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4.24 AVERAGE
4.24 AVERAGE
so far everyone is mentioning how big patti smith's boobs are. did you know they are really big? I mean in comparison to her waify body. also iggy pop is amazing, lou reed sounds like he's attempting to be an enigmatic dick all the time, everyone hated nancy spungen.
I'm sure people will find the scope of this book to be way too narrow, but sticking with the same people made it that much better. spoiler alert: after spending about 350 pages with these people, they start dying off. and not just from drug overdoses.
No Thanks! is the box set you should listen to before/during/after this book.
I'm sure people will find the scope of this book to be way too narrow, but sticking with the same people made it that much better. spoiler alert: after spending about 350 pages with these people, they start dying off. and not just from drug overdoses.
No Thanks! is the box set you should listen to before/during/after this book.
It’s time for a music test.
Name your top-five rock bands. Here are mine:
The Rolling Stones
The Velvet Underground
Jonathan Richman/The Modern Lovers
Joy Division/New Order
The Clash
Notice: My bands were rocking before 1980.
Now compare my list to yours.
Any similarities?
If your bands were also rocking before 1980, congratulations! You have an important quality we Gen-Xers call soul.
If your list was tripped up by post-1980 performers like Michael Jackson, Nine Inch Nails, The Beastie Boys, or Jay-Z, it’s understandable, even possible, hope for you is not lost and your musical proclivities might still be intact.
After all, we Gen-Xers who grew up relatively un-parented riding around construction sites on BMX bikes aren’t too judgmental, at least when it comes to those born after us who were ‘overly-loved,’ coddled and nurtured, and yet were still somehow raised by electronic devices with the world at their fingertips that made them suffer a lack of taste.
How could we be judgmental? My generation had to learn everything by ourselves, through trial and error — including the value of digging up old dusty albums at record stores, as well as discovering there are exceptions to every rule.
So, although artists like Michael Jackson or Nine Inch Nails or The Beastie Boyz of Jay-Z do not qualify as rock bands, per se, the King of Pop and others of his kind that followed after him in the 1980s have a unique sound – even groove, I dare say – that makes them outstanding and in a league of their own, perhaps, even if they technically do not qualify to be on your top-five rock list.
However, if most of your top-five bands were not performing at their peak prior to 1980, then I am here to tell you that you still have serious living, and learning, to do; and if they included names like New Kids on the Block, One Direction or Nickelback, then forget it: I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do to redeem your soul.
But for the majority of you who failed to prove cool you are with your band picks and simply need an adjustment to your education, I have a solution. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored History of Punk, is an amazing assortment of interviews from the most talented musicians to emerge from the post-hippy, fuck-you scene of New York and London in the 1960s and ’70s.
If you read this book, I you’ll get up to speed in a heartbeat on the greatest angst-ridden tunes of my (therefore your) generation — even if it might be true that your poor, sad self – tragically born in the wrong century — still doesn’t know who or what the hell I’m talking about…yet.
As for me and my fellow Gen-Xers already resigned to a broader and more historical view of American culture, my only regret reading Please Kill Me was that it felt too nostalgic, too close to home.
The insanity of these bands, their rise and fall, fueled by their volatile youth, battered egos, and staggering capacity for excess was just a little too reminiscent of being in my twenties again, traipsing around Hollywood, again, and hanging out with my buddies at their shows…again…except, of course, those featured in this collection managed to get paid for their awfully wonderful music they made.
Not so for my friends or the vast majority of artists I know, and why many choose to stop playing once the passion fades. Life and its demands get in the way.
Still, it’s like Please Kill Me author Legs McNeil said, “What was great about the scene was that people’s curiosity seemed stronger than their fear.”
You only live once, so get off the couch and keep rocking, peeps.
Name your top-five rock bands. Here are mine:
The Rolling Stones
The Velvet Underground
Jonathan Richman/The Modern Lovers
Joy Division/New Order
The Clash
Notice: My bands were rocking before 1980.
Now compare my list to yours.
Any similarities?
If your bands were also rocking before 1980, congratulations! You have an important quality we Gen-Xers call soul.
If your list was tripped up by post-1980 performers like Michael Jackson, Nine Inch Nails, The Beastie Boys, or Jay-Z, it’s understandable, even possible, hope for you is not lost and your musical proclivities might still be intact.
After all, we Gen-Xers who grew up relatively un-parented riding around construction sites on BMX bikes aren’t too judgmental, at least when it comes to those born after us who were ‘overly-loved,’ coddled and nurtured, and yet were still somehow raised by electronic devices with the world at their fingertips that made them suffer a lack of taste.
How could we be judgmental? My generation had to learn everything by ourselves, through trial and error — including the value of digging up old dusty albums at record stores, as well as discovering there are exceptions to every rule.
So, although artists like Michael Jackson or Nine Inch Nails or The Beastie Boyz of Jay-Z do not qualify as rock bands, per se, the King of Pop and others of his kind that followed after him in the 1980s have a unique sound – even groove, I dare say – that makes them outstanding and in a league of their own, perhaps, even if they technically do not qualify to be on your top-five rock list.
However, if most of your top-five bands were not performing at their peak prior to 1980, then I am here to tell you that you still have serious living, and learning, to do; and if they included names like New Kids on the Block, One Direction or Nickelback, then forget it: I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do to redeem your soul.
But for the majority of you who failed to prove cool you are with your band picks and simply need an adjustment to your education, I have a solution. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored History of Punk, is an amazing assortment of interviews from the most talented musicians to emerge from the post-hippy, fuck-you scene of New York and London in the 1960s and ’70s.
If you read this book, I you’ll get up to speed in a heartbeat on the greatest angst-ridden tunes of my (therefore your) generation — even if it might be true that your poor, sad self – tragically born in the wrong century — still doesn’t know who or what the hell I’m talking about…yet.
As for me and my fellow Gen-Xers already resigned to a broader and more historical view of American culture, my only regret reading Please Kill Me was that it felt too nostalgic, too close to home.
The insanity of these bands, their rise and fall, fueled by their volatile youth, battered egos, and staggering capacity for excess was just a little too reminiscent of being in my twenties again, traipsing around Hollywood, again, and hanging out with my buddies at their shows…again…except, of course, those featured in this collection managed to get paid for their awfully wonderful music they made.
Not so for my friends or the vast majority of artists I know, and why many choose to stop playing once the passion fades. Life and its demands get in the way.
Still, it’s like Please Kill Me author Legs McNeil said, “What was great about the scene was that people’s curiosity seemed stronger than their fear.”
You only live once, so get off the couch and keep rocking, peeps.
Early punk rockers did insane amounts of drugs, have good stories, and are about exactly as insightful as you'd suspect them to be.
Never gripped me, even though i wanted it to - i made it a quarter of the way through and disliked everyone.
Probably 3.5. Many things to think thru in this book, but they boil down to the following:
1. Nihilism is a sandy foundation for a movement, with a limited viability.
2. Unhappy people + drugs = unhappy people and/or dead unhappy people
3. Lou Reed was always an asshole.
4. The people who come across best in this book are the people who got out as quickly as possible.
5. This is an INCREDIBLY compelling book, as evidenced by the fact that I read it in 3 weeks, even as I found almost no one in it to be someone I was rooting for, or, given the chance, someone I would want to spend any time with.
1. Nihilism is a sandy foundation for a movement, with a limited viability.
2. Unhappy people + drugs = unhappy people and/or dead unhappy people
3. Lou Reed was always an asshole.
4. The people who come across best in this book are the people who got out as quickly as possible.
5. This is an INCREDIBLY compelling book, as evidenced by the fact that I read it in 3 weeks, even as I found almost no one in it to be someone I was rooting for, or, given the chance, someone I would want to spend any time with.
A well-assembled oral history with lots of interesting information. A great object lesson in how sometimes learning more the iconoclasts of the past makes them look much worse in retrospect. There is no way to excuse this bunch of Nazi-fetishizing, racist, sexist, douchebags (inclusive of the women and men). Anyone who thinks punk rock was founded on a progressive social justice attitude needs to read this. There are a lot of things to appreciate about the music these folks produced, and the way in which they opened doors for more truly revolutionary ideas to come through.
To me, one of the most telling illustrations of what I mean is the ongoing narrative about how Malcolm McLaren pushed the New York Dolls into "fake communist" outfits and pagentry. So many of the interviewees are upset about infusing politics into the music and making the Dolls look "queer" and Communist at the same time. However, they all happily dressed themselves up in Nazi memorabilia and swastika t-shirts. It was so prevalent that I started noting every time somebody talked affectionately about having or producing some Nazi-related item. It is very clear: "gay and commie" was bad; "straight hedonistic Nazi" was good.
I'm glad times have changed. I can enjoy a lot of the music from this era and appreciate how it led to music and artists who continue to push the boundaries of social acceptance and who have broadened the mandate of punk rock to include social justice. In the end, it is all just rock and roll. It's not meant to be your mom and dad.
To me, one of the most telling illustrations of what I mean is the ongoing narrative about how Malcolm McLaren pushed the New York Dolls into "fake communist" outfits and pagentry. So many of the interviewees are upset about infusing politics into the music and making the Dolls look "queer" and Communist at the same time. However, they all happily dressed themselves up in Nazi memorabilia and swastika t-shirts. It was so prevalent that I started noting every time somebody talked affectionately about having or producing some Nazi-related item. It is very clear: "gay and commie" was bad; "straight hedonistic Nazi" was good.
I'm glad times have changed. I can enjoy a lot of the music from this era and appreciate how it led to music and artists who continue to push the boundaries of social acceptance and who have broadened the mandate of punk rock to include social justice. In the end, it is all just rock and roll. It's not meant to be your mom and dad.
Exquisitely trashy, compellingly readable and RE-readable, and barely about the music at all. As the late Johnny Thunders once said, "Rock and roll is about attitude. You don't have to play the best guitar." Fucking-a, brother. And that could just as easily have been said about this book. Thrills, chills, spills, lotsa laffs and PLENTY nasty noise.
LOVE this book (for obvious reasons). Great history of punk rock by two guys who were there!
medium-paced