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Punk Narratives! "Please Kill Me" by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, "From the Velvets to the Voidoids..." by Clinton Heylin, and "We Got the Neutron Bomb;
and "We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of LA Punk" By Brendan Mullen and Marc Spitz
So as I've mentioned before, I like to read. And beefing up on some of the music culture that I appreciate and admire the most is, in addition to listening, done through, uh reading. So let's begin with "Please Kill Me" and "From the Velvets to the Voidoids...". Both of these books deal primarily with the New York punk scene of the mid - late 70's. "Please Kill Me" is my preferred selection of the two books, as it has a bit more insight and is follows through coherently as a book should- it isn't very scattered, even if it is a narrative history. "From the Velvets to the Voidoids..." is not as well put as "Please Kill Me". While it is very informative, it switches back and forth between the New York scene and the Ohio scene that spawned the likes of Devo, Rocket from the Tombs, etc. fairly freely, and at times, doesn't flow as well as it could. I also found the parts about Ohio to be a bit out of place in a book dealing with a mostly New York movement, no matter how connected they were. Still, well written, well narrated, and worth the read to get a bit more insight. "We Got the Neutron Bomb..." deals with the scene that I knew the least about. I could name you bands like X, The Germs, The Runaways, the Go-Go's and Black Flag- the ones everyone knows, and that's about it. However in reading this, one learns about the other bands who inspired / collaborated with / shared bills and apartments together in the scene. I personally like reading about new (old) bands so I can go out and listen to them, and this book has exposed me to much of those types of bands. While I find this to be a bit scattered and abrupt at times as well, it is still a fairly good read and well worth your time if you don't know much about the LA movement. And of course, you can't pass up reading the words that came out of Kim Fowley's mouth... holy shit. Educate yourselves, punks.
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