Please Kill Me

  1. Pirate Utopian
    Pirate Utopian
    Has anyone else read this book? It's great.

    It focuses primarily on the NY punk scene.

    I am interested in more oral punk history books, does anyone have some recommendations.
  2. Fawkes
    Fawkes
    It's an awesome book, I love it. Though I really disagree with Legs's opinions on the death of punk. Pretty Vacant by Phil Strongman is a pretty good history of UK punk, but it's not done in the same oral interview fashion as Please Kill Me. It also kind of dumbs down the influence of U.S. punk on the British scene. I just ordered a couple of books by Aaron Cometbus which seem really good. They're first-hand accounts of mostly the late 80s and early 90s California punk scene, mostly in Berkeley.
  3. Pirate Utopian
    Pirate Utopian
    Legs is kind of anti-British Punk.
    In the Ramones documentary End of the Century he said Malcolm McLaren ripped off the American punk scene although he did like the British punkmusic and that NMTB is a good album.

    This link has some pages of Punk magazine issues which was Legs' http://www.punkmagazine.com/vault/vault-main.html
    Click a cover and on the new page, right of the cover are some pages of that issue.
    It's funny in a zany kind of way. Especially the cartoons and the Top and Bottom 99's.

    http://www.punkmagazine.com/vault/ba.../14/adolf.html
    http://www.punkmagazine.com/vault/ba.../top99_15.html
    http://www.punkmagazine.com/vault/ba...6/16bot99.html
    http://www.punkmagazine.com/vault/ba...6/16top99.html
    http://www.punkmagazine.com/vault/ba.../bot99_17.html
    http://www.punkmagazine.com/vault/ba...p_Funnies.html
  4. NGNM85
    NGNM85
    This is bar none the definitive book on the early American punk scene. However, I would suggest it be read along with Jon Savage's "England's Dreaming" (The best single volume on punk rock.) which covers punk rock as a whole but most of the book is dedicated to a thorough analysis of the early British punk scene, and Mark Spitz's "We Got the Neutron Bomb" which is the definitive text on the Los-Angeles punk scene, mostly devoted to the second wave of LA punk; The Germs, X, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, etc.
  5. thethinveil
    thethinveil
    There are some good histories of indie rock (or post-rock) out there as well such as "our band could be your life." Please Kill Me is probably the best book on punk that you are going to find.