Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk

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As she nears her 80th birthday (April 24), Barbra Streisand remains a singular figure in American entertainment. Steven Blush's "definitive treatment of Hardcore Punk" (Los Angeles Times) changed the way we look at Punk Rock. McNeil and co-author Gillian McCain present their material in the form of interviews with a vast number of the people who were there on the front lines, experiencing and inventing the punk scene as it developed.

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the book is compiled entirely of excerpts from interviews with all the people who were involved in the New York punk scene. I see it as more of feeding off each other, they both used the same nihilistic anarchy and general fuck off feeling put out through simple but heavy guitar riffs. In any case, it's a great read, and anyone who cares at all about classic punk has doubtless read it already, or should have. Legs McNeil is the coauthor of "Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk", a book widely hailed as a classic of its kind.Thompson is roaring down the desert highway to Las Vegas with his attorney, the Samoan, to find the dark side of the American Dream. From its origins in the twilight years of Andy Warhol's New York reign to its last gasps as eighties corporate rock, the phenomenon known as punk is scrutinized, eulogized, and idealized by the people who were there and who made it happen. The best part by far -- and I wish I had my copy still, so I could quote directly -- was this desciption of Richard Hell, who'd rip all those holes in his shirt and then go around all moony-eyed and moaning, "Oh, poor me, my life is so hard, here I am, with all these holes in my shirt! Legs, even if you and your buddies did discover it (and personally I'd say Iggy got there before you did), that's all you did.

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Nicknamed "Resident Punk" in the magazine, McNeil claims (to much dispute) that he was the first person (along with co-founder John Holmstrom) to have coined the term " punk" to describe a certain type of music, fashion, and attitude. Added to which, this squabbling over what's 'real' punk and what isn't is just not seemly in a guy who must be pushing 60.

One of the best parts: several people are talking about how Jim Morrison was an 18-carat prick, and Ray Manzarek comes along saying, "Jim was a shaman. How the albums that came out were even remotely decent is shocking, much less as game changing as they were. By the mid-1970s, a true scene began to happen in New York City that would serve to galvanize and give a true voice to this disaffected generation, a scene that would take its cues directly from the violent and sleazy underground that it dwelled in. The Stooges got the IRS to stop bothering them about back taxes by explaining they were drug addicts and, therefore, bad with money.

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk

Ian McKaye has more "artistic integrity" in his little finger than the New York Dolls displayed in their entire career. What a marvelous way of writing history--we see how the outrageous stories collide and intersect; we get to "hear" the youthful energy and enthusiasm first-hand; we gain fresh insights into folks we thought we'd learned all about years ago. Finally in paperback, the story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan Eighties - when a small but sprawling network of bands, labels, fanzines, radio stations and other subversives re-energised American rock with punk rock's d-I-y credo and created music that was deeply personal, often brilliant, always challenging and immensely influential. So he comes and faces me and I look at him and he's a little taller than me, not much taller, but a little taller, and I say, "I like you. As corporate America began to swallow and repackage the '60s, some of the folks left behind by the peace and love generation began to vent their anger and shape a new vision.It was incredibly interesting, but less an "oral history of punk" and more of an oral history of the absolute sex and drugged fueled insanity that was NY/Detroit punk.