Sonic Cool

In the tradition of Nick Tosches, Tom Wolfe and Lester Bangs comes an epic and riveting history of rock and roll that reads like a novel. Sonic Cool presents the saga of rock and roll as the closest thing we have to genuine "myth" in the modern world, and it is the first book about rock to be written in the spirit of rock. Immense, fierce, opinionated and hilarious, Joe Harrington masterfully presents rock as a movement of near-religious proportions, against a backdrop of social factors and important events such as the invention of the guitar, the jukebox, LSD, the 12-inch phonograph record, the '70s recession, the Reagan Revolution, and the Internet. This is the history of rock as it's never been told, as the legend of a massive cultural movement, one that had meaning, but ultimately failed because it sold its soul. Radically egalitarian in its assessments - towering figures such as Lennon, Dylan and Cobain stand along side lesser-known but equally influential artists like the MC5, the Misfits and Joy Division - Sonic Cool is gripping reading for anyone who ever believed in the music. Includes a 16-page black-and-white photo insert.

PRAISE:
“…Harrington writes in an omniscient voice that requires a serious suspension of disbelief, though we have about as much reason to trust him as we do to listen to a burning bush without questioning whether it isn’t really those funny mushrooms talking.”
—Jim DeRogatis, author of Let it Blurt : The Life and Times of Lester Bangs

“[Harrington] has written the Rock version of A People’s History of the United States, taking the musical aristocracy down a notch or two, giving voice and credit to hundreds of artists and bands who lived and died under the radar.”
—Rain Taxi

“In the final chapter, titled ‘Post-Everything,’ Harrington builds to a head of steam worthy of Bill Hicks, cataloguing all the myriad ways that the revolution has been turned into just another McDonald’s hamburger.”
—Blastitude.com