If you're like me, you're not only fascinated and love punk rock, but are also fascinated by how it all started and what were the musical inspirations for it, so here's some good reads in no particular order
1) England's dreaming:a great account on the 70s punk movement in England. Yes, it focuses mostly on The Sex Pistols, but it's still a fascinating story of a rag tag group of impoverished british boys who started the biggest punk band in England and the imaginative, but greedy manager who tried to control them. oh, and of course it touches on the other bands of the day too like The Clash (obviously)
2) Please kill me: This one's about the U.S. 70s punk movement in New York and the early happenings in Michigan: very gossipy,lots of love/hate recollections, and rather depressing. However, you still get a great sense of where the hectic, wickedly funny tunes of The Ramones (and the dictators) and the desperate howls of Iggy and Richard Hell came from
3) Lipstick traces: This here one's more of a culture study, but it's interesting nonetheless. the author, Greil Marcus, traces the Sex Pistols' songs and presence back to the situationists of the early 50s and the dada movement of the late 1900s. Check it out!
4) American Hardcore: a complete, if not culturally in depth examination of the Hardcore scene: Steve Bloom covers all the scenes across the nation and a bit o canada too. It could definitely have gone into a brief history of what came before 80s hardcore and how exactly it transferred from The Ramones, Dead Boys,etc from NYC to Black Flag and Minor threat. On the plus side,it's got a whole chapter dedicated to The Misfits!
Anyway, I'm hoping to get The Germs biography titled Lexicon devil from my dear buddy Tesco (accounts of his various adventures can be found here: http://blankforever.com/) if my old man* doesn't object to it being sent to his office.
*Who am I? Fonzie? sheesh..
Next time, I'll look into punk rock movies and documentaries: The good, the subpar, and the ugly. Believe you me though, there are some great ones
