Take My Life, Please
a book review by Mitch Myers
comeback@mcs.com
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History Of Punk
by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
Grove Press
Take My Life, Please
a book review by Mitch Myers
comeback@mcs.com
Okay, it's time for a pop test on punk history.
Get your pencils out. Ready?
The answers to these and many other equally important questions can be found in Please Kill Me, The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. They spoke to me from McNeil's apartment on 1st Avenue on New York's Lower East Side. "The book is a very earnest portrayal of the insanity. When you write about music it's really hard to get it, plus it's really boring. We thought if we could capture the insanity in the book you would know where the music came from."
Legs McNeil along with John Holmstrom and Ged Dunn founded the now-defunct Punk Magazine in 1975. Long before anyone really cared about the Ramones, Iggy and the Stooges or Richard Hell, these guys were eating, drinking, drugging and hanging out with artists that would somehow influence a Blank Generation. Gillian McCain became program coordinator of the Poetry Project at St. Marks Church where Patti Smith gave her first readings. Now, twenty years on, McNeil and McCain have complied four hundred pages of interviews. With comments from a surviving cast of characters as well as a few voices from the grave, the book delivers a cultural chronicle like no other. This funny, disastrous and uniquely American punklore is candidly told by the people who really lived it.
We thought we were the most commercial stuff in the world. I was shocked when nobody wanted it.
The timing seems right for Please Kill Me. This year has seen an emergence of punk nostalgia. Photo galleries, written memoirs, CD reissues and films all hark back to those ultra-jaded, ironically naive times. 1996 also celebrates the release of new recordings by Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, John Cale, Patti Smith, the MC5's Wayne Kramer and a book by Richard Hell. When asked what prompted the creation of the book, Legs replied, "I was extremely depressed and suicidal. My ex-wife took me to a psychiatrist and they wanted me to go on Prozac. They said "It will make you feel better!" I thought maybe feeling better isn't what its about and decided I'd either commit suicide or do something. The book is the result."
The story begins in 1965 with the Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable. Gillian McCain gives the Factory credit where credit is due. "They set the sound, they set the look, plus the outrageous lyrics. They were writing journalism or diary entries which are really what punk lyrics are about. What I did today. Who I am, right now. And they were completely opposed to the prevailing Hippie sensibility at that time." Quoting scenemaker Danny Fields and numerous industry peers, McNeil and McCain lead us by the leash into punk's heyday with some Detroit-style Rock and Roll. McNeil defends the selective nature of their examination of punk history. "Everybody talks about, 'Well you left out the Cleveland scene, you left out that scene.' It was all bullshit, the Detroit scene was Rock and Roll. It was Creem Magazine, it was MC5, it was Lester [Bangs] and Iggy. Everybody in the book says, 'And then I heard Iggy and it changed my life forever.'"
The book gives up the dirt on CBGB's, Max's Kansas City, the New York Dolls, the Ramones, Patti Smith, Richard Hell, the Dead Boys, the groupies, the roadies, the managers, the record execs and even the bar owners. The story is even-handed and not star-struck by any means. McNeil comments on the social equality of the punk phenomenon. "We didn't make that distinction back then. Everybody had their gang. Blondie was a gang, Punk Magazine was a gang, the Ramones were a gang. It was who you were aligned with. There was this extended Ramones family. There were Blondies. You drank and hung out with them. If you were in that gang, nobody asked for your credentials. If you were a roadie you were allowed the same privileges as Debbie (Harry) or Joey (Ramone). It was a small scene and no one cared."
The recent interest in punk is ironic to McNeil. "No one wanted American Punk. The Ramones got no airplay, no one wanted Iggy, no one wanted the Velvet Underground, no one wanted the MC5. No one wanted any of this stuff. It is only in the last five years that all these people are legendary. The funny thing about the scene was everybody was trying to sell out. We thought we were the greatest. We thought Punk Magazine was going to become the next Mad Magazine. We thought The Ramones were the Beatles. The only reason this became so underground and hip is because nobody wanted it. We thought we were the most commercial stuff in the world. I was shocked when nobody wanted it."
We were mining the past of Brando and James Dean.
Who would have ever considered white punks on dope could make you proud to be an American? McNeil and McCain vigorously defend their underground lifestyle as a part of an illustrious tradition. "We were mining the past of Brando and James Dean. We were stealing and it was fine. It would have been nice for America to realize it was an American thing. And it would have been nice for Great Britain to give America some credit at that time." They also document the REAL great rock and roll swindle, an appropriation of punk by the British in the form of David Bowie, Malcom McLaren and the Sex Pistols. McNeil says with a patriot's authority, "Bowie was just trying to get legitimacy through Iggy, and Malcom was just trying to cause trouble any way he could. It's just that it finally took off for Malcom."
For those of you who missed the party, pay close attention. Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain have written us the perfect bedtime story for the nineties. "In this day and age of everybody being so politically correct and having to act so appropriately, it's like that time never existed. Kids don't even know what it was like. It was only a hundred people. It was almost like a family. I'm still in touch with these people, I still consider them to be my friends." Please Kill Me contains real heroes and genuine tragedy. It has touching love stories and a fair share of ultra-violence. There is also sex, drugs and plenty of Rock and Roll. Nuff Said.