There have been endless books on the Clash that has cemented their long standing reputation as the key band of the period, some like Pat Gilbert’s ‘Passion Is A Fashion’ are great reads that tell the story in absorbing detail but somehow it’s Johnny Green’s memoirs of his days as the band’s tour manager that stand out. The American bands now seem closer to the Rolling Stones than punk rock but that makes for a fascinating read and the sordid tales are a great backdrop to the moments of pure inspiration that the New York scene was providing at the time. The oral history of the New York scene from the mid seventies onwards is documented here in a classic fascinating and seamy ride through the intertwined histories of the Ramones, New York Dolls, CBGBs, Blondie and a whole cast of characters whose lifestyles seem so much more darker and rock n roll than the beautiful naivety of the British scene documented in my own oral history. ‘Please Kill Me, The Uncensored Oral History Of Punk’ Legs McNeill.
The book is thrilling and stuffed with details and puts the sex, subversion and style back into the movement and is one of the best books written about any type of music full stop,Ģ. The book is centred around the Sex Pistols and all the punk rock thinking that went around the band and puts them in a very different place than they tend to be dumped these days- Savage sees them as sexy, young assassins, agent provocateurs who changed England for ever and he is right. Jon Savage is different, he is a great writer, his attention to pop culture detail is legendary and his obvious love of the music leaps off the page. But it’s not dry academic, you know in the way that some of those rock professors write in theories and degree level writing without any understanding of the form, sounding quite horrified that they can be so fascinated by something as low and grubby as pop music.
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