"You got a lot of style, but you got no class"
Have you ever read Please Kill Me?
"Please Kill Me - The Uncensored Oral History of Punk" by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
- review
Yeah, well, I read it ;-) Took me one week, from last Monday to today (at 1.30 a.m.). And I´m sure, I could have finished it on Tuesday if I´d had enough time, cause it´s SO GREAT! Oh my gosh, I just LOVED it! If you start reading that book, it´s really hard to put it out of your hands again, cause you just wanna keep reading on and on until you´re finished.
When I ordered it at the book-store, I thought it would just be an average non-fictional book. You know, I didn´t expect a novel (of course not, and it isn´t one), but I thought Legs McNeil (and Gillian McCain, who I tend to forget, because she doesn´t appear in the book) would have just written down stories and facts about the punk movement and so it could have turned out to be a little like a music text book in school, but it isn´t. Not at all. I mean, you can´t say that book had AN AUTHOR, like someone who wrote that book, cause it´s just a put together of interviews (and some small newspaper articles), which means the language is really casual (I don´t think I´ve ever read that many bad and dirty words/ insults in a book, except perhaps in "Christiane F- Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo"). Basically, the main characters tell their stories themselves.
..."Why don´t we call it Punk?"
The word "punk" seemed to sum up the thread that connected everything we liked - drunk, obnoxious, smart but not pretentious, absurd, funny, ironic, and things that appealed to the darker side...
(Legs McNeil on how to name his new founded magazine)
It´s the story of American (and British) punk from the Velvet Underground up to the death´s of Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan from The New York Dolls. Everything started with Lou Reed meeting Andy Warhol and his "Factory", it wents through the Velvet Undergound (the first punk band, even if the term "punk" wasn´t established yet), the MC5, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, the New York Dolls, Patti Smith, the Heartbreakers, the Sex Pistols (in Britain), David Bowie, the Ramones of course, Blondie, Jim Morrison (and the Doors), the Dead Boys, Nico, a tiny little bit the Clash... and it´s not only about the bands and music, it´s about poets, movie makers, the groupies (like Sable Starr and Nancy Spungen - and may I count Bebe Buell - model and mother of Liv Tyler, Steven Tyler´s daughter - as well?), drag queens, alcohol and drugs, hooking... you know, everything about the punk community.
You learn how punk got his name, how the Ramones (and most of the other bands as well) formed and split up, that Dee Dee Ramone grew up in Germany (Bad Tölz, Munich, Pirmasens) and why he doesn´t say a word in the Ramones movie "Rock and Roll High School" and that he has been a professional hooker (I only say "53rd and 3rd"), you learn that "musicians are assholes", how "Max´s" and the "CBGB´s" became the hot pots of the whole scene and why the world thought of punk as English, you can wonder if Sid Vicious really killed Nancy Spungen (which I doubt) - to make it short: you get all the backstage scoop, gossip and facts told by people like Iggy Pop, the Stooges, Dee Dee and Joey Ramone, Arturo Vega, Debbie Harry, Richard Hell, Jerry Nolan, Bebe Buell, Patty Smith, Sable Starr, Malcolm McLaren (manager of the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols and ex-husband of Vivienne Westwood), Leee Childers, Jim Carroll (yes, the one from that Leonardo DiCaprio movie), Legs McNeil of course, and so many others.
Wow, that sounds pretty much like name dropping, doesn´t it? But it´s really a great book. It´s so interesting, sometimes funny, sometimes really ugly (and I mean REALLY UGLY) - just gross, sometimes sad (I nearly cried when Jerry Nolan died) and all in all really informative. You get to know almost everything you need to know about how punk started in 1965 and how that kind of punk scene ended in 1992.
...Overnight, punk had become as stupid as everything else. This wonderful vital force that was articulated by the music was really about corrupting every form - it was about advocating kids to not wait to be told what to do, but make life up for themselves, it was about trying to get people to use their imaginations again, it was about not being perfect, it was about saying it was okay to be amateurish and funny, that real creativity came out of making a mess, it was about working with what you got in front of you and turning everything embarrassing, awful, and stupid in your life to you advantage...
(Legs McNeil on how "his punk" ended)
And even if I´m repeating myself: It´s a great book! Buy it! Read it! Love it! It´s just a must read for every fan of punk.
And I will certainly read it again.
So, that was my book recommendation for today. I just started to read "The Devil Wears Prada" by Lauren Weisberger. Can´t really say if it´s good, I´m only at page 48, but I like it so far.
So,
See ya,
Ducky
"Please Kill Me - The Uncensored Oral History of Punk" by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
- review
Yeah, well, I read it ;-) Took me one week, from last Monday to today (at 1.30 a.m.). And I´m sure, I could have finished it on Tuesday if I´d had enough time, cause it´s SO GREAT! Oh my gosh, I just LOVED it! If you start reading that book, it´s really hard to put it out of your hands again, cause you just wanna keep reading on and on until you´re finished.
When I ordered it at the book-store, I thought it would just be an average non-fictional book. You know, I didn´t expect a novel (of course not, and it isn´t one), but I thought Legs McNeil (and Gillian McCain, who I tend to forget, because she doesn´t appear in the book) would have just written down stories and facts about the punk movement and so it could have turned out to be a little like a music text book in school, but it isn´t. Not at all. I mean, you can´t say that book had AN AUTHOR, like someone who wrote that book, cause it´s just a put together of interviews (and some small newspaper articles), which means the language is really casual (I don´t think I´ve ever read that many bad and dirty words/ insults in a book, except perhaps in "Christiane F- Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo"). Basically, the main characters tell their stories themselves.
..."Why don´t we call it Punk?"
The word "punk" seemed to sum up the thread that connected everything we liked - drunk, obnoxious, smart but not pretentious, absurd, funny, ironic, and things that appealed to the darker side...
(Legs McNeil on how to name his new founded magazine)
It´s the story of American (and British) punk from the Velvet Underground up to the death´s of Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan from The New York Dolls. Everything started with Lou Reed meeting Andy Warhol and his "Factory", it wents through the Velvet Undergound (the first punk band, even if the term "punk" wasn´t established yet), the MC5, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, the New York Dolls, Patti Smith, the Heartbreakers, the Sex Pistols (in Britain), David Bowie, the Ramones of course, Blondie, Jim Morrison (and the Doors), the Dead Boys, Nico, a tiny little bit the Clash... and it´s not only about the bands and music, it´s about poets, movie makers, the groupies (like Sable Starr and Nancy Spungen - and may I count Bebe Buell - model and mother of Liv Tyler, Steven Tyler´s daughter - as well?), drag queens, alcohol and drugs, hooking... you know, everything about the punk community.
You learn how punk got his name, how the Ramones (and most of the other bands as well) formed and split up, that Dee Dee Ramone grew up in Germany (Bad Tölz, Munich, Pirmasens) and why he doesn´t say a word in the Ramones movie "Rock and Roll High School" and that he has been a professional hooker (I only say "53rd and 3rd"), you learn that "musicians are assholes", how "Max´s" and the "CBGB´s" became the hot pots of the whole scene and why the world thought of punk as English, you can wonder if Sid Vicious really killed Nancy Spungen (which I doubt) - to make it short: you get all the backstage scoop, gossip and facts told by people like Iggy Pop, the Stooges, Dee Dee and Joey Ramone, Arturo Vega, Debbie Harry, Richard Hell, Jerry Nolan, Bebe Buell, Patty Smith, Sable Starr, Malcolm McLaren (manager of the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols and ex-husband of Vivienne Westwood), Leee Childers, Jim Carroll (yes, the one from that Leonardo DiCaprio movie), Legs McNeil of course, and so many others.
Wow, that sounds pretty much like name dropping, doesn´t it? But it´s really a great book. It´s so interesting, sometimes funny, sometimes really ugly (and I mean REALLY UGLY) - just gross, sometimes sad (I nearly cried when Jerry Nolan died) and all in all really informative. You get to know almost everything you need to know about how punk started in 1965 and how that kind of punk scene ended in 1992.
...Overnight, punk had become as stupid as everything else. This wonderful vital force that was articulated by the music was really about corrupting every form - it was about advocating kids to not wait to be told what to do, but make life up for themselves, it was about trying to get people to use their imaginations again, it was about not being perfect, it was about saying it was okay to be amateurish and funny, that real creativity came out of making a mess, it was about working with what you got in front of you and turning everything embarrassing, awful, and stupid in your life to you advantage...
(Legs McNeil on how "his punk" ended)
And even if I´m repeating myself: It´s a great book! Buy it! Read it! Love it! It´s just a must read for every fan of punk.
And I will certainly read it again.
So, that was my book recommendation for today. I just started to read "The Devil Wears Prada" by Lauren Weisberger. Can´t really say if it´s good, I´m only at page 48, but I like it so far.
So,
See ya,
Ducky