A. Allbee 2008-10-05

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This is going to be short and sweet...like me.
I read this book at the ripe age of 12. I was just getting into The Ramones and this book is just fantastic. I was just getting into Punk back then but I beleive that this is a good book for even people that know a lot about good Punk music and the history of it. I reread this book just a few months ago. Its defenently worth a read, or reread!

Michael Jandrok 2008-09-22

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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. Punk, of course, was much more than just a musical movement. In fact, the original punks were much more about living the lifestyle, living the nihilism that permeated their everyday lives. The music was just a conduit through which they expressed their dissatisfaction and aggression, it reflected what they were actually experiencing on the street.

"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. (Though the Stooges and the MC5 are profiled extensively, giving voice to the seminal Detriot scene.)

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!

Dominique Gonzales 2008-02-14

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If you want to know where punk all started read this book. I first read it in high school, I had seen it at the library and thought it might be interesting. It's way more thatn interesting, I was a total novice when it came to punk music, and after reading it I became the know-it-all of punk rock history. I was calling out all the punks in my school who worshipped The Sex Pistols and the Clash. I did a research paper on Punk rock and this book was my major source. My only criticisim is it's mostly east coast or N.Y. punk. And there's no mention of the no-wave movement that came afterwards with bands like James Chance and the Contortions, and Teenage Jesus. Suicide isn't mentioned either. However there are other books that cover the different waves of punk, like American Hardcore for the hardcore/nazi punk, I've got the Neutron Bomb, I believe is the title that covers the L.A. scene, which is allright but a little shortsided, I think Lexicon Devil: the Rise and Fall of Darby Crash and the Germs, is a more indepth look at L.A. punk. Besides all that if you haven't read this book it's a must if you're a fan of punk rock, not only a read you must own it.

Dave Id 2007-10-23

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

In the same way film maker Sergei Eisenstein would juxtapose film clips using his theory of montage, combining of two different elements that create a single new experience, Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain create a thorough narrative using the a patchwork of various quotes from culled from the remnants and survivors of the early punk scene.

What impressed me most was the format of the book. It is a collage of quotations that forms a true story with a beginning, middle, and end. There is no prose or re-telling, just the assumed touch up of the spoken word to make the text more readable. And it's not the quotes themselves that guide the story, but the deliberate placement and order of the quotes that bring life to the text.

To show you how the book could have been a major disaster, just read the "More Depraved Testimony" in the appendix of the Penguin Books edition. These are bits and quotes that were left out of the first edition. They seem placed randomly around one another and don't have the same contextual feel as the book proper.

With an emphasis on the music and bands that predated the British version of punk, "Please Kill Me" tells the story of Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5, the Ramones, Richard Hell, Patti Smith Group, the New York Dolls, the Dead Boys, and the punks and groupies that frequented the infamous CBGB venue.

While the Sex Pistols and the like do appear in references, it usually in the context of the early punker's reactions to and encounters with the Pistols and the other Britt punks. Sid Vicious got much more attention later in the book, but only once his exploits were based out of New York.

The point of view is very New York centric, so rather than using the sub-title "The Uncensored Oral History of Punk," I might be more inclined to consider it "An Uncensored Oral History of Punk."

A major distraction is the story's meanderings away from the music itself to a tabloid sensationalism of the decadent drug use, sex, and exploiting one another. At times it seems that a lot of these bands were just getting together as something to do between scams.

Though I wasn't even born during the indie/punk genesis, I was an ancillary spectator of the mid-90s punk renaissance, and I'm not even a radar blip in the current scene; I like to think there was something more to the music that I can always go back to and always get something from than just fashionable, sneering cartoon cliché with a t-shirt reading "Please Kill Me."

J. Sa 2007-05-21

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

This is a great book. With it's "directly from the horse's mouth" approach, it gives the story as seen from it's original players. And the author's choice quotes are excellent: amusing, and at the same time highly informative.

But, naturally, there are faults.

First: half of the book isn't about the original Punk Rock itself, but about it's predecessors - MC5, The Stooges, New York Dolls & The Velvet Underground. I personally have nothing against these bands, but some of the space taken up by them should be given to what happened after Punk '77.

Second: English punk, here, is a generally considered a farse. That might be half-true about the Sex Pistols, but what about The Clash? The author also treats Punk's political leanings - a major & defining trait of the style - as something "forced". There's also a very real feeling of resentment of the protagonists of the New York scene towards British punk - a feeling that's shared with the author himself. Brit punks are treated here, most of the time, as usurpers...

The third major fault I find in this book is the complete lack of coverage it gives to 80's and 90's punk. Where is Hardcore (Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains & Discharge)? Where is Oi! music? And what about Crossover (D.R.I., S.O.D.)? And Grindcore? And those platinum-selling punk bands of the nineties (Greenday, The Offspring)? The focus is just too narrow.

I repeat: this is a great book, but know what you're buying.