people who dislike the format of this book obviously ignored the title. beyond that i dont know how one can ignore Legs' gift for editing. sometimes it seems like he's setting these snippets up just to knock them all down with the summarizing paragraph of another first-hand witness that comes off like a punchline to end the chapter. reads like a documentary at times.

people who complain that the book doesnt address the west coast scene, more of the UK variety, or "punk" as a genre into the 80s and beyond are ignoring the fact that Legs is one of the founders of Punk Magazine, the publication that arguably coined the term for the music discussed herein. the contributors--his friends and acquaintances during the time of that founding--address the west coast, the UK, and the present/future (depending on what historical perspective theyre writing from) only insofar as as these places and times affected them. there's plenty of books that take a more wide-ranging view of what "punk" is or may become and at nearly 500 pages long, I'm not sure it was in the editor's best interest to try to include such subjects.

i thought it was a really fun read, replete with gross-out junkie stories, conflicting accounts of controversial behind-the-scenes fights and affairs, and all the other first-hand shit you won't find in nearly any of the hundreds of other books with the word 'punk' in the title so yknow