With a foreword by none other than Dick Dale. Crammed with black-and-white photos of 45 rpm record labels and LP covers circa 1961 to 1965, and lots of posters too. Discover bands with names like: Bobsled and the Toboggans, Surf Bunnies, Eddie and the Showmen, Goldfinger Girls, the Daiquiris, etc. Lists hundreds of bands with a paragraph or so about the outstanding ones (marked by a little surfboard icon). Index alone is 50 pages. DW

Publisher: Popular Culture Ink
Hardback: 286 pages
Illustrated

Snapshots and press clippings follow the Hound Dog Man from ‘55 to ‘57. Detroit: “An atomic explosion of juvenile emotion hit the Fox Theater last night. It was triggered by Elvis Presley, the singer with the profile of a Greek god and the motions of a Gilda Gray, who is the current sensation of the rock ‘n ‘roll business… The guitar seldom got twanged, because Elvis was too busy flexing his knees and swinging his thighs like a soubrette in the palmy days of burlesque.” Jacksonville: “The teen-age rock ‘n’ roll idol, who was advised before his first show here to ‘keep it clean’ or face court charges, met with local Juvenile Court Judge Marion Gooding after the opening performance and was warned sternly to remove the objectionable hip movements from the act.” Vancouver: “One could call it subsidized sex… It was disgraceful, the whole mess.” Tacoma: “I certainly don’t mean to be vulgar when I wiggle my hips during a song. It’s just my way of expressing my inner emotions.” A fresh look at the first years. GR

Publisher: Popular Culture Ink
Hardback: 200 pages
Illustrated

Flipping through this alphabetical guide to TV theme music can be a mind-wrenching experience for the dedicated vinyl wiseguy. Some of the greatest music of the 20th century was recorded to accompany the mass worship of the “eye of hell”—Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn Theme,” Nelson Riddle’s “Route 66,” Neil Diamond’s “I’m A Believer,” The Ventures’ “Hawaii Five-O Theme” and Lalo Schifrin’s “Mission: Impossible Theme,” to name but a few—but what about “Kaptain Kool and the Kongs,” “Makin’ It,” “The New Zoo Revue” and “H.R. Pufnstuf”? Yes, they’re all here too-annotated, price-coded, and waiting for your disposable income. SS

Publisher: Popular Culture Ink
Hardback: 332 pages
Illustrated

The timing was right. Paul had been spending all his time with his just-increased family and not doing interviews to keep himself in the press. Deep into the religion of British rock, American college students were on acid and ready for a new post-Kennedy conspiracy to sink their teeth into. So when “Tom” called a Detroit rock-talk radio show and repeated an old British rumor that the cute Beatle had been killed in a car wreck and replaced with a look-alike and that the Beatles had planted “clues” all over their songs and record covers, a college newspaper reporter heard this and ran a hoax story about the “tragedy” (years in advance of Negativland’s ax murder hoax!), and something clicked. Every wire service ran the “story,” and “backward masking” was upon us forever. With feet completely on the ground, the book sensibly follows how the rumor spread and then looks at and debunks the main “clues” in the legend. The obscure “John started it as revenge for the ‘bigger than Jesus’” debacle is enjoyably mentioned—and in the book’s only nod toward conspiracy, the author concludes most bizarrely by questioning rocker Terry Knight’s audience with Paul at Apple Corps UK, and Maclen Music’s subsequent song publishing of Knight’s Capitol Records 45 in the U.S. called “Saint Paul.” MS

Publisher: Popular Culture Ink
Hardback: 224 pages
Illustrated

Hot rod music from 1961 to 1965, with a massive amount of photos. Every page has some cool poster, 45 label or LP cover of that era. All the popular bands of the time are included: Jan and Dean, the Beach Boys, the Hondells, Davie Allen and the Arrows, et al.—as well as obscure favorites like Jekyll and Hyde’s “Dracula’s Drag” b/w “Frankenstein Meets the Beatles.” Contains a huge index and bitchin’ glossary of hot rod slang terms. This book illustrates the overlap of the surf and hot-rod genres. DW

Publisher: Popular Culture Ink
Hardback: 184 pages
Illustrated