Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk

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And now, just because I liked it so much, here's my absolute favorite bit of the book, from Ari Delon (illegitimate son of model/groupie Nico and Alain Delon): But at the same time, I don't want anyone to shy away from this book just because they're worried they won't recognize all of the famous names. In fact, it would almost be more fun to go into this knowing nothing about the punk movement in America, because the book is really that masterful - even if I started out not knowing who, say, Danny Fields was, the characters all drift in and out of the narrative that the editors weave, and everyone is so memorable it's not too hard to keep the huge cast of characters straight in your head. It couldn’t have been just the drugs, though. What other factors do you think led them to follow Manson without questioning him?

The Sex Pistols were afraid to meet the Ramones after their show in England because they thought they would beat them up. McNeil and McCain spoke with Rolling Stone about the lonely process of reporting on creepy subject matter, why the “Helter Skelter” theory is (mostly) bullshit, and how if you give someone enough acid you can make them believe anything you want.

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Even though Nancy was very disliked, everyone thought it was terrible that the police stopped investigating her murder after Sid died. Many people thought their drug dealer actually did it. Lee was an extraordinary person. She never capitalized on her involvement with the Beatniks. She had no interest in having her fifteen minutes of fame.

McNeil: Once you isolate people and convince them the world’s coming to an end, they’re not getting any outside information. Please Kill Me made its way into my life 13 years ago, when I was 14. I used to hang out at a record store in South Florida, where I'm from, and at one point the store clerks decided to take me under their wing. One of the clerks, Chris, ripped out a tiny slip of paper from behind the counter. He wrote the words “Please Kill Me” on it and handed it to me. "Go to the bookstore and get that book," he said. Music nerd in training that I was, I did as I was bidden without question. So why isn't Legs McNeil proud of blazing a trail for this new wave of 21st century oral histories?

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Everyone was on drugs. How did punk even get started? I mean really, it amazes me that punk even remotely got off it's feet, everyone was so messed up. McNeil: It’s so immediate, and it puts you in the time and the place. It’s people making bad decisions in real time.

Musicians are assholes, or so goes the refrain from the label A&R guy that signed a lot of these bands. The words and drawings of Mary Rose present a gritty, powerful, no-holds-barred true experience of a teen girl so desperate to be loved, so eager to fit in that she’ll go to extremes that could cost her her life. Learn More… Alene Lee’s electric persona and intelligence was undeniable. In her 2010 essay, Alene’s daughter, Christina Diamente, quotes Lucien Carr, the man whom her mother was romantic partners with for eleven years. “When I was given an IQ test, I scored 155, but I consider Alene to be smarter than I am. She is the most intelligent woman I know.” Allen Ginsberg is also quoted as saying, “Alene was a peer, and we [Kerouac, Burroughs, and Carr] considered her an equal.” We refuse to cheat," says McCain, "where we'd have a piece of prose in between two people talking. 'And then so and so went to blah blah blah.' To me, that's cheating."Legs McNeil is an American music journalist. He is one of the three original founders of the seminal Punk magazine that gave the movement its name; as well as being a former editor at Spin and editor-in-chief of Nerve Magazine. Besides Please Kill Me, McNeil is also co-author of The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry, a definitive work on the porn industry. As Publisher’s Weekly said, “This compulsively readable book perfectly captures the pop culture zeitgeist. It doesn’t hurt that the history of American pornography is inextricably intertwined with all the subjects that captivate us: sex, drugs, beauty, fame, money, the Mafia, law enforcement and violence.” McNeil’s most recent book, Dear Nobody: The True Diary of Mary Rose is another collaborative effort with Gillian McCain. Dear Nobody was published on April 1st 2014 and received widespread critical acclaim as being the authentic version of Go Ask Alice. McNeil has appeared on many TV documentaries, from the History Channel to VH1, and has produced and hosted a three-hour TV special on Court TV over three nights on the porn industry, which was the highest-rated original programming in that network’s history. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2013-07-19 14:16:26 Bookplateleaf 0008 Boxid IA1117312 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York [u.a.] Donor

There's a raging aura of pretension that weaves its way through this novel which is a treat considering it's an oral history. It's all very "we are so very ~cool~ and ~unusual~ and ~special~ look at how we subvert the expectations placed on us etc" and honestly it's just a bit too much. Thumbs up to you. I knew nothing about Patti Smith going into this book and have come out deeply disliking her. I know the context of the time is probably important but so many of these people are deeply unlikeable... except Debbie Harry. Arturo Vega: I always thought the ONLY way to really conquer evil is to make love to it. My favourite dream is always the one where I face the devil. I'm in the nude and the devil appears, and he is a beautiful blue. He looks like a mannequin, he looks like a robot. He doesn't have any clothes on, of course, and he's blue and shiny. I keep hearing voices that say, "It's him! It's him!" And I go, "Okay."

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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.” McNeil: And they were [young]. I mean if you take someone and give them lots of acid [and] isolate them in a community, you can get people to do anything. Fifty years ago, followers of hippie cult leader Charles Manson shot, bludgeoned and stabbed to death five people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate, in a seemingly random home invasion in the Hollywood Hills. A second night of murders followed.