The legendary Tom Waits ain’t what he appears to be. James Mann digs deep to find the mystery behind the man.

Pictures and anecdotes relive the heady days of the Fab Four on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg.

Matthew Moyer thinks Dave Thompson’s Patti Smith bio just might tide you over until Smith delivers on the promised second volume of her memoir.

Carl F Gauze slobbers over the juicy details of a rock star groupie’s Mad Men and LSD days.

James Mann feels this guy knows more about Bob Dylan than Robert Zimmerman. Is that a good thing?

Glenn Povey brings more facts about Pink Floyd than Carl F Gauze thinks you can shake a brick at.

Chris Catania finds that it’s taking longer than he thought to finish Qbadisc mastermind Ned Sublette’s new history of Cuban song - he keeps running to the record store mid-page for his fix. That’s the stuff.

Chris Catania , like Rock En Espanol’s author, Ernesto Lechner, was slow to warm up to the emerging sounds of the Latin alt-rock movement, but both now agree that the bands profiled in these pages hint strongly at the future of popular music.

At first glance, maybe it seems a little shocking that Clinton Heylin has temporarily abandoned the rock world to write about filmmaker Orson Welles, but after reading this book, Matthew Moyer wonders what took him so bloody long.

A field guide to all the odd contraptions along the road answers the urban explorer’s curiosity. With that and his trusty collector’s net, Carl F Gauze chases after the minutia of public transport’s infrastructure.

Where you heading, man? James MacLaren has nothing but praise for Elijah Wald’s tale of hitchhiking around the country. And of course he has a few things to say about hitchhiking myths and, hell, society in general.