Please Kill Me is Legs McNeil’s stab at the oral history of the punk genre. I recently read McNeil's oral history of the porn industry (no jokes, please) and liked it enough to check out this one. Like most oral histories and McNeil's other book, there is no context, just quote after quote detailing a history of punk. I say "history" as this book contains pretty much those whom Legs was able to interview. For those he didn't interview, McNeil takes quotes from magazine and newspaper articles to flesh things out. The result is a somewhat skewed history of punk, centered around New York, expanding abroad to England, and returning to the States once again.
Originally published in 1996, the book abruptly ends right around the time of Nirvana, failing to take into account post-Nirvana groups such as Green Day, Blink-182 and their Warped Tour ilk. It’s very New York-centric and doesn’t have much to say about the contributions of Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, although there is a bit of material on Detroit legends the MC5 and Iggy Pop. The book pretty much ends at 1980 and then sprints through the 1990s without much insight. As long as you know you’re getting a biased account, you're all good. The major CBGB-era players are front and center, and there are numerous fun accounts of the Velvet Underground, New York Dolls, the Ramones, Television and so forth. Less covered are groups such as Blondie and the Talking Heads, who were also part of the New York scene, but who are reduced to bit players or ignored altogether. Given the scope of the book -- ranging from the late 1960s to the early 1980s -- McNeil covers an admirable amount of territory, but the overall feel is superficial, a 450-page snapshot. If you want to learn more about any of these groups you’re going to have to search elsewhere.
Given the material and the characters involved, there are plenty of good stories here. Some of them you’ve heard, some of them you probably haven’t. (Did you know Andy Warhol was once shot by a crazed fan?) Some of it’s funny, some of it’s seedy. Less explored is the irony that punk’s fast tempos and short hair were push backs on the excesses of 1970s stadium rock, yet many of the punk bands fell prey to these same excesses. The New York Dolls broke up because two of the members wanted to fly back to New York to score heroin.
The Good: Ambitious and exhaustive account backed by a remarkable number of voices to tell the first half of punk’s history. Anyone you’ve ever heard of (and their sister, and manager, and drug dealer) is in here somewhere and there’s a great index that breaks it all down. I like long books and this one is reasonably long. McNeil makes a strong case for the origins of punk as being from New York, not London, and the book is highly in-depth at points. You certainly come away knowing that there were a shit-ton of drugs and sex going around in New York at the time. A definite focus on glam rock as influencing punk.
The Bad: As with all oral histories, light on musical analysis, which was one of the reasons this scene was so interesting. Very New York-centric, with very little info/voices from London except for the Sex Pistols brief tour of the U.S. The Clash? Barely a mention. There is almost nothing beyond that and the material from York in terms of U.S punk. If you’re looking for a book that covers D.C., the Midwest, and/or L.A., hardcore, of the evolution of punk beyond the demise of the Sex Pistols, it’s not here. It would be great to have a second volume that took it from where it left off and really delved into the punk influenced bands that followed in the wake of the initial few explosions.
For a sweeping overview of the origins of punk, Please Kill Me works just fine. As long as you know you’re getting a New York-centric perspective and only the beginning of a larger story, it does the job and does it well. For musical analysis, you’ll have to dig further, but this is a good place to start if you just want to get the original story straight.
Not a one-cent book, unfortunately, but you can still find it used for a decent price.
No comments:
Post a Comment