Fred Armisen

`It s amazing that this style came to be. Can you imagine being a struggling musician back then? It must take an incredible amount of restraint to play that gently. Actor/comedian Fred Armisen, from his foreword to this book. Just what is `yacht rock, you ask? Perhaps the easiest description is: music that would not sound out of place being played while carousing aboard a yacht back in the good old days. But these songs were also some of the top pop gems of the 70s and 80s. And while some associate yacht rock s biggest songs with one-hit wonder artists, several of rock s most renowned artists fall under this category, too including Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Steely Dan, Hall and Oates, The Doobie Brothers, Toto, and more. By the early twenty-first century, yacht rock seemed to have become extinct until a comedic video series, simply titled Yacht Rock, went viral and introduced captain s hats and blazers to a whole new generation as well as the emergence of a popular cover band, the Yacht Rock Revue, and of course, Jimmy Fallon s on-air admiration of all things yacht rock. Now, yacht rock is one of the most celebrated `yesteryear styles of pop music, and has resonated with a new generation of musicians (including the Fred Armisen/Bill Hader led Blue Jean Committee and soul/funk/electronica crossover act Thundercat). But despite all the hoopla, there has never been a book that told the entire story of the genre. Until now. Featuring interviews with many of the heavy hitters of the genre, including John Oates, Kenny Loggins, and Don Felder, The Yacht Rock Book leaves no sail unturned. This is the definitive story of the yacht rock s creation, rise, chart-smashing success, fall, and stunning rebirth.

Finally, after all that waiting, The Future arrived in 1980. Ohio art-rockers Devo had plainly prepared with their 1979 second LP Duty Now for the Future, and now it was go time. Propelled by the new decade's high-tech, free-market, pre-AIDS promise, 1980's Freedom of Choice would rocket what Devo co-founder Gerald Casale calls his "alternate universe, hermetically sealed, alien band" both into the arms of the Earthlings and back to their home planet in one scenic trip. Before an artistic and commercial decline that resulted in a 20-year gap between Devo's last two studio records, Freedom of Choice made them curious, insurgent superstars, vindicated but ultimately betrayed by the birth of MTV. Their only platinum album represented the best of their unreplicable code: dead-serious tricksters, embracing conformity in order to destroy it with bullet-proof pop sensibility. Through first-hand accounts from the band and musical analysis set against an examination of new wave's emergence, the first-ever authorized book about Devo (with a foreword by Portlandia's Fred Armisen) explores the group's peak of success, when their hermetic seal cracked open to let in mainstream attention, a legion of new Devotees, and plenty of misunderstandings. "Freedom of Choice was the end of Devo innocence–it turned out to be the high point before the s***storm of a total cultural move to the right, the advent of AIDS, and the press starting to figure Devo out and think they had our number," says Casale. "It's where everything changes."

The companion cookbook to the hit show Portlandia by the Emmy-nominated stars and writers Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, with 50 delicious recipes for every food lover, freegan, organic farmer, and food truck diehard. Food plays a very special role in Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein's award-winning satire Portlandia and now you can cook the dishes that define the show, from cult-raised chicken and Stu's stews to pickled veggies and foraged green salads. Complete with full-color finished food photographs and illustrations, humorous stories and sidebars from the loveable food-obsessed Portlandia characters (such as Mr. Mayor, Peter and Nance, and Colin the chicken), and advice on how to choose a bed and breakfast and behave at a communal table, this is a funny cookbook--with serious recipes--for anyone who loves food. And yes, the chicken's local.