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Customer Reviews (34)

Punk Rules! And Regulations!
There's a right way and a wrong way to be a punk dammit! Thank God we have someone who is willing to help us, all of us, even the most wrongheaded achieve a state of sinless perfection. What a jerk.

Knothing Knew
Have you ever wondered what it is that makes a punk rockera Punk Rocker?This book trys to explain the ideals behind the "movement," but still does not fully figure into the real debate.While an interesting primary source into what happens, this book is out of date 20 years ago.The obvious bias and the flat out denunciation of specific groups allows for the "punk" be him/herself and not hope for revolution.I hope for revolution; go Blackhawks.

JEM

The best introduction to activist punk!
In "The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise", radical punk Craig O'Hara explains the politics, both revolutionary and reactionary, behind the punk subculture, giving special emphasis to its roots in anarchist community and activism. Throughout this text, O'Hara explores the diverse concerns of political punks, like: queer liberation, feminism, peace, anti-fascism, ecology and animal rights. Especially fun are the numerous photos and illustrations that grace each page, giving the reader a richer perspective on the history, politics and aesthetics of the punk rock movement. On a less cheerful note, O'Hara also delves into the ways punk rock has been co-opted by corporate record labels and perverted by certain (marginal) hate groups. For readers interested in music theory, youth subcultures and progressive politics, this is yet again another fun, educational and informative book from AK Press: a perfect combination of Pansy Division, Conflict and Emma Goldman!

Mr. Bojangle's squirrel pudding and his flying duffle bag.
This book is great for anyone who wants to learn about the early punk movement.It offered the humanistic side of punk rarely portrayed by the media or other "punk" books that are mostly about the pictures...but thats not to say that this book doesn't have some kick ass pictures...anyways I totally recommend (especially if you call yourself a punk because you listen to Good Charlotte and buy clothes from Hot Topic and want to sound like you actually know something about it all).

Here Come the HATERS, 1..2..3.. (my response to a previous bad Review)
WOW, THIS GUY'S THE PRIME DEFINITION OF A HATER!! JUST READ HIS REVIEW BELOW ("Here Come the Rich Kids, 1..2..3..)

SOUNDS REALLY BITTER, DOESN'T HE?PUNKS ARE WANNABES?PUSSIES?NOPE, SOUNDS MORE LIKE THE WHITE KIDS WHO LISTEN

TO RAP MUSIC AND THINK THEY'RE "DOWN", NOT THOSE IN THE PUNK ROCK SCENE.I'VE NEVER MET A REAL PUNK WHO CAN'T OR

WON'T FIGHT TO STAND UP FOR HIMSELF OR HERSELF.AND I MEAN WITH FISTS AND KNIVES.ONLY PUSSIES CARRY GUNS LIKE THE

8-MILE BITIN', ONE-CENT HAVIN' GANGSTA-MINSTREL POSEURS THEY ARE.MAYBE THIS GUY FELL FOR A PUNK WHO BROKE HIS

HEART, OR BROKE HIS JAW.BIG DEAL.GET OVER IT!WHAT DO YOU LISTEN TO, ANYWAY, MAN?I BET YOU THINK YOU'RE REAL

COOL FOR A HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, BECAUSE YOU CAN STILL REMEMBER A FEW PUNK ROCK BANDS, RIGHT?BUT NOW, YOU'VE

FORGOTTEN WHAT THE PUNK SPIRIT TRULY IS, FROM OLD SKOOL (MISFITS, STOOGES, THE CLASH, PENNYWISE, THE MC5, BLACK

FLAG), TO NU-WAVE OR "GOTH", WHICH HAS BEEN WIDELY ACCEPTED AS A SUBCULTURE WITHIN THE PUNK MOVEMENT (SKINNY PUPPY,

NINE INCH NAILS, TYPE O NEGATIVE, MINISTRY, MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE, SOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES), TO POST-PUNK

(Dischord, Homestead, Twin/Tone, The Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Butthole Surfers, Husker Du, The Replacements,

Dinosaur Jr., Big Black, Sonic Youth, The Swans, Fugazi, Bad Brains, and including the retro, Grunge movement: The

Melvins, Green River, Blood Circus, Mudhoney and Nirvana) AND EVEN MAINSTREAM KIDDIE-PUNK (GREEN DAY, BLINK-182, RANCID, MOFX, BAD RELIGION,

SUM-41). FYI: MAINSTREAM (POPULAR) PUNK IS NO LONGER AN OXYMORON WHEN GOOD MUSIC MEETS MODERN TECHNOLOGY: MTV, THE

INTERNET, GIVES ACTS A WIDER AUDIENCE, AND THEY CAN'T BE BLAMED FOR THAT.NOW I GUESS OVERHYPED, COMMERCIALIZED,

WATERED-DOWN TRIPE LIKE THE LINKIN PARK/JAY-Z MASHUP OR THAT RIDICULOUS LIL' JON CRUNK CRAP MAKES YOU SKEET YOUR

PANTS!TSK, TSK.BUY MUSIC FROM THE GROUPS I LISTED ABOVE, AND YOUR SORRY LOT IN LIFE WILL IMPROVE, I ASSURE YOU.

AND ABOUT THE BOOK... IT'S OKAY, BUT IT'S NOT WORTH BUYING.BORROW IT FROM A FRIEND OR STEAL IT INSTEAD.THAT'S PUNK.

- b.K. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

Not bad but could have been better
While this does cover a lot of bands during the punk era and bands that otherwise may not ever be know but deserve to be so (Demob, Red Alert for example) a big let down is the questions are just too how shall I say this.... fluffy.

It is not just this book but almost every book I have read of its kind (our band could be your life is an other prime example of this,I wont even bother with Blush's American Hardcore because its not worth the paper its printed on.Dance of Days being the only exception)The books are just too full of "When did you start?....what was your first gig?....How did it go?......Best/worst experience?"They just arent the kind of questions I want to hear.You have bands in here like the 4 Skins, I wanted to know more about the Southall Riots (one of the biggest inicents in modern British history) but there is almost nothing.

It is not even like its a "Looking back on old times"I remember a lot of these bands and after 20 odd years was realy expecting to read a little more detail than this.You would probably find a better interview if you dug up an old fanzine from back then off ebay or something.

Sorry there are just too many of these books going around these days and few of them have anything worth reading.If you do buy this you will probably get through it in half a day, a day at best.

One for a train ride somewhere but not much else.You want a more positive review?Try asking better questions to the bands you interview then.

The interviews are not that good
It could be Ian Glasper's fault, but I am more inclined to blame the bands interviewed.Sure, there is great stuff crammed between the covers. Demob, The Samples, Mau Maus, The Wall, The Defects and (especially) The Partisans interviews were real stand outs to me.Oh, and the Discharge feature is great.A lot of the bands though are pretty dim and dull though and all the bands that reformed in recent years will all tell you that it was for the love of punk rock and not for the money.That is just bogus.
A big let down was the Exploited article.Glasper didn't even speak to Wattie and the U.K. Subs article doesn't even feature Charlie Harper.Those are silly omissions!
I think this is the weaker of Glasper's books.I think "The Day the Country Died" seemed to go out of it's way to speak with core members of the bands featured making for a more interesting read.

Not What I Expected
The focus of the book was not what I had anticipated... had to return because the information given was irrelevant to my research.

A solid, well-researched book that's strictly for the fans.
Glasper's Burning Britain is a geographically organized "guide" to the British punk, organized as some 92 3-4 page biographical essays, each based on a particular band's career from formation to dissolution.Although discographies are included, along with subjectively-expressed recommendations as to which musical releases might be termed "essential" or indicative of the band's entire corpus, the primary focus is on making sense of each band's personnel changes and on providing readers with information pertaining to chart status and label affiliations.

Most chapters are written from a perspective that maintains a semblance of objectivity when discussing line-up changes, recording sessions, and concerts, but breaks down into personal observation and humorous asides when delivering information on releases and other recorded efforts themselves.Glasper is heavily reliant upon interviews for his material; indeed, eachsection includes numerous quotes, usually from a single individual involved with the band in question.Glasper inserts quotes from these interviews into his text in order to not only provide a band member's perspective but also to personalize what might otherwise have been a dry and distancing litany of "___ left and then ___ joined."

The work is obviously intended to provide strong chronological, geographical, and biographical data on each of the bands covered and not to generate (except indirectly) any sense of what the larger scene and subculture might've looked like. Glasper's method of concentrating each biographical band section entirely on the band itself and of mentioning concerts, labels, events, and media programmes only in direct relation to the band at hand limits a reader's ability to construct a scene image.Put shortly, there is no cohesive narrative to keep a reader moving along.Instead, one is left with a somewhat blurry idea of what events, concerts, and connections between the bands of what he calls "The Second Wave" might have looked like.

There are other books for that, some already out there and some unpublished, and Glasper's book is an interesting and erudite contribution. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

Great Book
This is a fantastic book about the era of anarcho punk, and I recommend this book to all punk fanatics. This is as close to the history of anarcho punk and I don't think there are any books that can be better than this one. Great book and is a must read.

Tries too hard
This is a very nice book for someone wanting a series of interviews with bands from the punk era. I don't agree that all were "Anarcho-Punk" bands though, and even some of the band members interviewed for the book disagreed with the author's perceptions of their status in the Anarcho-punk movement of the period.

There are some excellent interviews and biographies of bands who don't make it into books and were even overlooked by anything other than local fanzines and all bands mentioned have a discography included for people who have the time and money to hunt out classic vinyl (a lot never made it to CD). I dofeel that the author tried to cram in too many bands as fillers for the book and so it becomes quite repetitive with the not quite so well known bands all having similar stories to tell, hence the reduction from a 4 star to a 3 star book.

It was very nice to see Zounds and Flux of Pink Indians make it into a "history" book though as these are two very influential bands who so often fail to be anything more than a footnote on other books claiming to cover this era of punk. An excellent read for those of us who realise that the punk movement was not about The Clash and Sex Pistols but was about the bands who struggled from small club to small club who had something relevant to say to the disillusioned youth of Thatcher's Britain.

Great little read
If you are a fan of hardcore/punk then you need this in your collection.

Forget BLush's 'American hardcore' BS this is well put together collection of histories of some of the most (and least) well known Anarcho/Punk bands of the UK.From Crass to Zounds, Flux, Oi Polloi and a whole bunch of others are included.Yeh, because of the number of bands included in this book there is not an awful lot of detail there is a gret little discography at the end of each chapter though for anyone looking for the music of the bands mentioned.

Most of the stuff on the bands covers their history (how they formed, band members, memorable events etc) Still, for the size of the book its still worth buying.It is interesting to read some of the comments of band members who for the most part are speaking long after their former bands have split up and have since moved on in life.Interviews that stand out for me are from former members of Crass who for the most part seem to see themsleves as beeing unfairly placed as 'spokesmen of the anarchist movement' and also their own concept of what anarchism realm meant.

I just wish it got more in-depth.
As an american punk in suburbia in the early 80's, these anarcho bands were a big part of my soundtrack, so it's great to read the interviews, and learn about the bands.I do think the interviews could have been a little more candid, though I give high marks to several of the features.It's also real nice to read about some of the lesser known bands.
I give it 4 stars for the content.This is Ian Glasper's best book.
I would have given it 5 stars, but nicked off a star for the typesetting (I blame the publishers for that though), I would find my eyes getting very strained after even reading for a little bit.
Also, I am wondering why the Poison Girls were not featured. ... Read more

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"Each scene was a reflection of its time and place. It was organic to each city." (Dave Smalley, DYS, Dag Nasty, All, Down By Law)Hardcore music emerged just after the first wave of punk rock in the late 1970s. American punk kids who loved the speed and attitude of punk took hold of its spirit, got rid of the "live fast, die young" mindset, and made a brilliant revision: hardcore. The dividing line between punk and hardcore music was in the delivery: less pretense, less melody, and more aggression. This urgency seeped its way from the music into the look of hardcore. There wasn’t time to mold your liberty spikes or shine your Docs; it was jeans and T-shirts, Chuck Taylors and Vans. The skull and safety-pin punk costume was replaced by high-tops and hooded sweatshirts. The Jamie Reid ransom note record cover aesthetic gave way to black and white photographs of packed shows accompanied by bold and simple typography, declaring The Kids Will Have Their Say or You’re Only Young Once. This new come-as-you-are attitude attracted skateboarders, surfers, BMX’rs, metalheads, and graffiti writers, with each group adding their diverse influences to the scene. This cross-pollination helped to create an eclectic cross section of bands like Bad Brains, Negative Approach, SSD, Big Boys, and 7 Seconds.Radio Silence documents the ignored space between the Ramones and Nirvana through the words and images of the pre-internet era when this community built on do-it-yourself ethics thrived. Without funding, distribution, or exposure, the scene had to be self-sufficient in order to grow. Everyone involved from bands to fans took it upon themselves to book shows, photograph bands, broadcast pirate radio shows, start record labels, design album covers, publish fanzines, or just offer a place for a band to crash. Authors Nathan Nedorostek and Anthony Pappalardo have cataloged private collections of photographs, personal letters, artwork, and various ephemera from the hardcore scene circa 1978-1993. Unseen images accompany to handmade T-shirts and original artwork brought to life by the words of their creators and fans. Radio Silence includes over 500 images of rare records, T-shirts, fanzines, photographs, and illustrations presented in a manner that abandons the aesthetic clichés normally used to depict the genre and lets the subject matter speak for itself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Back in the...
I bought the book for personal reasons as I know so many of the people in the bands that were highlighted.It's cool to be able to show my son and daughter the 7inch cover from my own band that is featured.

I might be a parent and a corporate cog these days but my docs are still flat laced, the Fred Perry's still look goodand straight-edge is the way to live.

Buy the book, enjoy the visuals.

Historical perspective
Historical commentary of a movement that those lucky enough to have been around for can relive and cherish through this work. To those who missed the boat, Sorry, but it was a magical time. Now stop wearing your sister's pants!

Flashy but ultimately very disappointing
Of all the books that have come out seeking to document the hardcore scene, this is by far the most disjointed and incomplete.This is especially true when it comes to the NYHC coverage.

Good, but only for the diehards.
The concept of the book is great but the execution is mediocre.

The good: It's another of the small handful of books that blows up the myth that punk died in the 70's. It presents coverage of some largely undocumented (at least in book form) classic bands like the Abused, Uniform Choice, Chain of Strength, etc. There's a lot of cool ephemera like original t-shirts, jackets, and style related stuff that's not often seen in these types of books. It has a bunch of pictures and things from old zines that you've probably never seen before anywhere else.

The bad: For the most part this book somehow manages to forget that the Midwest, South, and Southwest exist and instead focuses largely on California and the Northeast. About 60% of the bands represented are straight edge and the book skews heavily towards that scene to the exclusion of many other great bands that weren't. The text is small, hard to read, and while being entertaining at points is kind of like a bad copy of the research-poor, blab-style of Steven Blush's "American Hardcore" book. Also, in general for a book its size there are not enough pictures.

The wash: Overall it's a cool book to check out but really only if you're looking for more of a focus on 80's/90's SXE HC or if you've already read "Going Underground" by George Hurchalla, "Fcked Up & Photocopied" and "Punk is Dead Punk is Everything" by Bryan Turcotte, and "American Hardcore" by Steven Blush. It's decent but falls flat in a lot of ways.

Hardcore visuals gets grerat treatment
Radio Silence is a real keeper.

With the rash of books hitting the shelves these days to document the punk hardcore scene(s), the truth is that almost all of them reflect the rag-tag and aspirational style of the scene without really forming a true, cohesive assembly of thought or theory.And the web just helps fuel this patchwork collection of history.

But Radio Silence doesn't try to be more than what it is- a collection of great visuals spanning a wide range of hardcore's lifetime.Modest yet still cool at the same time, I really just like this book.It is fun to look at, represents the scene(s) well.The mix of photos, record covers, layouts, t-shirts, etc. is a great one.

Seriously, you should own this.
... Read more

Product Description
A star-studded cast of characters, artists, underground reporters, and entrepreneurial groupies give first-hand backstage accounts of the drugs, sex, and power struggles that permeate the punk community to chronicle the emergence of punk music in New York's underground. 25,000 first printing. Tour.Amazon.com Review
Though Britain's notorious Sex Pistols shoved punk rock into the faceof mainstream America, the movement was already brewing in the U.S. in the1960s with bands like the Velvet Underground and Iggy and the Stooges.Through hundreds of interviews with forgotten bands as well as the ones thatmade names for themselves--including Blondie and the Ramones--Legs McNeil andGillian McCain chronicle punk rock history through the people who reallylived it. Please Kill Me is a thrash down memory lane for those hip topunk's early years and an enlightening history lesson for youngstersinterested in the origins of modern "alternative" music. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (115)

Extremely engaging.
An amazing timeline of the NYC scene from Lou Reed and the Velvets to Dee Dee Ramone and the iconic Ramones. An often gut wrenching first hand account of the "Punk" movement and all the players involved. What makes this book is the infighting and "war" stories. Buy it.

Awesome
This book is an amazing oral history about the beginning of what we now call punk music. As told by those who were a part of it. New York early '80s. Wow. Awesome stories from all the greats, and not-so-greats.

Top of the Trash Heap
Please Kill Me must be one the sleaziest oral histories ever compiled. And that's just one of many good things about it. Like George Plimpton and Edie Stein did when they wrote Edie, McNeil and McCain helped, once again, to make oral histories not only worthwhile for the average reader, but actually COOL.

Please Kill Me is a must-read for any music fan interested in The Ramones, Television, Dead Boys, Patti Smith, The New York Dolls, The MC5, The Stooges, The Velvet Underground, Suicide, Richard Hell, Blondie - basically, the best and most vital American music of the early to late 1970s.

It is clear to anyone who reads this that the many subjects interviewed by McNeil and McCann are more than comfortable with the authors. As a result, Please Kill Me's view into this New York punk rock world - its brashness, its drugs, its mean-spiritedness, its pettiness and its artistic triumphs - is compelling, funny, harsh, pathetic and glorious all at once. This is bad candy and it tastes just delicious.

This book belongs on the same table as Spinal Tap, Motley Crue's The Dirt and the documentary Anvil. This is an oddball rock and roll classic that will never fade away.

Product in review
The product was in excellent condition when I got it, actually it look like it hadn't been touched, it looked brand new.Need I say, "I was surprized".This is the kind of people I like doing business with.

Funny, sad, infuriating
This isn't just a musical history.It's a great story.I've read it repeatedly, and it evokes the whole range of emotions.Some of the stories are hilarious.Others left me horribly sad, often mourning the loss of some of rock's great musicians.Others made me angry, hating many of the people whose music I grew up loving.I don't think I came out admiring any of these people.In fact, the book made me glad that some of them are dead.David Bowie, the married man who slept with teenagers.Patti Smith, the self-hating woman who put down other women every time she got a chance.And what do you say about Johnny Thunders?Not much that's good.I did come out remembering how much I love the music, though, and I had a few laughs along the way. ... Read more

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A snarky, fact-filled look at the people and places that made the indie/punk scene what it is today

Customer Reviews (4)

Unclever, unfunny, lacking both depth and insight
The information in this book seems to have been cobbled together after a few hours of internet searching. The result is an incredibly superficial book that lamely parroting numerous cliches: rather like Flaubert's Dictionary of Accepted Ideas without the humor. The material in this book could at best make for an underwhelming blog. Its only value is whatever entertainment there is to be derived from reading someone making obvious and trite pronouncements.

Funny? Indeed!
When i'd hear about this book my first thought was: WTF? Are you serious? But later, when i was in the last page i can reallyd talk to anyones saying: You must read this book.

If you like music, read it.

An 11-city soundscape exploration
If mainstream music has your ear splitting, jump off that main music road that you've been on for so long and embark on a bumpy out-of-the-way journey to an 11-city soundscape exploration with Leslie Simon as your expert and entertaining guide with her book //Wish You Were Here: An Essential Guide To Your Favorite Music Scenes--From Punk To Indie And Everything In Between//. And just as you might have suspected, there's so much percolating underneath the Billboard Top 100.

From the co-author of the cult 2007 hit //Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide To Emo Culture// comes a snarky, fact-filled look at people and places who made indie music history. In the follow-up book //Wish You Were Here//, Simon perfectly captures the excitement, absurdity, and obsessive passion of rock history, most of which will make you say, "Hmmm ...""

In this travel-guide-meets-tongue-in-cheek-history, Simon painstakingly traces the eleven noteworthy local scenes in the development of indie rock as we know it. From the birth of "straight edge" culture in Washington, D.C. clubs to the renaissance of NYC hipster chick thanks to the Strokes' 2001 debut album, this book covers every riveting detail in indie music lore, with info like: which albums you need to complete your Suburban Florida music collection (Hot Water Music is a no-brainer); how to play the part of the Intellectual Indie Scenester in Seattle (make sure the Shins are on your iPod, for one thing); the most influential label in Minneapolis (Twin/Tone Records, if you must know); and, where to satiate your late night food cravings on Long Island (one word: diners).

Whether poking fun at Twin Cities rock critics and their obsession with free record label swag, or offering a hilarious rundown of best--and worst--Los Angeles-based bands featuring celebrities, Simon ensures there's never a dull moment in //Wish You Were Here//. Rob Dobi's spot-on illustrations appear throughout the book as the perfect complement to her enthusiastic and hilarious voice.

And so, as they say, when foraying somewhere outside of the usual realm, wish you were here ...

Reviewed by
Dominique James

Good info on current pop music
There's a dearth of acceptable material on current pop and alternative music for use in a high school library (language, photos, etc; this is a book we can promote with minimal reservations. ... Read more

Product Description
From the irrational death of Kurt Cobain to the 1996 Sex Pistols tour, we're back on the music road with Gina Arnold. Kiss This is a short history of the hip, the hard, and the real--and how the accounting elements of the music industry exploit every pop culture trend until it doesn't have a breath left. 10 photos. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Admirable Though Failed
An admirable though failed attempt to somehow prove that punk is not dead when in reality whether you considered Nirvana a punk band or not(personally I didn't)their signing and major label release in 92 forever changed the face of underground rock in america.The fact is though is that punk was already on it's last legs in and around 85-86.The demise of both Black Flag and The Dead Kennedys as well as major label offerings from Husker Du and The Replacements indicated that the music was changing, despite the latters failed attempts at more mainstream success. The trouble here is that now and in 97 when this book came out punk(a term I use loosely) had already been done rehashed redone and copyied a gazillion times and to metion the likes of Green Day or The Offspring in present tense as punk bands is ludicrous at best considering their success's are directly related to Nirvana's breakthrough despite the fact that they both came from a very vibrant California music scene.When was the last time Green Day played Gilmans?The fact remains that no matter how you look at it punk is a done deal.Whatever may be going on today is merely a rehash from the past.the excitement anger etc. have manifest themselves into other generes(ie-rap--rap metal hybrids) and just as with the radical 60's bands(ie the Mc5, Stooges) the revolution isn't going to be...

the commercialization of punk rock
Gina Arnold thoroughly understands the music business and brings the hard facts from that understanding to bear in analyzing the development of punk rock from an underground entity to its current popularity and acceptance into the mainstream. Her objectivity also makes this a good book, since she is able to show the contradictions in punk philosophy. The only two areas in which I was disappointed were her failure to analyze the sexual politics of punk, which I thought should be included since she writes a great deal about punk politics. Also, her chapter on rap music was purely lame, as it just about ignored the lyrics of the genre and just toed a guilty white liberal line.

Quite good.
Ms. Arnold has always been an insightful and interesting writer and this book is no different.Anonymous stone throwers referring to her as a hackshould perhaps learn to spell "quality" so as not to be chuckledat when they are trying to be vicious.

This book is not worth yr time or money.
Gina Arnold is a HACK. Pure and simple. The fact that this book even got published is amazing to me. She has none of her own opinions, and her writing belongs on a Junior High School notebook. Please don't waste yourtime with this tabloid qualaty garbage.

Good, but it's not about `real' punk.
I feel that there is some confusion about what this book sets out to do.It isn't a review of todays underground punk scene.It is a look at todays commercial punk scene.Unlike other reviewers I never felt that Arnoldswas trying to claim that Rancid, Green Day, and the Offspring are real punkbands.She was using them as examples of bands that started off with punkroots and then followed them to see what happened when they went comercial.

Will you like this book?Well it depends what you want.If you want alook at how punk went from an underground sub-culture to the phonycommercial MTV and Snow-board trend it is today, then this is a good bookfor you.If you want a book about todays underground punk culture lookelsewhere ... Read more

Product Description

This book contains 200 black and white original photographs including many classic location pictures. Some of the artists that appear in the book include: Johnny Thunders, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Clash, Blondie, The Police, The Jam, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Tom Robinson, Elvis Costello and many more.

Ian Dickson has worked with most of the major artists in the world, including Led Zeppelin, Marc Bolan, Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart and The Faces. This book contains his classic punk rock photographs.

Product Description
A guide to the music of The Sex Pistols. The book examines every recorded song in the band's catalogue to date, and acts as a consumer's critical guide. Shaped like a CD box, it is designed to sit alongside the reader's existing CD collection. ... Read more

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Was punk just another moment in music history, a flash in time when a group of young rebels exploded in a fury of raw sound, outrageous styles, and in-your-face attitude? Greil Marcus, author of the renowned Lipstick Traces, delves into the after-life of punk as a much richer phenomenon-a form of artistic and social rebellion that continually erupts into popular culture. In more than seventy short pieces written over fifteen years, he traces the uncompromising strands of punk from Johnny Rotten to Elvis Costello, Sonic Youth, even Bruce Springsteen. Marcus's unparalleled insight into present-day culture and brilliant ear for music bring punk's searing half-life into deep focus. Originally published in the U.S. as Ranters and Crowd Pleasers.Amazon.com Review
By now, first-generation rock critic Greil Marcus is betterknown as the author of highbrow pop-culture tomes (Invisible Republic: BobDylan's Basement Tapes) than as a workaday, keep-it-pithycritic. This collection of columns and short pieces (most rewritten tovarying degrees for the book) churned out for New West,Artforum, The Village Voice, and Rolling Stonepresents the erudite Marcus as a periodical commentator subject todeadline and word-count pressures. As such, it gives ahistory-as-it-happens perspective on the music scene rather than asweeping overview, meaning it's perhaps less provocative than Marcus'smore recent efforts, but it's also more readable. Invigorated by theemergence of the SexPistols, Marcus delighted in chronicling the music and behavior ofthe first wave of punk provocateurs. Here are pieces on the import ofthe Pistols,the Clash, Elvis Costello, the Gang of Four, and(closest to the author's heart?), the Mekons, presentedlargely as they were originally written, with the din still ringing inthe scribe's ears. --Steven Stolder ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

England, shmengland...a punk history full of holes
"The facts we hate / you'll never hear us / I hear the radio is finally gonna play New Music / ya know, the "British Invasion" / But what about the Minutemen, Flesh Eaters, DOA, Big Boys and the Black Flag?..." -- X, "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts"

Greil Marcus is engaged in an endless quest for the musical epiphany, and he's at his best when he's unravelling the mystery of why and how a particular song heard at a particular moment can crystallize into something with the power to forever change the life of the listener. And he is one of the few scholarly American music writers of his generation who (sometimes) looks to punk rock for those moments.

Superficially, American punk has been about physical energy, naïve rage, and alienation, while its UK counterpart has often engaged more explicitly with political ideology. In these essays (originally published as "Ranters & Crowd Pleasers") Marcus gravitates toward the latter, especially bands that were on the Rough Trade label and their close relatives: Gang of 4, Mekons, Delta 5, Au Pairs, Essential Logic. Many of these were mixed gender groups, and they weren't afraid to seriously address issues of class struggle and sexual politics in their music or in their interviews. But while these bands may have given Marcus something to sink his intellectual teeth into, they also distracted him from important developments in his own backyard.

There are some conspicuous gaps here. Marcus admits as much, but that doesn't excuse him. A self-proclaimed champion of the rant, it's odd that he has nothing to say about The Fall, who practically define the genre. But I'd especially like to know what he might have to say about American groups from the same time period, especially the many worthy smaller bands from the various regional scenes around the country: Avengers, Noh Mercy, Minutemen, Pylon, Neo Boys, Wipers, and plenty of other great bands are MIA. Sadly, he seems to use the distasteful violence that stigmatized some SoCal punk as an excuse to write off most everything that happened in the US scene. Instead there are awkward, unconvincing efforts to pull non-punk items into the discussion. Fleetwood Mac? Van Morrison? Springsteen? Granted, this is a collection of magazine articles, and one can only hear and respond to so much music, but I wish he'd cast his nets wider.

Another issue is that Marcus writes about punk but never to it. In spite of his enthusiasm, he remains here a spectator, a pop anthropologist who maintains a careful, scientific distance from those he is studying. He pays attention, asks questions, takes notes, and then goes back and reports his findings to the civilized world - the readers of Rolling Stone, New West/California, Harper's, Artforum, the Village Voice -- none of them likely to reach a punk audience. Which is too bad, because Marcus has things to say that the punk community should hear; he has the right amount of critical distance and belief in the possibilities of the form to offer some useful observations. Of course, writing in punk zines won't pay the bills...

Ultimately, this is flawed as a history of punk because like all histories it shares the blind spots of the writer. No matter how much empathy Marcus feels, he's still a 60s kinda guy looking for 60s-style rock heroes and gestures, clinging too much to the similarities he sees between the youth culture of his own generation and the one he's writing about, and not really dealing with the differences which are so important and interesting. Which perhaps explains his tendency to write about the same people over and over (Costello, Mekons, Springsteen, the Clash, Gang of 4, Dylan). This need to keep an eye on his heroes long after they've ceased to be worth watching occasionally turns up something poignant, as in his heartbreaking portrait of the meltdown of The Clash. But mostly it gives one the feeling that Marcus is caught up in his own obsessive hero worship -- exactly the sort of sentimentality which punk has always resisted (at least in theory). Still, Marcus does his best to take punk seriously on its own terms, and he's worth reading in spite of the flaws. Now it's up to the younger generation to produce some critics who can fill in the gaps and set the record straight. But I'd also be curious to see what would happen if Marcus were to write about the era in hindsight himself, and return to some of the stuff he skipped over the first time around.

Barthes-In-Punk
Marcus' writing on punk and its' effects may or may not be the smartest rock journalism out there.But this book is no mere compendium of record and show reviews.

Marcus is obsessed with art history, and the social/historical contexts surrounding them, and in varied other works he draws links between dada, surrealism and punk, or invesitgates the social aspects of the conflicted American South that also spawned the primoridal forms of just about all forms of American music.

In smaller doses, Marcus does the same here - these short essays were published initially in more mass-audience publications, but Marcus is fairly uninterested in simple reviewing.Instead he - in a fashion that occasionally seizes upon Zen-like epiphanies - scrounges through the depths of the most easily overlooked moments of anything from the Gang Of Four, The Mekons, X or The Buzzcocks to Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk."And then he elaborates what he's found in such moments, crafting Barthes-like meditations upon the more obtuse meanings of culture, art and commerce in the process.

Marcus doesn't nail his varied theses 100% of the time - his write-off of New York (and Cleveland/Detroit) punk is the great, vast hole in this book.But I do agree with his take on the thuggishness of LA punk - a controversial contention open to much debate, though one could endlessly debate the ironic value vs. the ugly realities within the race and class tensions that floated through the work of X, Gun Club, Fear, et. al., especially in light of the early multi-ethnic and queer aspects of punk that have largely been written out of most official histories.

-David Alston

Ranters & Punters!
I found this Book under it's original Title. I think it is a great collection of Greil Marcus's Writings of Music outside the mainstream. Not Pretentious, but not Dumbed down for some average Music Joe. Post Punk Groups are treated with the respect & relevance that they deserved, at the time of their exhistance! Less convuluted than Lipstick Traces, and more enjoyable. I sought out these different group's music with new insight. Made even more enjoyable by Greil's added depth of his words. I like my Rock writers to actually Love their Subjects, without Jealousy or rancor.

TASTY & SUCCULENT
A collection on punk and related matters from 1977 through 1992, including what was left out of Marcus' earlier book Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century. In the author's own words, it's about "records, performances, twists of the radiodial." It moves from the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy" to Nirvana's"Nevermind" in this illumined golden thread. Marcus writes aboutwhat moved, scared and disgusted him and what made him feel so privilegedto be part of the punk audience. His views of punk encompassed a widehorizon, to include the likes of Bruce Springsteen, early Prince, LaurieAnderson and David Lynch's film Blue Velvet. His point is that punk madewonderful things like Anderson's "Superman" possible even thoughSuperman itself isn't punk. In other words, punk's liberating effect causedsea changes in the perception of pop. A major weakness of the book is thatit ignores the entire New York scene, because, as he puts it, "most[New York] punks seemed to be auditioning for careers as somethingelse." So no Patti Smith, no Richard Hell, a cursory mention ofTalking Heads, but you WILLfind Blondie here. Fascist Bathroom followsmany avenues (The Clash, Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello) but maybe its mostprecious contribution is rescuing from obscurity some lower-profile such asLaura Logic, The Mekons, Marianne Faithfull. It's a joy to read,chronologically arranged and ending with Nirvana and grunge in the 90s. Thetext swarms with relevant quotes from rock lyrics and references to otherrock journalists like Lester Bangs. For anyone with a passionate interestin rock/pop music and youth culture, it's required reading.

Valedictorian of the Space Academy
These are brilliant essays, many of them indeed discussing punk's effect on mainstream culture, but some of them bother me.Marcus is original and insightful, but can be overly academic.That is, sometimes his theses takeprecedence to the truth, or even common sense.

It's not uncommon forbrilliant thinkers to be intuitive and obsessive.But Marcus tends tofocus on one tiny wrinkle in a work, and to blow it up into an explanationfor all the artist's motives, intentions, and finally the whole WesternDilemma.By the time he reaches the end of his inspired flight, we aremiles away from the original subject.

One example is his interpretationof the album "Los Angeles" by the band X as a Raymond Chandlerstory set to music. This approach is clever, and gives him a chance toindulge in some retro literary criticism, but the two works really havenothing in common besides their L.A. low-lifes.

A more inexplicableexample is his essay on the L.A. punk scene. In apparent (and inferior)imitation of a famous piece by Lester Bangs, he abandons all logic toportray the L.A. punks as proto-fascist.He describes the Black Flag song"White Minority" as racist, while ignoring the fact that thesinger is Hispanic and the song clearly ironic.He interprets a punk'shostility to "hippies" as master-race thuggery, when it's clearthat by "hippies" the boy means the long-haired metal fans whopreyed on the punk minority.Both of these facts are established in thefilm Marcus is describing.

There are other examples, many of themexplicable by the vagaries of a powerful mind and the journalist's need tofind an original "handle" on a subject. But if such a goal ispursued too far we get Yellow Journalism, which has caused physical harm inthe past and will do so again. ... Read more

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The Ramones were one of the first bands responsible for punk. This is Dee Dee Ramone's perspective on 15 years of touring with the band, the ups and downs and the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. ... Read more

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Complete and real
Third book we have on the Ramones, this is the best. Very natural and real read.

R.I.PDee Dee i love u and you will always be missed
this was a good book. some people here are saying that it was a waste then forget you. pay respect. this is one of my favorite books. BUY IT!!!
Dee Dee i love you man. R.I.P

R.I.P DEE-DEE YOU ARE MY IDOL
I got this book for christmas a few years back. Since then ive read this book maybe 10 times and loved it each time .Dee-Dee didnt have a easy life he had no parents no family or anything. He had the strength to endure tho he never gave up. Dee-Dee wrote some of the ramones best songs and was wonderfull. One of my favortie parts of the book is describing how he passes out in his garlic steak n woke up with puffy eyes n mucis dripping from them saying maybe no one ull notice, no dee-dee i bet they did:). Dee-Dee got clean and turned his life round by the end of the book n maried a total hottie to:)

YOU ARE MISSED DEE-DEE I MISS YOU :)

P.S BUY HIS RAP CD TOO, IT HAS ONE OF MY FAV SONGS"BABY DOLL"
DEE-DEE KING STANDING IN THE SPOTLIGHT,

Love the Ramones, this book could have been better
I know that this book was written in a true Punk sense, but it still left me hanging.I wish Dee Dee could have dished the dirt a little more (especially about the lyrics to 53rd & 3rd) I wish it could have been longer and a little more detailed.

Give him shock treatment
Really funny.I never heard of anyone having a car accident inside of a car wash. ... Read more

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Good Book
Wobble explains himself well.He explains his two or so years in PIL and his reasons for leaving well.He explains his life well and his art well.I am a big fan of what the guy is doing, and enjoyed reading this.

Memoirs of a great artist
At last an account of '76/77 by someone who can write and does not think that punk is the highlight of his life.
This book gives you the opportunity to share spiritual development with a soulful person.
There is no bigger gift than that.

Really well written
Jah Wobble or John Wardle is oen of the most influential bassists around and probably the most influential one to emerge from the British post-punk scene. His bass defined the whole sound on Public Image Limited's first albums especially on Metal Box. He then went on to produce a series of great solo albums and did session work like no other. He can also write as we see here: he starts by recounting his childhood and then his evolution through the punk and post-punk music scene. It is abrilliant dosument from a guy who sees himself as just a geezer but who is a genuine musical talent. Indispensable. ... Read more

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Punk 77 Redux is a fresh new photographic look at the band Crime and punk music by acclaimed photographer and documentarian James Stark. ... Read more

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not a better c***in' book out there
Not since DTSB showed me his house have I been so excited. Walsh give an in depth look at the lives and record cataolgue of the group of minks that were the sex pistols. The best c***in' book ever. Everyone from the hill to leitrimrecomends that if you can read then this is the book for you, ya readins b******s ya. A truely head smashing read! ... Read more

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Examins the songs that encapsulate the punks' radical message of dissatisfaction and anger. From the daddie of the scene - The Clash, and The Pistols - through to The Buzzcocks, The Stranglers, The Undertones and The Damned, this title dissects punks' nihilistic classic tunes. ... Read more

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Stacy Thompson's Punk Productions offers a concise history of punk music and combines concepts from Marxism to psychoanalysis to identify the shared desires that punk expresses through its material productions and social relations. Thompson explores all of the major punk scenes in detail, from the early days in New York and England, through California Hardcore and the Riot Grrrls, and thoroughly examines punk record collecting, the history of the Dischord and Lookout! record labels, and 'zines produced to chronicle the various scenes over the years. While most analyses of punk address it in terms of style, Thompson grounds its aesthetics, and particularly its most combative elements, in a materialist theory of punk economics situated within the broader fields of the music industry, the commodity form, and contemporary capitalism. While punk's ultimate goal of abolishing capitalism has not been met, the punk enterprise that stands opposed to the music industry is still flourishing. Punks continue to create aesthetics that cannot be readily commodified or rendered profitable by major record labels, and punks remain committed to transforming consumers into producers, in opposition to the global economy's increasingly rapid shift toward oligopoly and monopoly. ... Read more

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Critical Lit. Theory applied to Punk
Punk Productions by Stacy Thompson analyzes major punk scenes, punk record labels, and other aspects of punk as the resurfacing of repressed economic desires, specifically the anti-capitalist desires that dominant production and culture cannot satisfy.

An understanding of Marxism , some familiarity with psychoanalysis, and a short introduction to critical theory would probably be helpful to any reader who picks up this text.

While individual punks are often scattered and unaware of the larger economic implications of their actions, or the philosophical underpinnings and assumptions of their aesthetics, this book points them out clearly (or at least one interpretation of them). If you have ever felt punk to be something more than just music, something that was/is working towards something big, something epic, something radical, then this book might very well be for you.

The Prism Of Literary Theory Conquers All
From a longer review: Punk Productions is a series of essays by (Mr.) Stacy Thompson, whose areas of expertise can only be rewarded financially by the largesse of the American University system. Thompson's teaching interests are marxism, psychoanalysis, film studies, and utopian studies - a line that runs from dementia to delusion. This book is an American update of the equally masturbatory Subculture, The Meaning Of Style, by Dick Hebdige. Thompson manipulates and fabricates punk history in economic/political terms using the jargon of theories formulated for an era over 160 years ago - which in practice has consistently led to suffering, fascism and genocide. Unfinished Business is laughable but not funny, and it's a shame a mind as large as Mr. Thompson's couldn't be put to positive use, like solving crossword puzzles. Instead he practices educational pedophilia.

A healthy portion of the book is unreadable if you're not familiar with marxist concepts, which are wordy, esoteric and self-referential in order to appear consequential. By necessity I skimmed through most of the marxist phraseology, which had all the allure of NAMBLA's rationalizations for child fricking. Buried in the book is a decent amount of accurate information on times and dates, so at least it has that, but the fun of the book is reading how he deliberately misrepresents certain scenes so they'll fit his narrative. The ones he covers are New York, California, Washington DC, Hardcore, first wave Straight Edge, Riot Grrrl, and Lookout's Pop-Punk. As a follower of the generally discredited field of psychoanalysis he also likes to pepper in stupidity from that branch of the talking cure. Most things in the book are dealt with in terms of "desire".

He gets the 70s NY scene wrong, saying the CBGB's scene was a desire to resist commercial labels and financial gain. Of the Ramones, who thought their competition for the airwaves was the Bay City Rollers, Thompson writes "The first Ramones album and the cost of its production spoke to punk's desire to gain and democratize access to the means of production." Occam's Razor, that the simplest of two competing theories is usually correct, is mandatory for whacking through the weeds of this book. He intellectualizes things that don't require it, and then manipulates that into validations for his proselytizing. Thompson pretends punks are mindful, willing participants in the narrative of seizing the means of production, opposing capitalism and not creating commodities. Pure BS. The NY scene was all about getting signed to a major and selling as many units as will sell. Everybody knows that. The Ramones were given very little time and money to record a record that didn't need studio trickery and a lot of time to record. That's all that was.

There's a certain level of intellectualism that's proportionate to a subject. Once crossed it's all nonsense and becomes less about the subject and more about the writer's agenda, which in Stacy Thompson's case is the underpinnings of recent history's most spectacular mass murders and shared misery. I'm no great intellect. I prefer the simple explanations of complex ideas. Hooray for smart people, but a beautiful mind is a terrible thing to waste on toilet droppings. Marxism is how smart people prove how dumb they are. Punk Productions only proves the thesis that the world's filled with over-educated idiots, many who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.

Textural Poaching Is A Crime
I think Stacy Thompson's perspective is a bit odd because she regards music as a commodity and not as a form of creative expression. She sees its aesthetic qualities as being wholly determined by economic factors and social forces. There is virtually no consideration given to the musician as a creative artist motivated by his or her muse. She does not understand that the artist's vision is what demands noncommercial forms of expression.

Instead of suggesting that punks were trying to live in historical time, as if they were aware of making cultural history, I would argue that they were trying to live the rock star fantasy. Punks were legends in their own minds. This is quite evident in the "oral histories" which consist of apocryphal stories rather than the objective and impartial facts that a genuine historian would record. I doubt that punk rock will ever be a part of history. Instead it will leave behind a few rock legends and a punk mythology.

Stacy Thompson's book may stir the most controversy with her suggestion that the California Hardcore scene was essentially homosocial in nature; secretly homoerotic but too homophobic to acknowledge the fact. It is true that the California Hardcore scene excluded girls entirely and that is another good reason for my distaste for hardcore punk because I like punk girls who show a lot of character. If there are no girls on the scene as freaky performers or fashionable fans then the scene has no appeal for me. The only psychoanalysis in the book takes the form of this homosocial theory but I find Jungian theories about the mythic imagination have more relevance for the sort of rock legends and hero cults the youth subcultures are intent on worshipping.

Nonetheless, I highly recommend this book as a reference guide to various punk scenes. It also addresses the crucial issue of a commercial culture which wants to domineer your imagination and repress your creative potential.
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Disgusting Fun
Think about this: A book for silly fans from a genre that hated silly fans. That's what this gobbler is. It is sarcastic and fun simultaneously. I got the book to use for some of the art in a college-level literature class I taught where we attempted to answer the question, "What was 70's punk really all about?" We still don't know the answer yet, but the class was good, and the art was fine. The book is worth it for the full-page line-art illustration of Television and the Ramones (my favorite 70's bands). The Ramones you can get elsewhere, but a decent full size image of Television is hard to come by. ... Read more

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A punk rock masterpiece!!!
To say that I love this book would really be a major understatement as it totally rocks!!! With essays by the likes of Boff Whalley, Michelle Tea, Ben Sizemore, and Joe Queer (to name but a few of the many awesome contributors), you know this is going to be an excellent anthology. While many great books on the subject of punk rock have been published in recent years, this is my personal favorite. Covering topics ranging from the straight edge subculture to gender relations in the punk scene, this fun, multi-generational collection of punk rock initiation stories (and photographs) really captures the rebellious spirit of this political and artistic movement. Indeed, anyone who has been out on the streets at any of the major global justice and anti-war demonstrations in recent years knows the enormous impact punk rock has had on shaping radical youth. As such, this book is a joyful tribute to the loud, angry, anti-authoritarian music that has politicized so many alienated teens. While I sadly cannot remember the first punk show I ever attended, I do remember how deeply liberating punk rock was for me as a young gay kid during the latter years of the dismal Cold War Reagan administration. I also remember all those awful crushes I had on other punk guys who were all tragically heterosexual! (This, of course, was way before the advent of queercore punk bands like Pansy Division). While nowadays I listen to far more folk music than punk, I like to think that I've maintained my commitment to the left libertarian DIY punk rock ethos. Not only does this book bring back a lot of wonderful memories for me, it makes me proud to still be a punk, albeit a rather crunchy one in Birkenstocks rather than combat boots! Thank you Chris Duncan for compiling these important stories, and thank you AK Press for publishing yet again another thought-provoking and empowering work.

p.s., if you enjoy this book, check out Craig O'Hara's "The Philosophy of Punk", as the two books compliment each other perfectly!

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