Two music books YOU MUST OWN

I've been investing a little time and money in some music books lately, and if you have a look around you can find some great ones out there that I've never seen plugged in music mags or the like - Borders is particularly good for them, and that's where I bought both of these.

The first is simply called All Known Metal Bands. And that's literally all it is. A long list (on black paper, natch) of a lot of Metal bands.


It's thrown up some fascinating stats (if you like your metal-band name-based trivia). For instance, I bet you didn't know that there are 9 separate bands called Hate, and that doesn't include bands that start with the word hate, my favourite of which is Hatecrow. Not sure what the criteria for inclusion is (do you need to have released a record to get in? Or just be a bit evil and wear leather and/or studs a lot?), and also the selection process for the bands in it seems a little odd - Guns N' Roses aren't in there, but L.A. Guns are. Go figure.

But no sense complaining, it's already kept me amused for a good long while, and it looks like it's straight out of Mordor, as any piece of Metal nonsense should do. You can buy it for £12 here.

The second book is a wholly more uplifting experience. It's called Gig Posters (not Gay Posters as my friend mistakenly read), and has been put together by Gigposters.com. It contains shedloads of posters that can be detached from said book and framed - something I'm certain to do at some point. It's full of beautiful work and at £20 is a steal for that amount of art. There are dozens of greats in there, from artists as diverse as John Lee Hooker, Jurassic 5, Foo Fighters, Kanye West, Arctic Monkeys and Vampire Weekend, but below are three of my favourites. You can buy it here.