Sean Egan – författare

TheSmall Faces epitomised the maxim, "Never mind the width, feelthe quality." In their brief original lifespan, they releasedjust three official albums and a dozen-and-a-half authorisednon-album singles and B-sides. Yet more than five decades after theLondon quartet's split the phenomenal quality of that compact body ofwork has ensured a continuing and unassailable musical esteembordering on legend.Gut-bucketvocalist Steve Marriott brought a bluesy grit to both compositions ofgravitas and effervescent pop numbers. Bassist Ronnie Lanecollaborated with him to form one of the most formidable songwritingpartnerships of the era. Ian McLagan was an exhilaratinglyblurred-fingered keyboardist. Kenney Jones brought up the rear withblistering drum patterns, with his rolls often used to provide anexplosive fanfare to Small Faces singles. Such a talent-oozingline-up was virtually predestined to conjure excellence. 'TinSoldier', their exquisitely sophisticated psychedelic-soul release of1967, regularly appears in polls to decide history's greatestsingles. However, the band are just as much loved for rip-roaringpower-pop like 'Sha-La-La- La-Lee' and 'All or Nothing' and storminginstrumental B-sides such as 'Grow Your Own' and 'Almost Grown'.Their acknowledged masterpiece is Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake(1968), an album that was not only artistically superb butboasted a second-side narrative suite that paved the way for rockoperas such as the Pretty Things' SF Sorrow and the Who's Tommy.Regardless of style, quality and innovativeness, the Small Faces'music was characterised by a life-affirming joyousness. All thisexplains why their catalogue is endlessly recycled and why theiroeuvre has been disproportionately inspirational.LongAgos and Worlds Apart covers the Small Faces' full,tumultuous story. The book draws on lengthy new interviews, includingones with Jones, Lane’s close friend Pete Townshend and originalSmall Faces member Jimmy Winston. It features contributions from manyassociates and intimates, including managers, agents, publicists,songwriters, auxiliary musicians, fan-club personnel, recordingengineers, journalists, friends and wives. It also draws on numerousinterviews the author conducted down the years with both Jones andMcLagan, much of which material is previously unpublished. Itis a revealing, impartial, exhaustive and definitive exploration ofthe corpus and career of a truly great band.

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s masterpiece of American rock ’n’ roll with this handsomely produced and stunningly illustrated volume.Bruce Springsteen and Born to Run: 50 Years is the definitive story of a landmark album in American rock music. In 1975, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band released what would become their breakthrough album and arguably the most lauded album of Springsteen’s long, illustrious career. Born to Run has sold over 9 million copies and counting and continues to inspire musicians and music fans young and old from around the world.In this book, music journalist Sean Egan takes a deep dive into one of the legendary musician’s most famous albums on its 50th anniversary. Chapters cover Springsteen’s career prior to 1975, track-by-track analyses of each side, the studios where it was recorded, the supporting tour, and The Boss’s career after the LP. Illustrated with performance and off-stage photography as well as memorabilia, the book is presented as a slipcased hardcover. Springsteen fans new and old can expect:A deep dive into how the album came together and why it is regarded as a masterpieceTrack-by-track analyses of the studio cut as well as insight into the many disregarded tracks and ideas leading up to its recordingHistorical insight and analysis about the state of rock in the mid-’70s and how Springsteen assembled a wildly talented group of musicians in the E Street BandThe story of the battle between Springsteen and Columbia Records after his previous albums failed to ignite the public’s passionAnd much, much moreThis display-worthy book is a must for every Bruce Tramp’s collection. The Great Albums series presents authoritative explorations of rock’s most revered records, beautifully packaged for fans to treasure. Delve into even more groundbreaking releases with: Pink Floyd and The Dark Side of the Moon, The Who & Quadrophenia, Prince and Purple Rain, and Queen & A Night at the Opera, with more to come.

When considered in a broader social context, The Clash stand as one of the most important musical acts in rock history. Original punks who transcended the music’s minimalist origins, The Clash lived and breathed the idea that they could change the world with their art. In The Clash: The Only Band That Mattered,respected music critic Sean Egan examines The Clash’s career and art through the prism of the uniquely interesting and fractious UK politics of the 1970s and ’80s, without which they simply would not have existed. Tackling such subjects as The Clash’s self-conscious tussles with their record label, the accusations of selling out that dogged their footsteps, their rivalry with the similarly leaning but less purist Jam, the paradoxical quality of their achieving multiplatinum success, and even whether their denunciations of Thatcherism were proven wrong, Egan has come up with new insights into a much discussed group. Clash fans, Clash haters, social historians, and political students will all find themselves entertained by his thought-provoking conclusions.

Planet of the Apes started life in 1963 as a quirky work by Pierre Boulle, the French literary novelist famous for The Bridge over the River Kwai. His concept of a world where humans are ruled over by apes proceeded to become one of the biggest multi-media sensations in history. The 1968 Charlton Heston motion-picture adaptation of Boulle's book was celebrated and successful but was just the beginning. By 1973, said picture had spawned four sequels. It then spun off a live-action TV series, which in turn spun off the animated TV show Return to the Planet of the Apes. With this, comic books, novelizations, and a tsunami of merchandising, the late '60s and first half of the '70s had a distinctly simian flavor. A new generation was introduced to the concept when, in 2001, Tim Burton's updating of the series appeared in cinemas. This itself was rebooted a decade later in the form of Rise of the Planet of the Apes and its two sequels. Yet despite all the fantasy (and money-chasing), the series has always been marked by thoughtfulness, exploring serious themes alien to most franchises. Planet of the Apes: The Complete History explores every aspect of this phenomenon—from books to films, comic books to television shows, and video games to merchandise—providing an overview that is truly definitive. With the help of new and exclusive interviews with Planet of the Apes producers, directors, writers, actors, and makeup artists, Sean Egan attempts to gain an understanding of how a media property changed the world.

Many have long found it difficult to take Rod Stewart seriously. However, once we get past the awkward stuff—leopard-skin leggings, bum-wiggling stage schticks, and a hairstyle unseemly for a man of his age—there remains the undeniable fact that the "Caledonian Cockney" is responsible for some of the greatest recordings ever made. Again and again, the combination of his heartwracked songs and gravelly, sensitive vocal delivery have conjured sonic magic. The bulk of Stewart's classic recordings were made in the 1970s. His string of albums for the Mercury label across the first half of that decade sent critics into raptures. His 1971 album Every Picture Tells a Story is considered by some of them to literally be the best album of all time. Said semi-decade also saw Stewart front the Faces, whose often likeably ramshackle albums gave his fans a double dose of their idol each year. On top of this are solo-Stewart classics that are neglected because he released them after a point where his increasingly outlandish image caused some of his original fans to disdain to any longer take him seriously. They include the splendid 1976 LP A Night on the Town and his peerless confessional love songs of 1977 "You're in My Heart (The Final Acclaim)" and "I Was Only Joking." All of this and more is the subject of Rod Stewart: The Classic Years.Sean Egan has interviewed at length many of Stewart's colleagues, collaborators, and cohabitees from the period, including musicians Micky Waller, Pete Sears, Ray Jackson, Ian McLagan, Kenney Jones, and Jim Cregan, recording engineer Mike Bobak, manager Billy Gaff, and Stewart's then-girlfriend and muse Dee Harrington. The result is a striking and evocative portrait of the most fecund and vital stage in the life and career of one of popular music's most important artists.

Take a stunning visual and narrative journey down the “dark desert highway” to explore the creation, legacy, and lasting cultural power of one of rock’s most iconic albums.A milestone celebration of rock history and myth, Eagles and Hotel California: 50 Years offers fans and scholars a richly illustrated and deeply reported look at the Eagles and their landmark 1976 album Hotel California. Alongside 200+ photos and images, including rare studio, stage, and on-the-road photography and band memorabilia, veteran rock historian Sean Egan delivers a fresh analysis, exploring:The tumultuous 1976–77 sessions at the Record Plant (LA) and Criteria Studios (Miami) that gave birth to the album.The songs that became generational anthems—“New Kid in Town,” “Life in the Fast Lane,” and the title track with its now-famous guitar duel—and their cultural resonance across rock radio and beyond. The casualties, the excesses, and the contradictions of the L.A./desert-state rock scene: the band’s internal fractures, the golden age of studios, the paparazzi glare, and the trade-off between art and commerce.How the album’s 50th-year legacy plays out today, and how the myth of the “Hotel” gets repurposed for new generations of fans.Presented in a giftable slipcased hardcover format, Eagles and Hotel California: 50 Years is a must-own book for enthusiasts of 1970s rock, delivering an in-depth glimpse into one of the most revered albums of all time and a reading experience that fuses music history with pop-culture myth-making.The Great Albums series presents authoritative explorations of rock’s most revered records, beautifully packaged for fans to treasure. Delve into even more groundbreaking releases with: Pink Floyd and The Dark Side of the Moon, Bruce Springsteen and Born to Run, Prince and Purple Rain, Queen & A Night at the Opera, Run-DMC and Raising Hell, The Who & Quadrophenia, Beastie Boys and Licensed to Ill, and Fleetwood Mac and Rumours … with more to come!

Are you enamored with instant messaging? Would you like to learn how to create your own messaging application? This book shows you how, by dissecting Gaim—the world's most popular open source instant messaging application. Authored by the Gaim maintainer, Sean Egan, you are presented with a thorough overview of Gaim architecture and application programming interface.You'll learn how to make the most of the popular GTK+ graphical user interface toolkit. Egan guides you through the creation and installation of plug-ins, and discusses strategies involved in supporting messaging protocols like MSN Messenger, AIM and IRC. He also covers topics such as multi-platform support and internationalization.

The year 1979 was a seminal watershed moment in rock music. The year saw the release of Pink Floyd's The Wall, David Bowie's Lodger, Led Zeppelin's In Through the Out Door, Bob Dylan's Slow Train Coming, Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, Elvis Costello and the Attractions' Armed Forces, Joe Jackson's Look Sharp! and I'm the Man, Stiff Little Fingers' Inflammable Material, Gary Numan/Tubeway Army's Replicas and the Pleasure Principle, Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, the Jam's Setting Sons,the Clash's London Calling, and the UK 2-Tone phenomenon. It also saw a slump in album sales, a resurgence in single sales, and the peak and bloody death of disco. Now, with the help of new and exclusive interviews with artists and producers, New Waves, Old Hands, and Unknown Pleasures tells the varied, vibrant, and often unexamined story of popular music in 1979. It reveals the stories behind key recordings, traces the trajectories of commercial and artistic successes, and explains the musical and socio-political context behind the sounds of the day.

'The greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world!'This vainglorious introduction given to The Rolling Stones on stage by an excitable roadie was almost immediately accepted as a simple statement of fact. It was already evident that Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Co. were, as their first manager Andrew Loog Oldham had claimed, 'a way of life'.The Stones' defiance of convention made them the figureheads of a questioning new generation, and drove the Establishment to imprison them. This enduring rebel aura and the unmistakeable craft evident in classic records such as Satisfaction, Honky Tonk Women and Brown Sugar ensured subsequent generations of diehard fans, establishing the band as the biggest box office attraction the world has ever seen.The Mammoth Book of The Rolling Stones provides a comprehensive collection of reviews, analysis, interviews and exposés - both archive and contemporary, favourable and critical, concise and epic - of these extraordinary cultural icons as they pass the astonishing milestone of 50 years as rock's pre-eminent band.

The iconic life and career of the famed guitarist of the Rolling Stones is detailed in this compilation of interviews that spans the last 50 years. Featuring articles from GQ, Melody Maker, and Rolling Stone, as well as interviews that have never previously appeared in print, it charts Keith Richards's journey from gauche, young pretender and swaggering epitome of the zeitgeist to beloved elder statesman of rock. Initially overshadowed by band mates Mick Jagger and Brian Jones, Richards gained popularity as half of the second-most important songwriting team of the 1960s, and in 1967 the drug bust at his house and his subsequent trial and imprisonment made him a household name. His interviews match his outlaw image: free of banality and euphemism, they revel in frank stories of drugs and debauchery. Yet they also reveal an unexpectedly warm, unpretentious, articulate, and honest man. This collection amply illustrates the magic and charm of Keith Richards.

Over 30 landmark interviews, accounts, and memoirs of The Beatles and their entourage, recording how they inadvertently became counter-culture's figureheads and changed society.The pieces include Paul Johnson's 'The Menace of Beatlism', Maureen Cleave's 'Beatles Bigger than Christ' feature, the News of the World feature suggesting The Beatles were spent forces - just before they unleashed Sergeant Pepper on the world - interviews with their entourage and main loves; plus latter-day contributions from the likes of Paul Gambacinni, Dave Marsh, Greil Marcus.Also included is a chronological tracing of each Beatles album and single, and analysis of all Beatles movie releases and television appearances.

Bob Dylan's impact on popular music has been incalculable. Having transformed staid folk music into a vehicle for coruscating social commentary, he then swept away the romantic platitudes of rock 'n' roll with his searing intellect.From the zeitgeist-encapsulating protest of 'Blowin' in the Wind' to the streetwise venom of 'Like a Rolling Stone', and from the stunning mid-sixties trilogy of albums - Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde - to Time Out of Mind, his stunning if world-weary comeback at the age of 56, Dylan's genius has endured, underpinned by the dazzling turn of phrase that has made him the pre-eminent poet of popular music.Because Dylan's achievements have no equal, his career is the most chronicled in rock history. Here, Sean Egan presents a selection of the best writing on Dylan, both praise and criticism. Interviews, essays, features and reviews from Dylan intimates and scholars such as John Bauldie, Michael Gray, Nat Hentoff and Jules Siegel are interspersed with new narrative and reviews of every single album to create a comprehensive picture of the artist whose chimes of freedom still resound.

During the 1960s -- a juncture in history when music was the meeting place for the ideas of the young and questioning -- Bob Dylan stood head and shoulders in influence above all others. In telling the story of his first calendar decade as a recording artist, Decade Of Dissent provides a unique angle on an endlessly fascinating and truly peerless career. Dylan s 60s recordings constitute a dizzying run that includes such landmark albums as The Freewheelin Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde On Blonde, the so-called Basement Tapes , and John Wesley Harding, and such classic songs as Blowin In The Wind , The Times They Are A-Changin , Mr. Tambourine Man , Like A Rolling Stone , Just Like A Woman , Quinn The Eskimo , All Along The Watchtower , and Lay Lady Lay . They set the template for his genius and encompass the bulk of his greatest work. The career arc they collectively describe saw Dylan effortlessly and repeatedly instigate revolution, by turns reinvigorating folk music, turning protest song mainstream, bringing the intellectualism and social conscience of folk to rock and pop, reasserting roots music over the excesses of psychedelia, and making country music respectable. Through each of his new identities, Dylan s dazzling lyrics established him as the poet laureate of the counterculture. All during this time he was engaged in a personal voyage that saw him first embrace the blandishments of fame and then emphatically reject them. His journey during this era from ambitious nobody to cultural icon back to willing background figure makes for one of the most extraordinary narratives in the history of recorded music. It features a fascinating supporting cast of collaborators and peers, from Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield to The Beatles and The Byrds. Dylan now occupies an unparalleled role as venerated elder statesman of music, but through the twists and turns of his long career he has never quite regained the position he held during his insurrectionary first decade, when he was the most important artist in popular music -- and, by extension, one of the most crucial figures in Western society. Drawing on exclusive interviews and packed full of fresh insights, Decade Of Dissent brings to life Dylan and his milieu at the point when he was making music that was not merely aesthetically magnificent but sociologically earthshaking.