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Notes: Calling all parents lost in Kids Book Land! Gabba Gabba, We Accept You is a children's picture book telling the story of a misfit kid who grew up to be a punk rock hero. The challenging times that Jeffrey Ross Hyman endured before becoming Joey Ramone speak to young folks navigating the complexities of growing up, via teachable punk stuff: being your own person with your own compass, embracing uniqueness, etc. Jay Ruttenberg & Lucinda Schreiber light the tale righteously with plain-spoken language, lyrical design and colorful illustrations, finding unexpected depths on every page.

About the inspiration for this book, Jay says,

"My daughter just turned 11, so I've spent recent years in children's book land. I think I've read her 97 books about Abraham Lincoln and 12,984 about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It occurred to me that a lot of the life lessons I've been trying to teach her weren't learned through my family or school, but through punk stuff: the importance of being your own person, following your own radar instead of a group's, embracing uniqueness, etc. The Ramones, and in particular Joey, seemed like the perfect embodiment of that. So my big hope for the book is that it tells the story of Joey Ramone, but also, in kind of the biggest way, of what punk rock means, and how it might help a little kid wade through difficult social waters and be their own unique person."

Gabba Gabba We Accept You speaks in well-grounded and wise verbal and visual language to inform and affirm children - young ones and the adult children alike - that their individual personalities have an inspired and inspiring place in the world. In the process of becoming and being a person, there's no one set of rules. The sooner we all know that, the sooner we'll find ourselves in a much better place.

Notes: On September 18, 2016, Keith Robinson, a pioneering figure in the free party scene, tragically lost his life in the River Thames. To say Keith lived an eventful life would be an understatement. In 2011 he started writing his autobiography and involvement with the Desert Storm Sound System but never completed it. It's taken this long - and lots of hurdles to overcome - to bring Keith's story to the world.

Take No Prisoners: The Desert Storm Sound System Story covers his childhood and first forays into parties (and brushes with the law) in Glasgow, the infamous trips to Bosnia during the Balkans conflict, the anti-Criminal Justice Bill and Reclaim The Streets demos in Trafalgar Square, joining the army and serving in Afghanistan. The book also contains many photos from Keith's life, a foreword by Matthew Collin (author of Dream Machines, Rave On and Altered State) and an epilogue written by Ray Philp (Red Bull Music Academy).

Keith Robinson, known affectionately to his friends as 'Keef', was the founder and driving force behind Desert Storm Sound System from its early days putting on the first free parties in Glasgow and the West of Scotland through to his place at the forefront of the fight against 1994's Criminal Justice Act and the Reclaim the Streets Campaign, and on to his amazing journey to Bosnia in 1995.

Over the 25 years of his involvement in the free party and techno scenes, Keef inspired and influenced so many people across Europe. His organisational skills were almost as legendary as his capacity for decadent levels of partying, but he was also very much an innovator and someone determined to bring a sense of social conscience to what was often a purely hedonistic scene.

At the time of his death, Keith was in the process of having his life and experiences turned into a book from his often manic notes. It's taken nearly nine years but it's worth the wait. His story needs to be recorded for posterity, to remember the many moments of joy and happiness he brought to friends and acquaintances, and to stand as an inspiration to a new generation.

Notes: In the mid-nineties, documentarian Peter Spirer embarked on a three-year odyssey to offer a realistic view of Hip-Hop and the people and culture it encompassed, interviewing over 80 artists involved in the art form. Spirer managed to capture a seminal moment as the culture balanced on the cusp of the mainstream. As Ice-T comments in his foreword to the book, 'Rhyme & Reason is one of the few films that was there to document us before Hip-Hop truly exploded.' While filming, Spirer took accompanying stills using a medium format Rolleiflex camera. It is these photographs that form The Book Of Rhyme & Reason. 'The Rollei allowed me to capture some amazing moments: Puffy getting a trim in his office while doing three tasks at once, Biggie opening record plaques on his couch, Ice-T and Mack 10 hanging with their homies, Heavy D at the barber, playing pool. There was the Jack The Rapper convention with Death Row making a statement, at a Disney World Hotel, that ended in chaos. There were magical moments such as Redman and Erick Sermon freestyling on the mic to amazed onlookers at a block party in Newark and watching Wu-Tang Clan chop it up on the block in Staten Island on a cold winter's day before they exploded.'

This coffee table volume features over 130 of Spirer's photographs from 1994 to 1997. As Hip-Hop commemorates its fiftieth anniversary in 2023, it is particularly fitting that many of these images from this formative period are being seen and published for the first time.

Hardback Book, 224 pages with over 300 illustrations
275mm x 230mm x 25mm
Weight: 1.5kg