Title: Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk
Authors: Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
Year 1996
Publisher: Grove Press
Price: $25 US hardcover
Review by: Jenny Boe
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Title: Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk
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There have been many books on the history of punk rock, but "Please Kill Me" stands out as one of the finest and most original. Legs McNeil (once the resident punk at Punk Magazine, which gave the "movement" its name) and Gillian McCain have created a very straightforward, entertaining and revealing chronicle of the birth of punk in 1970s New York City. The story is told entirely in the words of the people involved, in over 400 pages culled from interviews conducted for the book (along with a few from previous sources). All the names you'd expect are here -- Iggy Pop, Richard Hell, Malcolm McLaren -- as well as those you've probably never heard of: the friends, lovers, and lesser-known figures who were just as much a part of the original punk scene. Like the guy who O.D.'d on bad heroin the same night as Sid Vicious but lived to tell the tale.Some of this book is insanely over the top, but so was drug use back then, and the words from the horses' mouths make it personal and real rather than glamorous. Students of music and socio-cultural history will find plenty of noteworthy material here, but it's also a blast to read: I cracked up reading about Jim Morrison's idea of a fun night out (drinking eight screwdrivers, taking six Tuinals, peeing without leaving the bar, and more), Cheetah Chrome psychotically flinging a guinea pig out his window, girls fighting over Dee Dee Ramone outside of CBGBs, and many other tiny bits of genuine punk rock history, all told by those who can tell the stories best.
RON ASHETON: By then, I was used to Iggy throwing up. He used to go behind the amps to hide it, but it became common knowledge what was happening. Such degradation -- I gave up saying anything because nobody listened to me anyway. I mean, just before the gig they took my vintage pre-CBS Stratocaster up to Harlem and traded it for forty dollars' worth of smack. They said it got ripped off. I was heartbroken, man. Years later, my brother, Scotty, told me what really happened. (p. 80)DEE DEE RAMONE: Monte Melnick did us a favor by sneaking us into a rehearsal space called Performance Studios. That's when the Ramones really, somehow, got started. We tried to figure out some songs from records, but couldn't. I had no idea how to tune a guitar and only knew the E chord. No one else was any better. Joey started off by playing drums at the first rehearsal. It took him two hours to get the drum set ready. We waited and waited for Joey to put the drum kit together. I couldn't take it anymore so we started playing. We stopped after the first song and I looked over at Joey and he didn't have the stool on the drum stand. He was just sitting on the point. That was our first rehearsal. (p. 182)
GYDA GASH: So there's Roxy all drunk and fucked-up, naturally, with her arms around Cheetah and Stiv and I'm thinking, hey, you know these are cool boys, sick boys. These sick boys from outta town, boy they look pale. I wound up with Stiv and it was great -- he was great, except he took out a knife. I could never understand what he thought: Wow, some freaky chick, pull out this knife, she's really gonna get turned on. He just put it on my thigh, and I'm like, "Gimme a break." But after that I was in love. (p. 241)
Today's music is jaded hip: Everything's been done and nothing's shocking. But back in the seventies, ripped up clothing and songs about violence and nihilism were outrageous. Something like Richard Hell's T-shirt with a bull's-eye and the words "Please Kill Me" (the source of the book's title) was absolutely unheard of (some of his fans thought he was serious, and politely offered to help him out). This book recalls the feeling that anything was possible, that there were no rules. The excitement of punk's protagonists as they realized they could reject the way things were "supposed to be" comes across vividly, even charmingly. Early on, the book is about beautiful, reckless optimism; later it is sour and disillusioned, as punk turns into something bigger and uglier than its progenitors ever envisioned (due largely to the phenomenon known as The Sex Pistols).The innocent energy of those early years may be lost now, and after reading the darker pages of "Please Kill Me," it's probably not such a loss. Still, it's great to see how these early punks unknowingly altered the shape of music and pop culture forever. "This wonderful vital force that was articulated by the music was really about corrupting every form," says Legs McNeil. "It was about working with what you got in front of you and turning everything embarrassing, awful and stupid in your life to your advantage." Punk may not be shocking in 1996, but there's still pleasure to be drawn from its stories.
You can order "Please Kill Me" from amazon.com.
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