About the Author

Legs McNeil is responsible for naming the movement 'punk' and is the author of Yuppie like Me. Gillian McCain is a published poet and a former editor of the Poetry Project Newsletter.

Reviews

Comes as close to capturing the coruscated brilliance and vein-puncturing style of the Blank Generation as the written word is likely to get - Mojo Archly contentious and enormously enjoyable - Sunday Times Monumental and intensely entertaining - Independent on Sunday

Comes as close to capturing the coruscated brilliance and vein-puncturing style of the Blank Generation as the written word is likely to get - Mojo Archly contentious and enormously enjoyable - Sunday Times Monumental and intensely entertaining - Independent on Sunday

Imagine one of those on-line "chat rooms" filled with the aging movers and shakers of American punk rock‘former members of the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, the New York Dolls, the Ramones, and others‘as well as assorted hangers-on, all reminiscing about the glory days of punk. Denizens remember when downtown Manhattan was the epicenter of a musical and cultural earthquake whose aftershocks are still felt long after its initial impact. The stories told by these musicians and scenesters trace the history of punk from its earliest incarnations in the late Sixties, through its appropriation by British imitators in the Seventies, and ending just before its stylistic balkanization and quick decline in the early Eighties. Unfortunately, this oral history depends almost entirely on voices from Detroit and a small core of New York bands, ignoring the important scenes in Los Angeles, Boston, and Cleveland. Numerous behind-the-scenes anecdotes make this book undeniably fun reading. But the lack of any index, bibliography, discography, or overarching narrative context keeps it from being much more than that. Not an essential purchase, but worth considering for larger collections. (Photos not seen.)‘Rick Anderson, Penacook, N.H.