Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk

by Legs McNeil

LOU REED: Music’s never loud enough. You should stick your head in a speaker. Louder, louder, louder. Do it, Frankie, do it. Oh, how. Oh do it, do it.

In fact, I got into making underground movies specifically to do a documentary on amphetamine heads. So I rented this old loft on Allen Street and I bought a couple ounces of amphetamine and I put it in the middle of the room and put lights up around the edge. The only rules were that I had to be able to film everything, because I was making this documentary called Amphetamine Head. I spread the word, and all these A-heads came, and they were squirting colored ink onto canvas from their syringes, then they’d use the same syringe to shoot up with. That would have been a good flick, but the police confiscated the footage.

There was one guy who showed up at Max’s Kansas City with his arm in a sling. Everyone was like, “What happened to you?” He said, “Oh, I took a shot of speed and I couldn’t stop brushing my hair for three days.”

The problem with the hippies was that there developed a hostility within the counterculture itself, between those who had, like, the equivalent of a trust fund versus those who had to live by their wits. It’s true, for instance, that blacks were somewhat resentful of the hippies by the Summer of Love, 1967, because their perception was that these kids were drawing paisley swirls on their Sam Flax writing pads, burning incense, and taking acid, but those kids could get out of there anytime they wanted to.

They could go back home. They could call their mom and say, “Get me outta here.” Whereas someone who was raised in a project on Columbia Street and was hanging out on the edge of Tompkins Square Park can’t escape. Those kids don’t have anyplace to go.

So there developed another kind, more of a lumpen hippie, who really came from an abused childhood—from parents that hated them, from parents that threw them out. Maybe they came from a religious family that would call them sluts or say, “You had an abortion, get out of here” or “I found birth control pills in your purse, get out of here, go away.” And those kids fermented into a kind of hostile street person. Punk types.

The people just have to die for the music. People are dying for everything else, so why not the music? Die for it. Isn’t it pretty? Wouldn’t you die for something pretty?

This sums up the book for me.

I was afraid. For me it wasn’t fun, but it was mesmerizing. It was like, “The plane’s burning, the ship’s sinking, so let’s crush each other.” Never had I seen people driven so nuts; that music could drive people to such dangerous extremes. That’s when I realized, This is definitely what I wanna do.

Jk. This sums it up.

DANNY FIELDS: In 1968 the mood of the country was changing. The night President Lyndon Johnson announced, “I will not seek, I will not run,” I couldn’t believe it. I mean, who were you gonna hate now?

About a month after the Stooges and the MC5 got signed to Elektra, Iggy got married. I remember the day of his wedding because that was the day Iggy and I started our romantic relationship.

And there’s no doubt about it, music is affected by the substances that you abuse.

Patti’s idea of feminism seemed to me to be about not being a victim—that women should make choices in full control of their faculties and make a rebel stand.

I think David Bowie’s infatuation with Iggy had to do with Bowie wanting to tap into the rock & roll reality that Iggy lived—and that David Bowie could never live because he was a wimpy little South London art student and Iggy was a Detroit trash bag.

Jagger was so tired that he needed the energy of the audience.

RICHARD LLOYD: Hilly was like, “What kinda music do you play?” We said, “Well, what does ‘CBGB-OMFUG’ stand for?” He said, “Country, Bluegrass, Blues, and Other Music for Uplifting Gourmandizers.” So we said, “Oh yeah, we play a little of that, a little rock, a little country, a little blues, a little bluegrass …”

you’re only allowed to have a boiled egg a day, and I absolutely want you, from thereafter, dating librarians.”

MALCOLM MCLAREN: Traveling around Louisiana was fun—though I caught more venereal disease, which pissed me off again. I thought this whole fucking country was venereal-ridden. So here I was—lost—with a few bits remaining of the New York Dolls and another dose of venereal disease, trying to get back to New York.

So I thought the magazine should be for other fuckups like us. Kids who grew up believing only in the Three Stooges. Kids that had parties when their parents were away and destroyed the house. You know, kids that stole cars and had fun. So I said, “Why don’t we call it Punk?” The word “punk” seemed to sum up the thread that connected everything we liked—drunk, obnoxious, smart but not pretentious, absurd, funny, ironic, and things that appealed to the darker side.

WILLIAM BURROUGHS: I always thought a punk was someone who took it up the ass.

EILEEN POLK: I was really attracted to Dee Dee Ramone because he was in a band, and I liked going out with guys in bands. I mean, he was really cute. He was adorable, but I’m sure there was a part of me that just wanted to create chaos—to steal Dee Dee away from Connie.

DEE DEE RAMONE: The Ramones always put a few drops of piss in anything they gave their guests as a little joke.

That’s what the Ramones got from the New York Dolls, you know, “What are we waiting for?” To me that’s the important part of it, what bands pass along to other bands by way of confidence.

DANNY FIELDS: It wasn’t, “Oh, I’m a Nazi and all you Jews better watch out!” It wasn’t anything like that. It wasn’t political, it was sexual.

Wtf

EILEEN POLK: Dee Dee was brilliant at manipulating people. But when it came down to average, everyday conversation, he sounded like a moron,

I think that’s what really created the anger—the anger was simply about money, that the culture had become corporate, that we no longer owned it and everybody was desperate to fucking get it back. This was a generation trying to do that.

TERRY ORK: As I recall, I think I offered to give Iggy head, and he said, “Oh, just lick my stomach, okay?” So I proceeded to lick his stomach and it was pretty satisfying. He was pretty cool about it. I guess everybody wanted to suck Iggy’s cock. It was so THERE, you know?

Compared to what was going on in the real world, decadence seemed kind of quaint. So punk wasn’t about decay, punk was about the apocalypse. Punk was about annihilation. Nothing worked, so let’s get right to Armageddon. You know, if you found out the missiles were on their way, you’d probably start saying what you always wanted to, you’d probably turn to your wife and say, “You know, I always thought you were a fat cow.” And that’s how we behaved.

I grew the beard for him. I let him give me a haircut, but that never happened again. He took what little hair I had and created bald spots all over, which I didn’t appreciate. I’d never been treated in such a way at grocery stores in my life.

It was a little more commercial and a little more avant-garde,

LEGS MCNEIL: Punk was like, This is new, this is now, the apotheosis, powerful. But it wasn’t political. I mean, maybe that is political. I mean, the great thing about punk was that it had no political agenda. It was about real freedom, personal freedom. It was also about doing anything that’s gonna offend a grown-up. Just being as offensive as possible. Which seemed delightful, just euphoric. Be the real people we are. You know? I just loved it.

I mean, after all, we were Punk magazine. We had come up with the name and had defined punk as this underground American rock & roll culture that had existed for almost fifteen years with the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, the MC5, et cetera, et cetera.

DANNY FIELDS: When the Sex Pistols broke up it showed everyone that this punk thing wasn’t viable. That they were meant to self-destruct and so what’s the point in investing in any of them? Why build an audience for the Ramones or the Pistols or the Clash? Why institutionalize them if they’re just going to be destroyed, if it’s their nature to destroy others and to destroy themselves?

This was the black cloud of tallboy meetings. I was so astounded by the whole thing. I thought, You sign the chimpanzees, you tell them to go out on the road and be chimpanzees, and now you’re telling us not to be chimpanzees? What are we supposed to be now? Considering half of the band are chimpanzees and we’ve learned how to walk dragging our wrists, I am part chimpanzee now! Now you’re telling us to stop—well, can I have another tallboy?

The Sex Pistols rode the punk force right off the edge of the cliff, and then it was time for something new.

I think that love is a great medicine for many illnesses.

No.

WAYNE KRAMER: We had an expression that we used to say about Johnny Thunders. We’d say that he was always “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” because everything would be set up perfectly and Johnny would fuck it up.

Hippies survived Nixon, but punk caved in to Ronald Reagan,

Punk couldn’t actually take a good challenge.

“You can’t have ten thousand dollars in your pocket. It’ll kill you. You’ll die from having ten thousand dollars in your pocket.”