Please Kill Me - Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
My favorite work of nonfiction is the book Please Kill Me, by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. The book details the rise of the punk movement as well as the careers and personal lives of many of its most influential figures. My parents are big music fans, so I grew up listening to classic punk and proto-punk - my Mom often fondly reminisces about me at age three singing along to The Clash and The Ramones from the backseat of the car, and my Dad introduced me to The Velvet Underground so early I honestly thought “Who Loves The Sun” was a children’s lullaby until high school. Learning the history and intrigue behind the music that I accepted as part of the background of my life since infancy was both fascinating and inspiring.
I don’t know that I could hack it in the punk lifestyle, but as an aspiring journalist, the way that Legs and the other reporters documented the scene is aspirational. It preserves just some of the ephemeral energy that lives in a counter-culture music scene, which otherwise can easily fade into memory as time passes and trends shift. I hope that if I end up in the journalism field, I can find an opportunity to document something similarly profound, and with any luck, similarly exciting as well.
I just wanted to say that this is so cool. While I'm not super into the punk scene myself, I find it's origins and tenets (I can't think of another way to phrase it...) a lot more complex then some people may see on the surface. I feel like there are not a lot of good mainstream representations of the sub-culture so a book written by punks for punks seems really interesting. Thanks for sharing and now I want to this book!!!
ReplyDeleteI want to read it too! Your comment about immersive journalism really reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson and George Plimpton. I think really reporting or sharing something or someone else's story, you really have to know them. That's the only way to do it justice and have it not be exploitative (not that that always works...). Do you follow Humans of New York? I love the way he presents other peoples' stories and gives them agency over their own voice.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read the Humans of New York blog, but I have the print book and find it very interesting. Really reminds me how different some people's life experiences are to my own, and that everyone I pass on the street and never think about again has their own history and inner life. It's a great book.
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