Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (An Evergreen book)

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (An Evergreen book) | Legs McNeil, Gillian McCain | As authentic as it gets.......a riveting roller-coaster of a read

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Please Kill Me: Th...

	Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (An Evergreen book) Legs McNeil, Gillian McCain Grove Press, 2006 - 488 pages average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Time Out and New York Daily News Top Ten Book of the Year upon its release, Please Kill Me brings the sound of the punk generation to life. Iggy Pop, Danny Fields, Dee Dee and Joey Ramone, Nico, Patti Smith, and scores of other famous and infamous punk figures lend their voices to this definitive account of that outrageous, explosive era. From its origins in the twilight years of Andy Warhol's New York reign to its last gasps as eighties corporate rock, the phenomenon that was known as punk is scrutinized, eulogized, and idealized by the people who were there and who made it happen.

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A Must Have for Every Punk Enthusiast!

Legs McNeil lived the punk life in the seventies and eighties in NYC. He published a fanzine called "Punk" and was a definite part of the scene. This historical books tells all about the beginnings and ends of the Velvet Underground,Iggy, the New York Dolls, the Ramones, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. The list goes on. Aside, from being candidly hilarious and a pleasure to read, this book really is a must have for punks of the seventies and eighties. The amount of verified information is great and very interesting. After reading this book, I was finally able to separate who was who in that era (Johnny Thunders alone radiated so many bands!) I cannot recommend this funny, sad and most enjoyable book enough. Legs takes us there!!

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As authentic as it gets.......a riveting roller-coaster of a read

Sometime in the late 1960's, a bad mojo was beginning to well up within the ranks of the flower power movement. There were quite a few disaffected outsiders that seemed to have figured out that the revolution was not destined to last, that it was in fact quickly becoming a sham. As corporate America began to swallow and repackage the 60's, some of the folks left behind by the peace and love generation began to vent their anger and shape a new vision. Proto-punk bands like the MC5 and The Stooges started to build upon the foundation that had been laid by the Velvet Underground. Their music was raw and violent in it's presentation, sonically threadbare and unpretentious. By the mid-1970's, 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 it's cues directly from the violent and sleazy underground that it dwelled in.

Co-author Legs McNeil was a founding member of the seminal fanzine that helped give the nascent scene it's name and identity. "Punk" magazine was truly a groundbreaker, giving vital press to bands who would have otherwise gotten precious little exposure in the mainstream rock fanzines.

"Please Kill Me" covers New York punk from it's birth in the mid-60's at Andy Warhol's Factory all the way to it's eventual death in the late-70's, as corporate America once again begins to catch the wave and numerous members of the original first wave of punk begin to burn out from the excessive and dangerous lifestyles that they embraced. 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. Johnny Thunders, Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, The Ramones, Richard Hell, Danny Fields....they are all heard from here along with a host of groupies, drug dealers, hookers, agents and managers, club owners, and other scene hangers-on.

Overall, it's a great book, and the interview format really works well. The book is worth it's price just on the strength of the Iggy stories alone, but there's a ton of great source material here covering a lot of ground. it's a weighty tome at 500+ pages, but it reads fast and the stories never drag. I might have wished for a slightly larger photo section, but that's a minor gripe at best.

Readers must make note that this book covers primarily the development of 1970's-era New York punk, with a side detour to England to witness the birth of the Sex Pistols and British punk. Punk did indeed die at the end of the 70's, and it has of course been resurrected and reinvented by succeeding generations. But if you want to know where the whole thing began, you have to get this book.

HIGHLY recommended!

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GREAT!!!

Very interesting, I like that the book offers interviews from different people on the same subjects, this way you get to read everyone's point of view. Pictures were great, some I had never seen before.

Very Wicked!!

Something like this I've never read before in my life. The whole book is made out of the interviews with different people from the punk era (or rather the beginning of it). It's just their quotes one after another. Anyway, it's such a nice flow and the story that it's amazing. It's also very funny, shocking and at times very sad. It also reveals some details we weren't aware of yet, like how Jim Morrison was in fact a boring moron, who used to piss his pants standing at the bar.

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Good, but not comprehensive

Pretty good book, but unfortunately not really the complete history of punk rock. It concentrates almost entirely on New York City in the early-to-mid 70s. I suppose the authors included what they know and like, but I wish there was more coverage of English punk rock.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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