THE FIRST AND ONLY BOOK ON ONE OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST SELLING BANDS Spewed forth from the loins of mid-1990s southern California, System of a Down have evolved from a cult band whose demo tapes swapped hands voraciously on the metal underground to one of the world’s biggest acts. Relentless early gigging spread a word-of-mouth hype around them that soon created major label interest and the gold-selling eponymous debut album. Despite their ultra-hard music and dark undertones, SOAD have always managed to break out of the underground. Show-stealing support slots with Ozzy Osbourne and Slayer propelled the band to new heights, but it was their second album, the seminal Toxicity, that turned SOAD from an underground phenomenon into a mainstream smash. After the release of their globally acclaimed hit album Mezmerize, SOAD had shifted in excess of 25 million albums. With exclusive new interviews with the band and major players involved in their story; Ben Myers’ book will be the first and the definitive account of this remarkable band.
This definitive work - the only book on Muse - tells the band's story, from their inception in the small coastal town of Teignmouth, Devon in the mid-1990s, through numerous incendiary live shows and grandiose, critically acclaimed albums, to their status as the biggest British rock band in the world.This best-selling book is now fully updated to include Muse's astonishing fourth album, Black Holes & Revelations, which is their biggest selling record to date, having shifted well over a million copies. Ploughing their own distinct musical furrow has finally reaped rich rewards for this trio of unlikely musical heroes, confirming the band as genuine modern day rock gods.In this definitive account, Ben Myers tells the Muse tale through exclusive interviews with the band and numerous associates, and also includes the author's eyewitness accounts at various stages along the way.Ben Myers is a highly respected music journalist whose work has appeared in numerous publications including Kerrang!, Melody Maker, Q, Uncut and Careless Talk Costs Lives. He has also written the bestselling book Green Day: American Idiots And The New Punk Explosion, as well as the acclaimed biographies John Lydon: Sex Pistols, PiL and Anti-Celebrity and System Of A Down: Right Here In Hollywood.
The Green Day story is very blunt: three school friends grow up together in a cluster of small blue-collar Californian towns, form a band ... and sell more than fifty million albums. Except it wasn't that simple. Self-confessed latch-key children, theirs is far from an easy ride. Inspired by both the energy of British punk bands like the Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks and cult American bands such as Dead Kennedys and Operation Ivy, Green Day formed in 1989 when all three members were still at school. Against a backdrop of dodgy glam rock revivalists and mainstream rock-pop, the trio were quickly selling out every underground club that booked them. They toured - constantly. Word spread, fast.Their 1994 major label debut Dookie was a 10-million-selling worldwide smash hit that seized the zeitgest at a time when American rock music was still reeling from the death of Nirvana's frontman Kurt Cobain. With the arrival of Green Day, suddenly music was dumb, fun, upbeat and colourful again. Many now credit Green Day with saving rock from the hands of a hundred grunge-lite bands. Punk was back on the agenda.In 2004 Green Day reached a career pinnacle with the concept album American Idiot, a sophisticated commentary on modern life - not least dissatisfaction with their president and America's continued cultural and economical imperialism. With American Idiot, Green Day boldly went where few others have dared and as such have extended their fanbase even further - from pre-teen kids to previously sceptical critics. This book is the world's first full biography on Green Day. An authority on punk and hardcore, author Ben Myers charts the band members' difficult childhoods, the context of the band within the US and world punk scene and their glittering rise to success. The author has also interviewed the band for various magazines at different stages of their career, including in the midst of a riot in Los Angeles during the making of 2000's Warning album.Green Day is the biggest punk band in the world.This is how it happened...Unofficial and unauthorised
Set in the 1980s and 90s, in Cardiff, London, and America, Richard tells the story of Richard Edwards as he might have told it. A story of hope and despair in equal measure, it's an account of an unhappy young man who'll try anything and everything to get some peace from the voice in his head that tells him he's useless?that he'd be better off dead. He drinks, takes risks and drugs both, and even cuts himself sometimes, because physical pain can be easier to bear than emotional. He can't play a musical instrument, but that doesn't stop him from joining a band?and as that band becomes more and more successful (record deals and interviews in the music press; national and international tours, and managers who seem to have bottomless pockets), it seems he might just be okay after all. But the demons that nag at him won't be easily assuaged, and ultimately, he has to decide whether or not he has a future. The story of a band looking to make it big and a young, troubled soul looking just to make it through the night, Richard marks the arrival of a dazzling new talent.
You know, sometimes I wake up and for a few moments I think I am teenager again. Sometimes I feel like I am a young man and all the people who have died are still here, and I have my whole life ahead of me. Then I remember." A haunting novella from Benjamin Myers about two old brothers, in a cabin, in a north European country, chopping wood, rubbing along, living and... well, we don't want to say more. But this is a special, strange and wonderfully touching piece of writing. Writing to love.
Formed in the mid-1990s in a sleepy sea-side Devonshire town, Muse comprises teenage friends Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard. After two low-key releases in 1998, Muse's recently released third album, Absolution, went straight to number 1 in the charts. This book tells their story.
A life discipled by the catechism. The Collected Christian Essentials: Catechism is perfect for daily devotions, personal study, and prayer with others. Let the catechism of the Ten Commandments, Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's Prayer guide your devotional life. Experience a simple liturgy of morning and evening prayer. Pray fresh prayers inspired by the catechism. Read Scripture with the church year. Understand the riches of the catechism with Peter J. Leithart, Ben Myers, and Wesley Hill. The catechism— the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's Prayer—has sustained and nurtured every generation of believers, directing their faith, hope, and love. It helps Christians read, pray, and live God's word. By giving Christians God's word to give back to him, it plants seeds of his word and cultivates them to full growth. The Collected Christian Essentials: Catechism brings the church's ancient catechism to a new generation. The twenty-four catechism prayers were written by the Right Reverend Joey Royal, Suffragan Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of the Arctic.
Ben Myers play "Walking with Shadows" is one of several plays he wrote whilst at the renowned Watermill Theatre in Newbury, Berkshire. His work has appeared on the WJEC GCSE drama curriculum in the UK, and been widely studied in schools for several years. He has worked as a creative education consultant for National Drama and the Arts Council, delivering workshops to Drama and English teachers. He is also a published childrens author, pioneering creative practice in primary education for the involvement of children in the creation of a novel, discussing this on Radio 4. He moved from theatre to film in 2005 when he adapted "Walking with Shadows" into a feature length film starring Leslie Phillips, assuming the roles of Director and Executive Producer. He was a guest lecturer and Artist in Residence at the Midnite International Dramatic Arts Festival in Perth, Western Australia, and has regularly appeared in the media discussing his various creative and educational projects. He is an award winning independent filmmaker as writer/director of "Nuryan", which won the best horror/sci fi category at the London Independent Film festival (LIFF)
Witherington and Myers provide a much-needed introduction to the ancient art of persuasion and its use within the various New Testament documents. More than just an exploration of the use of the ancient rhetorical tools and devices, this guide introduces the reader to all that went into convincing an audience about some subject. Witherington and Myers make the case that rhetorical criticism is a more fruitful approach to the NT epistles than the oft-employed approaches of literary and discourse criticism. Familiarity with the art of rhetoric also helps the reader explore non-epistolary genres. In addition to the general introduction to rhetorical criticism, the book guides readers through the many and varied uses of rhetoric in most NT documents—not only telling readers about rhetoric in the NT, but showing them the way it was employed. “This brief guide book is intended to provide the reader with an entrance into understanding the rhetorical analysis of various parts of the NT, the value such studies bring for understanding what is being proclaimed and defended in the NT, and how Christ is presented in ways that would be considered persuasive in antiquity.” – from the introduction
Succumb to one churchman's apocalyptic vision in this prophetic tale by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies, William Golding (recorded by Benedict Cumberbatch as an audiobook). There were three sorts of people. Those who ran, those who stayed, and those who were built in. Dean Jocelin has a vision: that God has chosen him to erect a great spire. His master builder fearfully advises against it, for the old cathedral was miraculously built without foundations. But Jocelin is obsessed with fashioning his prayer in stone. As his halo of hair grows wilder and his dark angel darker, the spire rises octagon upon octagon, pinnacle by pinnacle, watched over by the gargoyles - until the stone pillars shriek, the earth beneath creeps, and the spire's shadow falls like an axe on the medieval world below ... 'Astounding ... So recklessly beautiful, so sad and so strange ... Holds such a place in my soul that it's more or less a sacred text.' Sarah Perry 'A kind of miracle ... Genius.' Guardian ' Quite simply, a marvel.' NYRB ' Superb ... A classic.' Rebecca West 'A master fabulist .. An iconoclast.' John Fowles 'A visionary ... His masterwork [of] faith, folly and desperate desire ... Golding at his best.' Benjamin Myers
Witherington and Myers provide a much-needed introduction to the ancient art of persuasion and its use within the various New Testament documents. More than just an exploration of the use of the ancient rhetorical tools and devices, this guide introduces the reader to all that went into convincing an audience about some subject. Witherington and Myers make the case that rhetorical criticism is a more fruitful approach to the NT epistles than the oft-employed approaches of literary and discourse criticism. Familiarity with the art of rhetoric also helps the reader explore non-epistolary genres. In addition to the general introduction to rhetorical criticism, the book guides readers through the many and varied uses of rhetoric in most NT documents--not only telling readers about rhetoric in the NT, but showing them the way it was employed. "This brief guide book is intended to provide the reader with an entrance into understanding the rhetorical analysis of various parts of the NT, the value such studies bring for understanding what is being proclaimed and defended in the NT, and how Christ is presented in ways that would be considered persuasive in antiquity." - from the introduction
What does a person do when his life has just taken a complete U-turn? This was the question Paul faced after his conversion on Damascus Road. In the end, he decided to go to Petran Arabia, where he stayed for more than two years. In this exercise in reconstructing what Paul's time in Petra would have been like, Ben Witherington recreates the scene of various interesting possible episodes in Paul's life, about which the New Testament says little, filling in the gaps of "the hidden years." Who would he have met in Petra? Would he have practiced his leather working trade? Might he have gotten married? What did he do to raise the ire of King Aretas IV, and cause him to be chased all the way back to Damascus and out again? Why did he wait so long to go up to Jerusalem and visit with Peter? This and much more is addressed in this fast-paced novella, with sidebars explaining the context of the events in the story.
In the field of Pauline studies, much has changed over the last twenty years. In this reliable guide to the major terrain of Pauline scholarship, Ben Witherington and Jason Myers explain and analyze the thought of recent major Pauline interpreters and track developments within this dynamic field over the past two decades.
What God's children believe Because Jesus is risen, the world is made new. This is the good news. That's what I believe. Join FatCat as he discovers what all God's children believe. Everyone in God's big family believes these truths. And if you believe, then you are in that family too! How do God's children grasp the message of God's word? The church's answer has always been the catechism--simple confessions of deep truths. FatCat expresses the catechism in a fun and accessible way for God's children of all ages. With vibrant illustrations and thoughtful reflections for each line of the Apostles' Creed, children can visualize, memorize, understand, and confess the faith passed down over centuries.
Rising from humble London-Irish beginnings to iconic status by the age of 21, emancipated Rotten has always been the driving force in punk's finest. This text contains an in-depth account of the music and career of John Lydon since the demise of the Sex Pistols in 1978.
When things are great, life is easy. We're happy. When things are tough, it can feel like we're going through never-ending sludge. We can feel miserable, beaten up, and powerless. It's not fun. But the thing is, in the long run, tough times are often some of our most fortunate. Breakdowns make room for breakthroughs. There's a lot to be learned through adversity. In this book, you're going to see how other people went through some unimaginably horrific times - and got through them better off. The intention of Getting Through The Muck is for you to feel inspired, motivated, and find a deep knowingness that you can get through anything.
The arrival of punk in the 1970s heralded an assault on the standards and traditions of music, and heading the attack were The Clash, a revolutionary group that drew on influences such as dub reggae, rockabilly, and ska to the delight of their international audiences. Ray Lowry was the official illustrator on one of the band’s riotous tours, and in this unique book he reveals what it was like to be with The Clash night and day. Accompanying Lowry’s vivid handwritten memories are his splendidly evocative cartoons which give a superb and authentic depiction of life on the road with Nicky Headon, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Joe Strummer. The complete history of The Clash’s rise to prominence and the group’s place in the pantheon of rock music is also provided, along with insightful album reviews and a full discography.
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