As a teenager trapped in a small Florida town, Christopher R. Weingarten fell hard for Beastie Boys’ seminal 1986 album, Licensed To Ill. Blurring the line between a coming-of-age essay (where the fat kid moves to New York and finds redemption as a music critic) and an exploration of Beastie Boys’ influence on moving hip-hop into the public sphere, Every Day I Take a Wee aptly captures the impact of a beloved album on a music lover’s life.

Among the first group of titles offered in Rhino’s new Single Notes series of digital-only e-books is a study of the initial and ongoing influence of Chic.

Maybe Yo La Tengo never saw the commercial spikes enjoyed by a few of their peers over the years, but their storied longevity posits the trio as likely more worthy of a full bio than the many bands they saw flash and fade.

Given that it’s only been four years since Mark Oliver Everett published his memoir Things the Grandchildren Should Know, there must be a strong temptation to dismiss Tim Grierson’s new biography of Eels as superfluous. To do so though would be unfair, as Blinking Lights and Other Revelations offers a welcome objectivity that the autobiography by nature lacked.

In his new book, David Todd compiles interviews with 25 “alternative” guitarists, discussing their approach to music, their technique, and the vision they have for their instrument.

In her new memoir, Jessica Dorfman Jones, author of The Art of Cheating, delves further into the subject matter of what was Chapter 5 of her last book, the art of cheating on a significant other.

John Cummings, aka Johnny Ramone, was the brains behind the operation of The Ramones. To hear him tell it in his posthumous autobiography, he crafted the band’s image, molded the band’s sound, and handled its business affairs. Because of this, one expects a lot from Commando.

Stephen Dixon has a gift for revealing mundane environments as vibrant social microcosms. With that, it seems almost apropos that Dixon’s flown under the radar commercially for decades, though he’s always garnered respect in literary circles.

Electrical Banana is an exploration of psychedelic art of the 1960s. Its focus, however, is not on hippie culture and the West Coast California scene. Instead, Hathaway and Nadel hone in on international psychedelic artists that made a mark with their work.