@danielrachel.bsky.social
Musician-turned-Award Winning Author
To mark the launch of his powerful, timely new book THIS AIN'T ROCK N ROLL, award-winning author @danielrachel.bsky.social has a series of events lined up including an unmissable Rough Trade East date with @billybragg.bsky.social + @msmirandasawyer.bsky.social
Mon 24 Nov: dice.fm/partner/dice...
Paperback copy of The Lost Album of The Beatles by Daniel Rachel lying on a wooden table. The cover features the subtitle “What if the Beatles hadn’t split up?” with the word “Beatles” in colourful, blocky letters. Below is a photo of the four Beatles dressed in bright 1970s outfits, posing playfully with raised fists.
What if the Beatles hadn’t split up but took their late stage conflicts and turned them into one more album?
Part history; part reality-informed fantasy. Beatles fans should enjoy how @danielrachel.bsky.social compiles the Lost Album of the Beatles.
#NowReading
THIS AIN'T ROCK 'N' ROLL Billy Bragg!
To celebrate the publication of my new book about Pop Music, the Swastika & the Third Reich
Join lively conversation w/anti-fascist activist
@billybragg.bsky.social
Moderated by esteemed journalist Miranda Sawyer
@roughtrade1976.bsky.social
24.11.25
Some thoughts on 'This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll' by @danielrachel.bsky.social due out next month through @whiterabbitbks.bsky.social
A thread 1/9
A vital, chilling, and impactful documentation of pop music’s incessant obsession with Nazism and the culture's willingness to look the other way...
SOME MIGHT SAY....COOL BRITANNIA IS BACK....
I'll be discussing Then & Now on BBC World Service Sunday 8.30am
Buy the current Amazon No.1 Bestseller
Don't Look Back in Anger: the Rise & Fall of Cool Britannia
www.amazon.co.uk/.../14091807...
#Oasis #coolbritannia #liamgallagher
Our friends @waterstones.bsky.social are running 25% off online pre-orders for some of our upcoming gems...
Use code SUMMER25 for money off the Manics, Elvis, Curepedia and more: www.waterstones.com/campaign/jul...
@danielrachel.bsky.social @simonprice.bsky.social @keithcameron2.bsky.social
"The decade exploded because of the desperation and repression creative people felt and engineered into their work," Rachel added. "We may be living through a similar pattern of events, particularly with the troubling rise of rightwing rhetoric across the globe, but if Cool Britannia is to be repeated the seeds will not be found in glossy Netflix-commissioned sitcoms or attention-grabbing social media influencers. "They will be bubbling in the underfunded, underpaid, backstreets of the UK where our country's greatest artists have always risen from."
Reading a breathless - and nonsensical - story in the Guardian about the return of 90s Cool Britannia, when @danielrachel.bsky.social offers an excellent counterpoint:
20.07.2025 15:44 — 👍 23 🔁 4 💬 2 📌 0
A Great Night in the House of Fun!
A Madness film premiere & 2 Tone chatter.
Thank you to everybody who came to Rock 'n' Roll Book Club at The Ivy House
Too Much Too Young: The 2 Tone Records Story
geni.us/TooMuchTooYo...?
Author @danielrachel.bsky.social new book provides a much-needed critical examination of pop music's relationship with fascism, shedding new light on an urgent subject
Join Daniel in conversation at #Louder2025 Sat 15th Nov, 8pm @innsideuk #Manchester
All tickets: tinyurl.com/28rp8r9b
Night boat to Nunhead anyone? www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2-tone-nig...
07.07.2025 11:38 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
HELLO! GOOD TO BE BACK!
To celebrate their return to the live stage
ISLE OF NOISES Without doubt the finest book I've read about songwriters-Noel Gallagher
DONT LOOK BACK IN ANGER 'The tumult, the triumph & the toilery of the 90s-Shaun Keaveny
OASIS: KNEBWORTH-The Sunday Times Bestseller
#Oasis
IT'S MADNESS...A UK PREMIERE!
Come & join the Nutty Boys for the British premiere of Prince of Ska, Kings of Pop feat Suggs, Bedders, Lynval Golding, Rhoda Dakar: one of the country's greatest ever singles' band
2 Tone Night w/Daniel Rachel
Thu 17 Jul
#madness #2tone #suggs #toomuchtooyoung
Yes, click on box in bottom corner that says Version. Chose, English - enjoy!
18.06.2025 11:07 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
PRINCE OF SKA, KING OF POP!
I'm really thrilled to have contributed (and worked as consultant) on this documentary about Madness starring Suggs, Bedders, Clive Langer, Dave Robinson, Rhoda Dakar , Lynval Golding and more!
www.arte.tv/fr/videos/12...
An Evening With:
My first chance to discuss This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll' leads to conversation with Lee Brackstone about The Beatles, Joy Division &Sid Vicious!
Thank you for a great evening
@whiterabbitbks.bsky.social
@wnbooks.bsky.social
@thesociallondon.bsky.social
geni.us/ThisAintRock...
We're part of this literary showcase on Monday night
@thesociallondon.bsky.social, with some top author readings alongside our imprint siblings @wnbooks.bsky.social and Phoenix.
Very limited FREE tickets from thesocial.seetickets.com/event/white-...
Would love to see you there...
‘This has been a tremendously difficult book to write. But I believe necessary. As a teenage music fan, I struggled to reconcile rock ’n’ roll’s rebellious attitude with my understanding of the horrors committed by the Third Reich. The swastika links both as an emblem of Nazi oppression but also a leitmotif for rock ’n’ roll defiance. Today, the global rise of fascism challenges the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Axis powers in the Second World War. If rock ’n’ roll is to remain at the vanguard of the revolutionary spirit it needs to confront its shortcomings, stand against persecution, and address its historical failings.’ Daniel Rachel
‘Rock ‘n’ roll is an artform born out of rebellion, a primal urge towards transgression, and unfortunately (sometimes) an arch-stupidity which has seen its most prominent architects indulge iconography that now, more than ever, feels troubling and baffling. This Ain’t Rock ‘n’ Roll is a historical account of how Nazi imagery has infected and influenced popular music from the schoolboy preoccupations of John Lennon to certain contemporary hip hop artists. For almost seventy years the most venerated musicians and performers on the planet have flirted with the dubious and delirious aesthetics of fascism; in this book Daniel Rachel, a writer acclaimed for books which celebrate rock’s resistance to racism, asks why and how this happened, drawing together all the various threads in a parallel history which maps rock ‘n’ roll against the crimes of the Third Reich.’ Lee Brackstone
Here's @danielrachel.bsky.social and WR publisher
Lee Brackstone explaining more about why THIS AIN'T ROCK 'N' ROLL is such a necessary book on a challenging subject.
geni.us/ThisAintRock...
The new book from @danielrachel.bsky.social, THIS AIN'T ROCK 'N' ROLL, is a meticulously researched and sensitively told history of pop music’s enduring and problematic fascination with fascism.
Out this October, with an introduction from @billybragg.bsky.social geni.us/ThisAintRock...
DANIEL RACHEL
This Ain’t Rock ‘n’ Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika, & the Third Reich
*Signed* Hardback
Preorder: www.resident-music.com/productdetai...
A sadly prescient, shocking, & absorbing account of pop music's complicated history with fascism
@whiterabbitbks.bsky.social
@danielrachel.bsky.social
I'm super excited to announce my new book:
THIS AIN'T ROCK 'N' ROLL
Pop Music, the Swastika & the Third Reich
'A shocking and absorbing chronological account of pop music’s complicated history with fascism & the imagery surrounding it'
30.10.25
geni.us/ThisAintRock...
ON MY TELEVISION!
A cameo appearance in a great documentary...
Tonight on Sky Arts, 9pm: @paulineblack.bsky.social : A 2 Tone Story
#theselecter #paulineblack #2tone
Absolutely. The late 70’s/80’s probably lent it itself to more political and Economics in songs.
“Walls Come Tumbling Down’ by @danielrachel.bsky.social is a Fanta book. Also his one on Two Tone is brilliant
VIA VENEZIA!
A 2-minute 2-Tone film from Italy...with dancing, debating and destruction!
To celebrate the Italian publication of Too Much Too Young: The 2 Tone Records Story
#ska #reggae #2Tone #thespecials #theselecter #madness #theBeat
"Terry Hall’s vocals were often recorded in two separate takes, one bored and one angry, then mixed together ... They embody the small-town feeling of stretches of boredom shattered by sudden violence." Ian Penman on @danielrachel.bsky.social's Too Much Too Young. harpers.org/archive/2025...
27.02.2025 17:06 — 👍 9 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
The Story of The Riverboat Song
...a taster of what's in One For the Road: the Life & Lyrics of Simon Fowler & Ocean Colour Scene
www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...
'Astute and thorough'
AN UNSTOPPABLE MARCH
A wonderful feature on Too Much Too Young: the 2 Tone Records Story in Harper's Magazine
Forthcoming Events
14 March - Venice, Italy
15 March - Padova, Italy
#2tone #Reggae #ska #thespecials
WHEN IN ROME!
Talks and DJ sets in Rome & Bologna!
Thank you Robertò Hellnation , Crombie Media and everyone who came to celebrate the Italian publication of Too Much Too Young
#TooMuchTooYoung #ska #2Tone #reggae #thespecials
I'm absolutely thrilled to have made the @roughtraderecords.bsky.social NYC
Books Of The Year.
blog.roughtrade.com/us/us-books-...
