ABSTRACT
“Lurid, insolent, disorderly, funny, sometimes gross, sometimes mean and occasionally touching”—in the words of its New York Times review, Legs McNeil’s and Gillian McCain’s punk rock history Please Kill Me is a book utterly befitting of the musical phenomenon it seeks to describe. Published in 1996, twenty years after New York punk icons the Ramones released their groundbreaking self-titled debut album, Please Kill Me was one of the first oral histories of American punk rock drawn from the scene’s participants. 1 Like any oral history or filmed documentary, the editors chose to stitch together a story from a variety of different sources, including original testimonies and previously published materials. The narrative sketched out in the passage below centers on the formation of Punk magazine, and comes primarily from one of its founders, Legs (Eddie) McNeil (born 1956), and contributing writer, Mary Harron (born 1953). 2 Along the way appearances from the four original Ramones (Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Tommy), an inadvertent cameo from former Velvet Underground front man Lou Reed (1942–2013), and the storied Bowery Avenue club CBGB’s provide the appropriate local New York City color. 3
