickly make the reader green with envy. Maida’s amazing experiences straddled the line between mainstream 60s pop music, 70s proto-punk, and early New Wave like few others have, and he’s still luckily at it today, even recently touring with the likes of Mary Weiss of the SHANGRI-LAS, who personally wrote the back cover blurb on this book. Four Strings, Phony Proof, and 300 45s is the key to those lost tales of rock’n roll adventure, and we are very excited to finally share it with you, not to mention the last section of the book where Sal meticulously lists his 300 essential 45rpm singles, all with riveting footnotes sure to send you into a obsessive frenzy.

Foreword by Lenny Kaye

“Sal Maida – even the name sounded glamorous and exotic to a spotty and gauche teenager from the London suburbs obsessed with all things glam rock. With his noble mane, Granny Takes A Trip stage clothes, his blue Rickenbacker bass, his thunderous sound and…more than anything – he was in Roxy Music. And then he was in Milk N’ Cookies. And then he was in Sparks. The list goes on and on.”
–PHILIP KING, (Jesus and Mary Chain / LUSH / The Servants)

—————-

“Sal Maida is the real deal. Sal and I were born five months apart, so our history in music and our love of music go back a very long time. We are both from New York, born and bred. I was truly impressed to hear that Sal is writing a book about his adventures in the music industry. I toured with Sal in the U.S. and in Europe in 2007 and 2008, for my solo tour of the Dangerous Game album. It is a great pleasure to be on the road with Sal anytime.

One of my favorite images is of 6’-6” Sal crammed into an airplane seat for eight hours smiling and grooving to the music in his head phones. He always appears comfortable, even if he may be far from it. I consider that an art form in itself. When everyone else is getting stressed out from things going wrong on tour, he always manages to take it all with a grain of salt, a smile, and a kind word, which always made me calm the hell down.

War stories from the music business are always interesting to me, but when they come from someone who is such a fine musician, decent human being and never seemed to buy into his own P.R., it becomes real.

Sal Maida has lived and breathed music much of his life, now we get a peek inside the reality of that life. I did not know Sal in the sixties but it would have been a pleasure to work with him when my own group was on the road and traveling the world. I am sure we have seen many of the same concerts, and have met many of the same people.

Sal is an excellent musician, he also happens to be one of the nicest people I have ever met within the music industry. I consider him and his wife Lisa great friends.

Tell it like it is- Sal…”
–MARY WEISS, (The Shangri-Las)

Shipping March 2024

ORDER NOW: FOUR STRINGS, Phony Proof, 300 45s, & Bottom’s Up by Sal Maida

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All Over The Place Pre-ORDER + HOLIDAY 2023 SALE!

Holiday 2023 SALE is ON! Grab deep discounts on these select items while supplies last and for a limited time…

PRE-ORDER NOW: ALL OVER THE PLACE – The Rise of The BANGLES from the LA Underground BOOK by Eric Shade

SHIPPING JANUARY 2024

At long last, we’re got the massive biography on THE BANGLES ready for pre-order consumption, and it is nothing short of a whopper. This monumental project, started by author and unofficial band historian Eric Shade back in the 1990s has had quite a journey from start to finish. This insane overview of the early days of the members’ obscure early groups, as well as an amazing snapshot of the sorely-undocumented Paisley Underground scene of early 80s LA, all the way up through the core band members’ current projects, is a feat we never though we’d see fulfilled. For a band as huge and omnipresent as The Bangles still in are 2023, the revelation of their earlier efforts, such as the mind-blowing story of Micki Steele in the first lineup of the fledgling Runaways, while the Peterson sisters were rocking out in bands such as The Muze, Hollywood Girls, and The Fans right around the same period is the legendary stuff mostly outside of public knowledge. The intertwining stories of Susanna Hoffs meeting David Roback (later of The Rain Parade) and getting inspired by The Last, with Vicki & Debbi’s growing interest in garage bands like The Unclaimed around town, All Over The Place shows how many moving parts were swirling into each other, generating a indescribable electricity around Los Angeles as the hardcore scene raged on the other side of the coin. As the Paisley Underground scene evolved during its short window, bands such as Salvation Army/The Three O’Clock, Long Ryders, The Rain Parade, and Dream Syndicate are given their long-overdue historical appreciation here.

With original bassist Annette Zilinskas, the Peterson sister with Susanna Hoffs formed The Colours, evolved into The Bangs, and caught the right ears after self-releasing their debut 7” single, eventually signing to I.R.S. Records and touring extensively. As they changed the band name to Bangles, the lineup once again shifted, with Micki Steele joining, fresh off her years of gigging around LA in her post-Runaways bands Elton Duck, Slow Children, and Toni & The Movers, and things really start to fall into place. With their impeccable taste in 60s covers in their unique moment in time, The Bangles story just soars off from there, showing the gut-wrenching process of navigating the 1980s major label recording industry as a pioneering all-female band. Tours with Redd Kross, English Beat and Cyndi Lauper, MTV Spring Break appearances, meeting and working with Prince, and the inevitable drama that comes with superstardom once the “hits” started to stack up, this is the story of the Los Angeles underground you really need to read.

Shade’s meticulous research and wild enthusiasm is instantly contagious, uncovering heaps of information lost to time from early bandmates and forgotten fanzines and overseas interviews, with no stone left unturned. From the inevitable struggles to the righteous triumphs, The Bangles back story has never been explored this in-depth before, while perfectly encapsulating the fertile Paisley Underground they sprouted from (and will always be a part of). Featuring an extensive discography and tons of previously unseen color and black & white photos & ephemera, All Over The Place stands to be the crucial Bangles biography it was intended to be upon its conception.

Holiday 2023 SALE is ON! Grab deep discounts on these select items while supplies last and for a limited time…

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SHIPPING NOW: I DON’T FIT IN – My Wild Ride Through the Punk and Power Pop Trenches With The NERVES and The BEAT BOOK by Paul Collins with Chuck Nolan

HZB-009
274 pages, paperback
2023 3rd EDITION
ISBN: 978-0-9963319-9-9

ORDER HERE

Hozac Books presents the first major memoir covering the birth of DIY Power Pop, from Paul Collins. From it’s initial conception as a film script to it’s re-birth as a full-bore rock & roll revelation, this is one crazy story from beginning to end. Outlining the first National DIY cross-country tour by an unsigned band in 1977, and by default, creating the pathway for the true indie underground network of the 80s to take as a template. It wasn’t even a second thought for Collins and bandmates Peter Case and Jack Lee, but the underground rock & roll world is a better place for it. But until now, the real details of the origins of The Nerves, Breakaways, and The BEAT have eluded most of us, so with this tome of incredible survival stories from the trenches, Paul Collins opens up and reveals all the drama, victories and defeats with such an impassioned voice, you won’t be able to put it down. The coverage of the pre-Punk 1975 landscape of both LA and San Francisco is unmatched, and your mind will be BLOWN.

Featuring TONS of previously unseen photos, flyers and ephemera from the earliest days of The Nerves lineup as a FOUR PIECE, to the legal documents challenging The Paul Collins BEAT vs The English Beat, to the ill-fated Nerves reunion, and so much in between. Truly a smorgasbord of juicy details and revelatory discoveries await, balancing the failures with triumphs from the mid 1970s to the mid 2000s, when Paul returned to the touring circuit. From literally renting out a space for the first documented Punk show in Los Angeles in March of 1977, to The Screamers story about buying a copy of The Nerves EP at the Capitol Records swap meet and smashing it to pieces- it’s all in there, along with so many more soon-to-be-legendary tales from the real trenches you don’t usually rise out from unscathed….

——–

ORDER HERE

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SHIPPING NOW: Pull Down The Shades 1984-86 GARAGE New Zealand Fanzine Compendium

HZB-019
282 pages, softcover
1st EDITION of 500 : Only a handful left, only available on our site while supplies last!
2nd EDITION of 500 : Shipping Now
ISBN: 978-1-7359985-8-9

SHIPPING NOW – ORDER HERE

The incredible sound of New Zealand from Flying Nun Records and Xpressway in the 1980s-90s is the stuff of legend.

Hozac Books proudly presents Richard Langston’s ultra-obscure fanzine GARAGE, capturing the original six issues from 1984-86 at long last, in book form. Including new interviews and essays from the NZ underground’s luminaries among the likes of Alec Bathgate, David Kilgour, Roy Montgomery, Shayne Carter, Bill Direen, George Henderson, Francisca Griffin, Ronnie van Hout, Chris Heazlewood, Peter Jefferies, Stephen Cogle, Hamish Kilgour, Tom Lax, Stuart Page, Martin Phillipps, Bruce Russell, John Halvorsen, Dean Allen, Robert Scott, Brian Turner, Gary Olson, David Swift, Roger Shepherd, and don’t forget those incredible photos of The Clean from Carol Tippet.

GARAGE chronicled the creative explosion of music that came out of the South Island, New Zealand in the late 70s and 80s – from The Enemy, The Clean, The Chills, The Verlaines, The Bats, The Builders, Victor Dimisich Band, Scorched Earth Policy …to The Great Unwashed and Straitjacket Fits.

These are first-hand accounts and reports as the Flying Nun scene emerged as a force in the international underground music scene. Just like the music it covered, GARAGE was a bedroom-creation – typed, glued, and stapled together – that came to be read by music fans around the world.

This book makes the six issues available in print for the first time since they were published in the mid-80s. It includes sixteen recent interviews with many of the leading songwriters, performers, and key figures in the scene.

SHIPPING NOW – ORDER HERE



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SHIPPING NOW: Rebel Soul – Musings, Music, & Magic BOOK by Bebe Buell

HZB-018
242 pages, hardcover
1st EDITION of 500 : SOLD OUT (all pre-orders have shipped as of Jan 21, 2023)
ISBN: 978-1-7359985-8-9

PRE-ORDER 2nd EDITION of 500 SHIPPING March 2023

HoZac Books is proud to announce the publication of Rebel Soul: Musings, Music and Magic by Bebe Buell.

Rebel Soul isn’t so much a “sequel” to Bebe Buell’s 2001 New York Times best-selling memoir Rebel Heart, but more of an impressionistic scrapbook about becoming and being Bebe Buell, tracing her trajectory from being a rock “It Girl” to a pop culture icon, through a collection of essays that explore what it was like to be at the center of the pop universe during a golden era, and how she invented herself as a muse and a musician.

In this book, Bebe recollects, in vivid and previously unexplored detail, the people and places of
her past, from her well-known romances with members of rock royalty, to her influences and
friendships, her family and her career (and how they came into conflict), her reflections and
observations of the cultural and sexual climate of the ‘70s. Two decades after the publication
of Rebel Heart, Bebe looks back from a different perspective, with candor, humor, and wisdom.

Rebel Soul isn’t a straight-forward autobiographical narrative: it’s as though Bebe has taken a large box off her shelf, filled with ticket stubs, backstage passes, magazine covers and clippings, and gig flyers, each one triggering memories of who she was at the time. The book is illustrated with dozens of rare or unseen photos from Bebe’s personal archives, going back to her early days as a top fashion model, through her whirlwind years in New York and Los Angeles, times spent in London, Woodstock and now Nashville, where she makes her home.

PRE-ORDER 2nd EDITION of 500 SHIPPING March 2023

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Shipping Now: Kill A Punk For Rock & Roll 1976-2019 BOOK by Marty Perez

HARDCOVER PRE-ORDER UPDATE:
We had several copies of the limited hardcover edition that arrived damaged and we’re currently waiting on replacements which should be shipping around the end of October. THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR PATIENCE!

: Shipping Now

As a lifelong music critic and journalist—and, hell, as a fan!—I’ve always had a problem with the work of some of my lens-toting colleagues, among them plenty of the most-acclaimed names in the field. Too many rock photogs see their job as immortalizing the golden gods, picturing musicians we admire (and plenty we don’t) as some combination of religious icons and the giants carved into granite on the side of Mount Rushmore.

Perfect. Distant. Untouchable. Divine.

Forced to choose one word, and only one, to describe the work of my friend Marty Perez, it’s the opposite of those: human. Weaned on classic rock on the South Side of Chicago, the punk scene of the mid-to-late-’70s did more to shape Marty’s musical tastes and view of the world, while the indie-rock that followed in the ’80s honed them. Celebrating music as community, he’s D.I.Y. because ain’t nobody else gonna to do it for him, and he’s alternative, not in what became the marketing sense of the term, but in epitomizing what it originally implied: unique, distinctive, unforgettable, and one of a kind.

He’s blushing now, but that’s part of this gentle giant’s charm. Despite his enormous talent, he’s the kind of guy who’ll not only help you change a flat tire without a jack in the pouring rain, but he’ll walk a mile to do it. Self-effacing to a flaw, he hadn’t even thought of including a bio in this incredible book until I suggested that he really should, when I called to check a few facts for this intro. In case he doesn’t actually write one, here’s a brief recap of a fascinating life.

Raised in Prairie Shores and Beverly, Marty turned away from studying marine biology in Washington state during his first stint in college, choosing instead to work at a second-hand record store in Seattle during the years just before the explosion of what no one with taste ever seriously called grunge. He labored as a commercial diver for a time in New Orleans, the third great American music city he’s called home, then returned to Chicago and did a stint at Columbia College, although he admits he never really clicked with that school’s celebrated photography department. Through it all, he shot the bands he loved, and most of what he learned he gleaned from the front of the stage in the photo pit.

Photography has never paid the bills—“I’ve always needed a job with benefits,” he shrugs—but the day gigs have provided Marty the freedom to shoot for passion, not filthy lucre. He’s always shared his work with as many labors of love (including the fanzine Non-Stop Banter) as more “pro” endeavors, even after he started to get regular assignments from our mutual pal Bill Wyman at The Chicago Reader, as well as from its competing weekly New City, and even occasionally some glossies, like Chicago Magazine.

What to say about this beautiful tome, given that the pictures eloquently speak for themselves? I love that it spans five decades, with the most recent shots showing as much energy and signature flair as the earliest work. I love that Marty captures the essential core of stadium-rockers as thoroughly, lovingly, and accurately (no myth-making!) as the bands playing shit-hole dives, and that he doesn’t see—or hear—a distinction. I love that there’s as much soul and honesty in the live shots as there is in the profiles/portraits (and damn, I miss his loft-space studio in Pilsen, from which the forces of gentrification eventually drove him, just as they’ve shuttered a fair number of the venues seen in these pages). I love that there’s a half-dozen bands here that I’ve never heard of, but the photos—and, no doubt, the sounds—are as cool as those of the rock superstars and blues legends. And I especially love the photos of fans and security personnel—damn, that celebrated shot on the cover!—because they underscore his aesthetic, that punk/D.I.Y. thing I mentioned earlier.

In Marty’s viewfinder, everybody is a regular Joe, and everybody is a star. The irony, of course, is that one star in this book shines brighter than all the others, though he’d be the last to say that, which I suppose is why I’m here. It’s an honor to know you, Marty, and long may our lives be richer from seeing the world the way you do.

– Jim DeRogatis

(co-host of Sound Opinions and the author of numerous books about music, including
Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America’s Greatest Rock Critic,
and his latest, Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly.)

: Shipping Now

HZB-016
231 pages
1st SOFTCOVER EDITION of 400 copies
ISBN: 978-1-7359985-5-8
ORDER HERE

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PRE-ORDER: WICKED GAME- The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey BOOK by Michael Goldberg

: Shipping July/August 2022

HZB-015
414 pages, paperback
1st EDITION of 500 copies: SOLD OUT
ISBN: 978-1-7359985-4-1

PRE-ORDER HERE

“This is the rock & roll book to read this year.” — Bill Bentley, Americana Highways

For our 15th book release, we present WICKED GAME: The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey by author Michael Goldberg. Another incredibly in-depth look into the dark side of San Francisco in the 1970s & 80s, and the dark side of rock ‘n roll in general, through the wild life of one Jimmy Wilsey. From his vantage point on bass in SF Punk legends The Avengers in 1977, through his quick trip with Belfast Cowboys (with Rozz Rezabek from Negative Trend) and on into his next phase of real guitar virtuosity in Silvertone (the early band fronted by Chris Isaak which also included John Silvers from The Dils), Wilsey’s life unfolded sadly as many others of his era and from this scene.

Full of amazing and previously unseen photos from the Michael Goldberg, Hugh Brown, Bruce Conner, James Stark, Sue Brisk, and Chester Simpson archives, and complimented with intimate interviews from his past relationships with Claudia Summers and Jennifer Rubin (Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Bad Dreams, The Crush, etc), everything looked so promising, until it wasn’t…

PRE-ORDER HERE

: Shipping July/August 2022

James Calvin Wilsey: He was the “heart and soul” of SF punk band the Avengers, and worked with Chris Isaak for over a decade before he crashed and burned.

His hypnotic guitar riffs throughout “Wicked Game” made Chris Isaak an international star. His story is the story of San Francisco punk rock, the story of one of the greatest punk bands, the Avengers, “the story of every working musician,” as Robert Duncan puts it, and the nightmare of drug addiction.

Jimmy Wilsey’s story is the story of the dark side of rock & roll.

Includes over 100 photos and flyers by avant-garde artist Bruce Conner, Avengers singer/songwriter Penelope Houston, Blondie’s Chris Stein, Ruby Ray, Chester Simpson, Sue Brisk, Marcus Leatherdale, Amy Starks, Michael Zagaris, Hugh Brown, James Stark, Jimmy Wilsey and others.

Michael Goldberg will be donating 25% of his book royalties to Jimmy Wilsey’s teenage son, Waylon James Wilsey.

Check out a feature on the book at POP MATTERS right HERE

Author Michael Goldberg is a journalist, novelist, and photographer. He has been interviewing and photographing musicians since he was seventeen. He was a senior writer at Rolling Stone magazine for a decade. His writing also appeared in Esquire, New Musical Express, Creem, DownBeat, New York Rocker, Trouser Press, Musician, New West, Vibe, New Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications. He was had three novels published: True Love Scars, The Flowers Lied, and Untitled. Author Simon Warner wrote, “Michael Goldberg has his finger on the pulse, his foot to the beat, his hip to the rhythm and his ears peeled for the cadences of rock & roll’s raucous jibber-jabber.”

Advance praise for Wicked Game: The True Story of Guitarist James Calvin Wilsey:

“Here’s the story of an unsung genius that, in many ways, is the story of every working musician, a cautionary tale of crappy apartments and cool guitars, of untold temptations, abject surrender and the pawnshop at the beginning and end of the arc. It’s a story of youth, beauty and inspiration on the razor’s edge, of love and compulsion, solidarity and betrayal, of a quiet man who played loud. Of a dark song and darker fate. And of San Francisco in the era of the Mabuhay Gardens, $150 rent and Persian Brown. Michael Goldberg’s book about his friend Jimmy Wilsey will give you chills. Not since Ben Fong-Torres’s biography of Gram Parsons (one of Wilsey’s musical forebearers) has there been a more heartrending portrait of a rock star.”
– Robert Duncan, former Creem Magazine writer and author of Loudmouth and The Noise

“A riveting biography of a brilliant but doomed guitarist who helped usher in San Francisco punk, played haunted guitar for Chris Isaak, then remade himself as a Downtown LA loftista musician and IT guy before self destructing as a homeless junky. This reads like a classic noir spiral and is hard to put down. Goldberg describes the twisted path of addiction and life’s dark side but also wild joy, inspired creation and for a time, unlimited possibility in the life of James Wilsey. Filled with local color, music history, and eyewitness interviews.”
– Denise Hamilton, author of the Eve Diamond crime novels and editor of the “Los Angeles Noir” collections

“Wicked Game is the story of a song, leading through the beginnings of San Francisco Punk Rock, the Avengers, and Silvertone/Chris Isaak to find that riff and the price paid.”
– James Stark, editor of Shut up You Animals!!! A Remembrance of Dirk Dirksen and author/photographer, Punk ’77

“Author Michael Goldberg presents a labyrinthian portrait, intensely detailed, wrenchingly empathetic, of the rise and fall of the tragic Jimmy Wilsey, the brilliant but troubled guitarist behind Chris Isaak’s biggest hit in Wicked Game: The True Story of James Calvin Wilsey.”
– Joel Selvin, author of Hollywood Eden and Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock’s Darkest Day

“An addictive biography, this portrait of James Wilsey’s musical genius is also a striking and indelible story of a Los Angeles whose past is portrayed as vividly as a Nan Goldin photograph blown up large, while Wilsey’s songs and friends move through the streets.”
– Susan Straight, author of Highwire Moon, Take One Candle Light a Room, Between Heaven and Here and other novels

“An almost-Shakespearean-tragedic narrative of the rise-and-fall of a promising young musician-pioneer in the early ‘Punk’ music movement. Goldberg has written a personal, heartfelt biography (he personally knew the ‘better side’ of Jimmy) that is hard to put down. It’s charming, funny at times but also tragic and thought-provoking. Recommended as an instructional moral fable for all who want to become professional musicians and artists in a global capitalist world.
– V. Vale, publisher of Search & Destroy and RE/Search magazines (1977 to the present)

“Goldberg’s meticulously researched biography delivers a deep-hearted and poignant account of the rare and extraordinary creative talent who—following his legendary entry into the music scene as bass player for San Francisco’s primeval punk band, the Avengers—crafted the incomparable yearning two-note opening to Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game.’” — Marc Zegans, Pop Matters

“… a true tribute to an idiosyncratic and gifted musician.” — Lenny Kaye, Patti Smith Group guitarist, author and rock critic

“From the start, Goldberg makes it clear that Wilsey was a friend of his but, while he writes with what is clearly a lot of affection for Wilsey, he’s not blind to his shortcomings or the bad choices he made with his life. What emerges from this book is the complex story of a complicated man.” — Rick Bayles, Americana UK

“I could see the heartbreaking arc of his life from beginning to end. I felt like I understood him. That is an astounding accomplishment for any biographer, and a gift to all of Jimmy’s fans. … Michael Goldberg was friends with Jimmy Wilsey, the brilliant guitarist who was the best thing about Chris Isaak’s best songs. Without trying to excuse Jimmy’s many failures, Goldberg makes us understand and feel deeply for his pain. WICKED GAME is required reading for anyone who loved the anguished cry of Jimmy WIlsey’s guitar, and recommended to anyone who cares about the way that art is made.” — Lewis Shiner, author of Frontera and other novels

PRE-ORDER HERE
: Shipping July/August 2022

HZB-015
414 pages, paperback
1st EDITION of 500 copies :SOLD OUT
ISBN: 978-1-7359985-4-1

LAST COPIES of the 1st edition available HERE!

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Shipping Now: DISTURBING THE PEACE – 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave BOOK by Bill Kopp

HZB-014
362 pages, paperback
1st EDITION of 500 copies
ISBN: 978-1-7359985-3-4

: Shipping December 2021

ORDER HERE

In the late ‘70s and early to mid 1980s, San Francisco was a creative incubator, bringing forth all manner of new music acts. Ground zero for the scene was the Mabuhay Gardens, home to huge barrels of popcorn, once-a-week spaghetti nights, colorful emcee Dirk Dirksen, and punk/new wave bands from all over the Bay Area. Concert booker and renegade radio deejay Howie Klein joined with Aquarius Records owner (and fellow deejay) Chris Knab to launch a record label in support of that scene.

Disturbing the Peace: 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave is Bill Kopp’s chronicle of the groundbreaking independent record label founded by Howie Klein & Chris Knab, featuring the stories of Romeo Void, Red Rockers, Translator, Wire Train, Roky Erickson, The Nuns, Pearl Harbor and Explosions, and nearly two dozen other bands.

Based on nearly 100 interviews with the artists, industry execs, producers, friends, rivals, onlookers, journalists and hangers-on, Disturbing the Peace also features hundreds of photos and memorabilia from the personal archives of those who were there.

ORDER HERE

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Shipping Now: WHERE THE WILD GIGS WERE – A Trip Thru America’s Underground Music Venues BOOK by Tim Hinely & Friends

HZB-013
235 pages, paperback
2nd EDITION of 500 copies
ISBN: 978-1-7359985-2-7

: Shipping December 2021

ORDER HERE

When Tim from Dagger zine approached us about his book idea covering long-loved “spaces” held sacred for countless music fans, we knew it was a great project to get behind, Similar in its community effort to our last book release (The White Label Promo Preservation Society), Hinely organized an incredible list of contributors from all stripes of the underground music spectrum, each waxing their own warm recollections of wild nights seeing life-changing bands and/or terrible bathroom experiences.

Chock full of photos, original newspaper ads, flyers, and long-lost monthly calendars of the pre-Internet age, WHERE THE WILD GIGS WERE illustrates how important these sacred spaces really are, and how much it’s noticable when we can’t actually be AT these homes-away-from-home, spread all across the USA. From Stache’s in Columbus, OH to Flynn’s Ocean 71 in Miami, FL (the ‘CBGB’s on the beach’), back to The Brewery in Lansing MI (complete with previously unpublished Stooges photos!), to City Gardens in Trenton, NJ (staffed by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart) to Peter Aaron’s sordid details on the mob-run Jockey Club in Newport, KY, you won’t find many dull moments as each page bleeds into the next, oozing with recollections of blurry good times and endless excitement before the world changed, as we know it,

With a Foreword by Byron Coley and an Afterword by Tesco Vee, you can just imagine how good it gets in between.

“Historically, “alternative music venues” (colloquially known as punk clubs) are known for a few things. These include lousy bathrooms, loose policing, mean soundmen, and treacherous load-ins. But for all that (and more), such hangouts are amazing places to discover the kind of music you weren’t really sure existed. The kind of messed-up sounds that exactly match the confusion of whatever era you happen to grow up in.

Sometimes these are dive bars in parts of town parents described as “dangerous” when you were a kid. It might take a few beers and several co-conspirators to get up the nerve to actually visit them for the first time. Sometimes they’re just established music clubs that get a new, enlightened booking agent for a spell. Sometimes they’re just random places that have some bands during a brief period, for reasons that can’t quite be augured. Whatever their initial draw might be, these venues all share the ability to turn people on to new music, and in doing so they often assume the aura of a personal clubhouse, regardless of the quality of their commodes.

…Writing this now, when so many of the current places that put on weird-ass shows are shuttered, some for good, it’s easy to imagine the era of great underground clubs is over. But there’s no doubt that once things have settled down, they will begin to sprout again, like strange mushrooms growing in the nation’s asscrack. Because there are always going to be a certain number of people who really don’t understand what functionally popular culture is about, and they will continue to seek fun and strange sounds. And I’ll be damned if they won’t find them. In places like the ones written about herein and also in settings that haven’t even been imagined yet.”

– Byron Coley

ORDER HERE

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SHIPPING NOW: The White Label Promo Preservation Society BOOK
by Sal Maida, Mitchell Cohen & Friends

Shipping JULY 2021

HZB-012
381 pages, paperback
SECOND EDITION of 500 copies
ISBN: 978-1-7359985-1-0

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HoZac Books is proud to present The White Label Promo Preservation Society: 100 Flop Albums You Ought to Know, written and compiled by Sal Maida and Mitchell Cohen, who have recruited for their “society” a gang of esteemed music obsessives: musicians, label executives, and journalists who chose favorite albums from the 1960s and 1970s to rave about and expound upon. The only criterion was that the albums never made the top 100 on Billboard’s LP Top 200 (although in a few cases, they did quite well on the R&B or country chart). The selection ranges from east coast vocal-group harmony to punk and metal, from superstars like The Who and the Beach Boys to virtual unknowns.

As Sal and Mitchell write in the book’s introduction, “These are the albums you might not read about, except here. No one needs to tell you why Pet Sounds, Revolver or Blonde On Blonde are essential parts of any decent record collection, or guide you towards classics – or even somewhat lesser efforts – by the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry or the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Or which Pink Floyd album is indispensable (hint: the debut; you can stop right there). Although we have strong opinions about pantheon artists like Led Zeppelin and Marvin Gaye, and are happy to share those views with anyone in earshot, that isn’t what this book is about. We aren’t here to challenge or endorse rock orthodoxy. Neither is the mission to, once again, assert the brilliance of Skip Spence’s Oar, of such artists as Nick Drake, Big Star, and the Velvet Underground, whose influence, despite the lack of any commercial success in their time, has been thoroughly – one might even say exhaustively – documented elsewhere.”

To help tell this story, Sal and Mitchell called on an impressive team of guest essayists: Lenny Kaye, Russ Titelman, Amy Rigby, Brian Koppelman, Dennis Diken, Bebe Buell, Jim Farber, Susan Whitall, Steve Shelley, Phil King, Ira Robbins, Billy Altman, Marshall Crenshaw, Peter Holsapple, Wreckless Eric, Peter Keepnews, Miriam Linna, Joe McEwen, and a cast of dozens. Sal Maida has played bass guitar with Roxy Music and Sparks, was a member of the snappy NYC power-pop band Milk ‘n’ Cookies, and has chronicled his exploits as fan and musician in the HoZac book Four Strings, Phony Proof, and 300 45s. There is not much about rock music in the ‘60s and ‘70s that he doesn’t know, and it was quite an ordeal getting him to hone his list of underrated, underselling albums down to manageable length for these purposes. Mitchell Cohen has been writing about music and movies since the early ’70s (CREEM, Film Comment, High Fidelity, Musician, Phonograph Record…), was a major-label A&R guy for around a quarter-century, and is the co-author of Matt Pinfield’s memoir All These Things That I’ve Done, as well as the author of an upcoming book on Arista Records for RPM/BMG Books.

What you will find out here are things like how Evie Sands, with Any Way That You Want Me, made one of the most confident and accomplished albums by a female singer-songwriter before Tapestry. You’ll find out how Bobbie Gentry followed up “Ode to Billie Joe” and the LP of that title with a haunting, mysterious concept album. You will, in all likelihood, be introduced to the quirky New York folk-rock duo of Bunky & Jake, to the art-rock of Ars Nova, and to the entrancing psych-pop of Blossom Toes. Georgie Fame, Joe South, the Hollies, Jackie DeShannon, the Impressions, the Everly Brothers, and Nico, all pop up here, often in ways you might not expect. This is a book for everyone who has gravitated to used-record stores, garage sales and flea markets in search of something he or she hasn’t encountered before. You might be at a record fair, browsing with a friend through cardboard boxes, and have that friend say, “You need to hear this,” pretty much forcing an album you’ve never heard of into your hands.

This is the book version of that.

FOREWORD by DAVID FRICKE (Rolling Stone Magazine)

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