Reviews

"Ranks up there with the great rock & roll books of all time." -Time Out New York "This book tells it like it was. It is the very first book to do so." -William S. Burroughs "Does for the Ramones what the disciples did for Jesus." --LA Weekly "Dishes the crud on everyone . . . candid, inside, and detailed." --The New Yorker "Lurid, insolent, disorderly, funny, sometimes gross, sometimes mean and occasionally touching." --The New York Times "The riotously funny story of New York punk told by those who were there." --Daily News

As its sensationalist title suggests, this stresses the sex, drugs, morbidity and celebrity culture of punk at the expense of the music. Starting out with the electroshock therapy Lou Reed received as a teenager, working through such watersheds as the untimely deaths by overdose or mishap of Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders and Nico, as well as the complicated sexual escapades of the likes of Dee Dee Ramone, the portrayal here of the birth of an alternative culture is intermittently entertaining and often depressing. McNeil, one of the founding writers of the original 'zine, Punk, in 1975 , is certainly qualified to tell this tale. But the book's take on punk rock as "doing anything that's gonna offend a grown-up" overemphasizes the self-destructive side of the movement. Details of Iggy Pop's drug abuse and seedy sex with groupies receive more attention than important bands such as Television and Blondie, which had comparatively puritan lifestyles. Constructed as an oral history, the book weaves together personal accounts by the crucial players in the scene, many of whom seem to have been so drugged out most of the time that their reliability is questionable. McNeil and McCain (Tilt) provide a vivid look at the volatile and needy personalities who created punk, if they do not offer perceptive musical or cultural analysis. Photos. (July)

"Ranks up there with the great rock & roll books of all time." -Time Out New York

"This book tells it like it was. It is the very first book to do so." -William S. Burroughs "Does for the Ramones what the disciples did for Jesus." --LA Weekly "Dishes the crud on everyone . . . candid, inside, and detailed." --The New Yorker "Lurid, insolent, disorderly, funny, sometimes gross, sometimes mean and occasionally touching." --The New York Times "The riotously funny story of New York punk told by those who were there." --Daily News