Bøker av Peter Gallagher

They pulled on their platform boots and slapped on the makeup when everybody else was discarding theirs. Their albums were subject to poor production, scathing reviews, and commercial indifference. Other bands refused to have them as their opening act. Their record company was up against the wall. By all reasoning, they should have become one of the 'lost' bands of the 1970s, like the Harlots of 42nd Street or the Hollywood Stars. Yet in 1975 Kiss unexpectedly came Alive! and by the following year, they were the biggest rock and roll band - and brand - in America. This is a journey through Kiss's first and most storied decade. It is the story of the four men behind the masks, and the music they made, the studio albums, the legendary live albums, and of one of the greatest rock follies in music history, the four simultaneously released solo album. Along the way, it tells of the costumes and the concerts, the merchandise and the Marvel comic books, the television appearances and the disastrous 1978 movie, Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. And having bestrode the 1970s like an unstoppable colossus, it ends with Kiss under siege, beset by changing public taste without, and combustible personalities within.

Alex Harvey was active in the music industry from the very birth of British rock and roll. A Zelig-like figure, he won a contest to become Scotland's Tommy Steele in the 1950s, followed the Beatles to Hamburg in the early 1960s, dabbled in psychedelic rock during the Summer of Love, and joined the house band of counterculture musical Hair at the close of the decade. By the time 1972 rolled around, he had been there and done that, but had never made it big. He was 37 years old, and thinking of calling it a day. Also thinking of calling it a day were Scottish hard rockers Tear Gas. They had released two albums, each with a different line-up, none of which set the world alight, and now their singer wanted out. In a last-ditch effort to salvage something, Alex Harvey and Tear Gas's respective managers decided to unite their respective acts. The result was Sensational. This book examines not only the eight albums by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, but also Harvey's earlier work with his Soul Band and solo, and his post-SAHB releases. It also reviews those two Tear Gas albums as well as Fourplay, the album SAHB released without Alex.

Bruce Springsteen called him 'one of the great, great American songwriters' and Stephen King once said that if he could write like him, he 'would be a happy guy'. So how is it that most people, if they have heard of Warren Zevon at all, know him only as 'that Werewolves' guy'?

After the War Manston became a Transport Command staging post. Between 1950 and 1958 Manston was under the control of the USAAF. The 60s were dominated by aircraft using the Foam Landing system which became operational in 1964. Until it closed in 1999 RAF Manston remained an important front-line station with a long history going back to 1916.