Promotional Information

Intriguing stories of creative endeavour, volatile relationships, excessive lifestyles and bizarre events from the world of rock, as told by Hipgnosis co-founder, creative designer, photographer and filmmaker Aubrey Powell

Table of Contents

Preface – The Initial Spark
Syd Barrett – Laying Ghosts To Rest
Space Cowboys
Working With Animals – Dead Or Alive
One Giant Step – Led Zeppelin, Houses Of The Holy
Going Over To The Dark Side
Peter Gabriel – The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and Going It Alone
Paul McCartney – Venus And Mars
10cc – Life Is A Minestrone
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
Americana – A Brutal Landscape
The Grand Tour
Peter Grant – The Gatekeeper
If Pigs Could Fly – Pink Floyd, Animals
Moroccan Roll
On High With Paul McCartney
Miami Vice/Hawaii Versa – 10cc, Look Hear? (or: Are You Normal)
Tragedy – Barry Gibb
Designs That Slipped Through The Net
The Icing On The Cake – Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains

About the Author

Aubrey Powell co-founded the album cover design agency Hipgnosis with Storm Thorgerson in 1968. The company was at the vanguard of rock iconography, creating some of the most innovative and surreal record cover art of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Nominated five times for a Grammy Award, Hipgnosis created more than 400 album covers for many of the biggest rock bands of the era, including Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Paul McCartney. Powell is currently the Creative Director for Pink Floyd. He is the author of Hipgnosis Portraits and Vinyl • Album • Cover • Art, also published by Thames & Hudson.

Reviews

'Powell is an engaging raconteur' - Literary Review

'Brutally honest, entertaining and revealing insider stories' - Creative Review

'Gorgeously designed... Excess runs through most of these stories the way drugs flowed through the veins and lungs of the musicians back then' - New York Journal of Books

'Adventures in the golden age of the gatefold' - Uncut