Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk

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At the age of 18, disgusted with the hippie movement that seemed to be going nowhere, McNeil gathered with two high school friends, John Holmstrom and Ged Dunn, and decided to create "some sort of media thing" for a living. They settled upon a magazine, assuming that people would "think [they were] cool and hang out with [them]" as well as "give [them] free drinks". The name "Punk" was decided upon because "it seemed to sum up...everything...obnoxious, smart but not pretentious, absurd, ironic, and things that appealed to the darker side". In Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, McNeil said that the magazine was inspired by two chief influences: Harvey Kurtzman and The Dictators' debut album The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!, indicating that the magazine was started strictly so that its creators could "hang out with the Dictators". Legs McNeil lives at the “Schwenksville Narrative Oral History Institute.” He was the former Resident Punk at Punk magazine, a senior editor at Spin, and regularly contributes to Vice online. Please Kill Me" covers New York punk from its birth in the mid-60s at Andy Warhol's Factory all the way to its eventual death in the late '70s, as corporate America once again begins to catch the wave and numerous members of the original first wave of punk begin to burn out from the excessive and dangerous lifestyles that they embraced. McNeil and co-author Gillian McCain present their material in the form of interviews with a vast number of the people who were there on the front lines, experiencing and inventing the punk scene as it developed. Johnny Thunders, Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, The Ramones, Richard Hell, Danny Fields....they are all heard from here along with a host of groupies, drug dealers, hookers, agents and managers, club owners, and other scene hangers-on. The PKM e-book edition features an expanded and updated photo gallery and features a new cover with a classic photo of Iggy and the Stooges, photographed by Danny Fields. Free of historical self-revision or precious musical pontification, [this] book comes as close to capturing the coruscated brilliance and vein-puncturing style of the Blank Generation as the written word is likely to get.”

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That record became very key for me, not just for what it said, and for how great it was, but also because I heard other people who could make good music without being any good at music. It gave me hope.” I don't like to look out of the windows even--there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry, with Jennifer Osborne and Peter Pavia ( Regan Books, 2006). Immensely entertaining…I found these tales of unholy madness and drug-fueled abandon all too thought-provoking.”

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk - The Book

Hunter S. Thompson is roaring down the desert highway to Las Vegas with his attorney, the Samoan, to find the dark side of the American Dream. Armed with a drug arsenal of stupendous proportions, the duo engage in a surreal succession of chemically enhanced confrontations with casino operators, police officers and assorted Middle Americans. A contemporary classic, Please Kill Me is the definitive oral history of the most nihilistic of all pop movements. Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Richard Hell, the Ramones, and scores of other punk figures lend their voices to this decisive account of that explosive era. Perhaps I should die. After all, all the great blues singers did die. But life is getting better now.Readers must make note that this book covers primarily the development of 1970s-era New York punk, with a side detour to England to witness the birth of the Sex Pistols and British punk. Punk did indeed die at the end of the '70s, and it has of course been resurrected and reinvented by succeeding generations. But if you want to know where the whole thing began, you have to get this book. Whew boy is the title of this one misleading as hell. The Uncensored Oral History of Punk? More like the Uncensored Oral History of this really niche section of punk that happened in New York oh! and a little bit of Detroit.