If rock n’ roll could only be represented by two books and not a single more, “Please Kill Me: The Uncensored History Of Punk Rock” would be one of them, the second one being, of course, “The Dirt” by Mötley Crüe. Everyone who said “The Lords Of Chaos” should go back watching Watain videos on Youtube and never come back here again). But right now we’re going to talk about this great anthology of punk music (in the widest sense) by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain who basically put in a chronological order some interviews they did through the years with the most influential actors of the movement: musicians but also managers, artists, writers, club owners… “Oral History”, it says on the cover.
So therefore, and as opposed to most rock books, “Please Kill Me” has been written by the ones who did punk and not by some wanna-be musician journalists who are mainly responsible for the fact that almost everybody on this fucking planet think that punk was born in England in the seventies.
We start from New-York with The Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol, The Factory, Patti Smith, then Detroit with the MC5, Iggy Pop and The Stooges, go back to NYC with The New-York Dolls, (the most handsome) Richard Hell, The Ramones, the opening of CBGB, the first issue of “Punk Magazine”. We bump into David Bowie, Jim Morrisson, Bebe Buell, Malcolm McLaren, Sid Vicious shooting up in the bathroom with Dee Dee, hookers & drag-queens, poets & junkies. We read these street stories of a New-York that seems so long gone now and get this smelly, vivid, insane picture of the city wherein our heroes try to survive along with the rats and cockroaches and, if possible, put out a couple of records. These epic tales, that you could almost read to your people around a campfire, aren’t in any way the deeds of some heroes in shining armors: it’s dirty, mean, politically incorrect, full of drugs, sex and betrayals. It’s wild and nasty.
We laugh with them, cry with them, struggle with them, and close the book with the feeling that we shared with them one of the most amazing story ever told.
“Please Kill Me” is a must-read.
Have a look here.
Buy it wherever you can.
