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PUNK Magazine Listening Party # 7 (7/20/01)
Special "Welcome Home Legs McNeil" Listening Party
by Jolly Prochnik, Anna Blumenthal, Jessica Stephens, Mike Schenck, Heidi Minx, John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil
Notes by Holmstrom
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If you want us to review your band's CD, send it to: |
PUNK Magazine Listening Party
PMB 675
200 East 10th Street
New York, NY 10003
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The PUNK staff got to the office early and decorated the "PUNK Penthouse" with photos of Legs, fan mail to Legs, a press clipping from the newspaper that mentioned him, and signs saying: "Welcome Legs!" We wanted our special guest to feel as welcome as possible. The return of the prodigal punk. But when Legs showed up he acted annoyed, insulted half the people at the party, whined about how awful the music was, wrote this about the party and split:
The records all sucked. The Listening Party would've been better if we talked more and listened less. Rock + roll blows now. I don't know why John insists on believing someone will actually send him a CD in the mail that doesn't suck. But that was always Holmstrom's problem, he was always too patient and tolerant.
But it was fun hanging out with John again. What was really great though was the potato chips served at the Listening Party. They were called Munchos and boy they were good. Light and crisp, like Pringles, yet uniquely individual. The package boasts: "A Light Tasting Crispy Snack!" And I can't agree more. So many times the packaging never lives up to its promotional hyperbole, but let me tell you - Munchos deliver! I love them. I'm 100 percent behind them. In the snack food war, Munchos wins hands down. Even the name is cool - Munchos. "Hey, pass me the Munchos!" "Mom, can we have some Munchos?" "Hey, bitch, leave some of those Munchos for me or I'll kick your ass!"
Just to clarify: The Johnny Thunders DVD is great. But everything else, besides the Munchos, sucked big ones. -Legs McNeil As usual, I disagree with just about everything Legs has to say. (Some day I should dissect that book of his.) I thought the Munchos tasted like crap. Worst potato chips ever. And besides, The General is the King of Junk Food! He eats Fritos for lunch! He shoves Cheese Doodles up his nose for fun! And he already reviewed the food at a previous Listening Party. So did Legs think that reviewing the junk food was innovative and interesting? Blah - it's as cliché as you can get.
But Legs still likes McDonald's hamburgers. So what can I say, he's got no taste in food or music 'cause there's a lot of good music out there now - certainly more than in 1975 and '76 when we started PUNK. I think maybe Legs is still stuck in the 1980s (when he worked for that "great" rock magazine SPIN), when all you had was a choice of Madonna, Michael Jackson, hair bands or death metal. And yeah, I got a real problem, according to Legs - my idea of fun is drinking beer and listening to rock 'n' roll instead of drinking Coca-Cola, eating potato chips and listening to Legs brag to everyone about his upcoming book about the porn industry and the Mob.
So why Legs McNeil want to take part in a Listening Party if he hates listening to rock 'n' roll? Well, more on this later... after the CD reviews.
For some reason we did end up with a disappointing batch of review CDs. Well, maybe we also had too many people in the room. Anna was there, Jolly showed up, Jessica brought her boyfriend Mike Schenck and her friend Heidi Minx (she and her partner run Franky and Minx, a new company cranking out tattoo-influenced undergarments for girls). Mary Anne Christiano (reviewer from PUNK #0) also came to the party, as did Eric Danville (who recently wrote/published The Complete Linda Lovelace and writes for a lot of different publications). Of course, Good Neighbor Frank was also on hand.
Hammerlock | Mutants | Choking Victim | Limecell | Cocknoose | Rubber City Rebels | Johnny Thunders
Hammerlock
Barefoot and Pregnant
Steel Cage Records
www.hammerlock.net
JOLLY:
This record sucks. It's like the opposite of Steve Earle (a.k.a. heavy metal country). Steve Earle is country heavy metal. Big difference, chief. Matter of fact, one time I was rollin' thru the cornfields diggin' "Big Electric Cat" (look it up) and I realized, "Wow, this is perfect for this," the way you sometimes do. Point: The Clash don't go for the cornfields. Iggy & the Stooges yes but '77 punk (Ramones incl.) is/was City Music. Anyway Steve Earle rules - another great original offed by the system - the Nashville "music" machine in this case. Anyway I was at this Klan rally with H. Rap Brown the other day on 125th street in Munich and they played this. And I realized, "Wow, this is perfect for this." But only for this.
ANNA:
Southern fried metal! This is 110% Nashville Pussy. I knew it before I even heard the music. The cover shows a pregnant barebellied chick in the kitchen holding a rifle and the CD is called Barefoot and Pregnant. Yeah! What? This band is from San Fran? I would have put my money on Texas. Anyway, what I like about Nashville Pussy is that it's two girls and two guys which sets it apart from the rest - while Hammerlock really isn't too new. But I guess it's a good CD to put on after you get in a fight with your old man (or old lady, as the case may be...).
JESSICA:
I'm a BIG Nashville Pussy fan and I must say this is a great, big, Nashville ripoff!! The same fast cars and fast women mentality is there. It's not too bad but if I'm gonna listen to greasy fried chicken eatin', gun totin', hound dog lovin', country peoples I'm gonna listen to the best: good ol' Nashville Pussy.
MIKE:
This reminds me of Hank Williams Jr. gettin' drunk and beating his rowdy friends on a Monday night. This one isn't for the New York City boy punk; it's for bored, cow tippin', whiskey punks in Georgia.
HEIDI:
Crass met the Beastie Boys... then we just don't know what happened. Rufees and Speed I think, and they must be from the South. Okay, The Southern meets Fred Durst got old. Ya know, never mind Rednecks on speed, that never reached psychobilly, The End.
ERIC:
This has a great cover, except the animal-rights zealot in me doesn't appreciate the speed-freak kid about to lop the head off the fish. And don't make fun of me, it was Captain Sensible who got me into the animal rights thing, and Vice Squad are down with it too. The chick is real cute too, and that always helps. You're a big wheel in this punk scene, John. Can you call up the band and get me her phone number? If she's still pregnant, I mean. That reminds me - I have to review the new White Trash Whore video tonight.
HOLMSTROM:
I like the CD cover - and the song titles - but the CD isn't as good. The Hammerlock CD was put out by the people who run Carbon 14 magazine. They recently ran a long interview with me about PUNK in their 'zine. Hammerlock is country stuff so everyone seems to hate it. They do a cover of "Good Hearted Woman" that's not bad.
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Legs arrived. He started making fun of the beautiful, corporate PUNK penthouse office because it's so small, and whined about having to listen to a lot of crappy music. "Yeah," he said, "Bob (Guccione Jr.) used to make us do this all the time at SPIN, too. What a STUPID waste of time!"
Mutants
Fun Terminal
White Noise Records
whitenoise.localsonline.com
JOLLY:
Get the beer and split.
ANNA:
Can you say "New Wave?" With all the talk going on of who graduated from high school and who didn't at this party, it's kind of hard to pay attention to the music. But that's okay. Very B-52's - VERY B-52's. Very Go-Go's. Like I said, New Wave. Not my favorite. But for your New Wave aficionados, sure! Go for it!
JESSICA:
Wow! This is great!! This band started in 1979 and it shows! There's a real older, classic sound to this band that I really like. There's a really nice cross between male and female singing. Wow! This is really fucking awesome and there are 23 songs on this CD so it's really worth it. Although seeing them live might be a little boring.
MIKE:
This is music for a time that doesn't exist anymore. With all the bad bands out there and semi-good bands that are trying to act like really good bands from the 70's and 80's, The Mutants are like a classic pop band from the 80's. The album has a Pixies kind of feel and a Go-Gos feel also.
HEIDI:
Bananarama and The Bangles meets boredom and The Smiths, but good background music... then, no desire to see a live show, tres lethargic. Advertisement for Prozac or who wants to be Siouxsie?
ERIC:
Now this is a nice sleazy album cover, and that Sally Webster is really cute for a fat chick. Not that fat chicks can't be cute, you understand, and I think you do. And she's a lot better looking than the fat chick in Romeo Void (whose name escapes me and no one at the party seemed to remember it either), but she's not as cute as Poly Styrene.
HOLMSTROM:
Sounds like new wave from the 1970s! Mutants... Hey, they ARE New Wave from the 1970s! From San Francisco! I hate this band. New Wave sucked. They tried to kill punk by calling everything "new wave" back then. Especially Sire Records, the Ramones' record label. Sire even printed "DON'T CALL IT PUNK" all over every promotional item and press release they put out for a while. But it didn't work. Punk refused to die! But New Wave died fast, and no one mourned when it was gone. Man, this is the worst shit ever! Sounds like the B-52s only no fun. New Wave deserved to die! DIE, DIE, DIE!
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The situation with Legs was bad and getting worse. He made fun of Jessica's boyfriend by telling him he looks like a retard. And Legs just wouldn't stop talking about himself and his projects. He was really on a star trip. I hadn't seen him this bad in a long time. He started bragging about how many interviews and media blitzes he had done that day. He complained so much about how difficult his life is because he is such an important person Jessica said, "Well, excuse me while I play the grand piano!" Jessica emailed me after the party to say, "He's the most obnoxious person I've ever met in my life."
Back in the day, Legs could pull this off with charm and charisma but on this night he was just acting like an asshole. Oddly enough, though, half the people in the room were still impressed, because, after all, he's the famous Legs McNeil! Well, sometimes even your best friends won't tell you...
Choking Victim
Crack Rock Steady/Squatta's Paradise EP
Tent City Records
101 W. 23rd St.
NYC, NY 10011
JOLLY:
This is like a white boy in Trenchtown: "Die, Whiteboy! Believe in Jah and Bob Marley and smoke weed - we will choke you until you change!" This actually happened to me once. I was a reform/conservative/"I'm-not-really-a" Jew and I went down to Kingston and didn't stay at the compound. Somehow they found out I was "white" so they killed me and sent the body to Haiti where I rose again and walked the night.
ANNA:
Ska dee da... loud, not tight punky ska. I have a headache. Everyone looks confused. This sounds like a group of the youngest, brattiest kids on the block starting a band. Thank you, Legs, for pulling the plug on this one. No thanks to John for putting it back on.
JESSICA:
Wow this bad... real bad. This is like 16 year old, suburban, garage rock. Its really amateur and I can't believe there even signed to a label If your 14 years old this is great, if your not it sux... sux big time.
MIKE:
These are 13 year olds that have listened to Operation Ivy way too many times. Don't rebel against your parents, kill them and get it over with.
HEIDI:
Fishbone met Green Day - very young. They need to progress past basic US ska riff. Yes, suburban angst at its most mediocre.
ERIC:
What the fuck is this about? This looks like the first Black Sabbath cover laid out by that fat bitch in Bikini Kill who blew me off for an interview a couple of years ago. The cute fat bitch, I mean.
HOLMSTROM:
Legs pulled this off after like four notes, so I put it back on. Reggae/punk - it is pretty bad. I think this is Legs McNeil's fault we've had the worst music ever at a Listening Party, since usually there's some kind of kharma thing going on at work at these parties. If listening to music is not fun for a person, they should avoid these things. Usually we have MORE fun when the CD is really bad. It's fun to rip it to shreds! In fact, I had been waiting for a really bad CD to write a really scathing review of. But I am too distracted to write a bad review like that now. This sucks.
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Limecell
If We Can't Rock It's War!
Steel Cage Records
www.limecell.com
JOLLY:
A "Walking Dead Man" which is the first song on this record. I didn't know what I was doing! I wasn't even aware of what record I was supposed to be reviewing. Finally I woke up.
ANNA:
While I do like the song title "Get The Bitch To Do It," I still have a headache from Choking Victim. Totally unmelodius, straight out heavy metal. Too much testosterone. Ugh.
JESSICA:
Remember that part in Ace Ventura when he goes into that heavy metal club and that band is onstage swinging their long hair in a full circle. That reminds me of the first song on this album. The rests gets a little better and faster but its still very hardcore and Biohazardly.
MIKE:
If you are an old tattooed Biohazard guy who wants to destroy 15-year-old kids in the pit and brag about it, this band is for you. Post hardcore, pure hate rock, and fights galore. Its kind of generic, not very original but 10 times better than fucking Blink 182.
HEIDI:
NYHC roots- Madball, SOIA influences. If you're an ECHC fan you'll be happy, but new takes on the style.
ERIC:
Oh man. Another fucking album with fake tattoo flash on the cover? What the fuck? Tattoos haven't been punk since they became legal in New York and Jonathan Shaw started hanging out with Johnny Depp. But what they lose for the tattoo shtick they get back for the guy wearing the Strip-o-rama T-shirt, because Bettie Page is cool and always will be, even though she's not as cool as Linda Lovelace, even though I may be a little biased on that one. But I saw that they do a cover of "Long Way to Go" by Alice Cooper, and anyone who does a Cooper cover is okay in my book, unless you're talking about Annabella Lwin's cover of "School's Out," which sucked like, well, Linda Lovelace.
HOLMSTROM:
Song titles: "Walking Dead Man," "P is for Party," "Piss Test," "Get the Bitch to Do It," "End It," and Alice Cooper's "Long Way to Go." Hardcore punk - I usually don't like hardcore but I like this... The words are hilarious. Great beat. "Get The Bitch To Do It" is a laff riot. All the women in the office are totally offended - they're taking it too seriously. And a killer cover of one of my favorite Alice Cooper songs (and AC is my favorite band!). Great CD.
One more thing: here's favorite complaint/pet peeve/complete hatred/political issue of mine: "Piss Test." Lyrics from Limecell's "Piss Test:"
I don't drink in work/Don't smoke pot in work/Can't pop pills in work/Makes me feel like a jerk
Chorus:
My free time, is my free time/Piss in a jar when you say it's time/My free time is my free time
I'd rather piss in your face/Just give me some space
© Limecell, 2001
I worked at HIGH TIMES magazine for 15 years partly because I think piss tests are evil, and HT was the only magazine telling people the truth about this shit. I am convinced they'll test people for drinking beer someday - actually, it's already started. They're already testing people for cigarettes and firing them if they smoke - only on weekends - at some companies, and quietly not hiring drinkers. But most people don't know this. Thing is, most corporations don't even look for drugs in piss tests! They want other, more personal and private, information, like your complete medical history and genetics. Total insanity. I like it when a band takes a stand on an important topic like this.
My two thumbs are up.
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Cocknoose
White Trash Messiahs
Steel Cage Records
Email: deathnooseranch@hotmail.com
www.steelcagerecords.com
JOLLY:
and regained my equilibrium. Now I hate women like I'm supposed to and I have no "real" friends. I'm back! Next record please!
ANNA:
Is there a white trash southern metal theme tonight? A "get back in the kitchen" theme, says Jessica. She is so right. What is a cocknoose, anyway? Is that a cockring? I have a funny cockring story... but let's stay on track here. Every song sounds the same. Next!
JESSICA:
If I hear one more song about woman being put back in the kitchen or pregnant and barefoot I'm gonna throw up worse than Jolly. And "Get Back In The Kitchen" is one of their songs. I'm SO sick of southern rock wannabes talking about woman's place in society. SHUT UP ALREADY!!! Its old and its been done 100 times in the last six months. Get over it and just admit to yourselves what you already know... that woman are superior to men. And besides, think about guys without your girlfriends your laundry would never get done now would it??
MIKE:
THEY SUCK!!!!! Fake G.G. Allin wannabes!
HEIDI:
Minor Threat-esque, but I really can't take this remotely seriously. God Damn you fuckin' butchered Johnny Cash!!!!! Mike Ness would cry.
ERIC:
This band has a great name, and if I was still writing that music column for Screw these guys would have a new home. But more importantly there are at least three chicks on the cover who I'd fuck. If the other chick's phone has been turned off, how about these gals?
HOLMSTROM:
Oh, man - this is like ordinary heavy metal. I like the name a lot, and the CD title is good, but... They don't live up to their packaging. Cocknoose covers "Folsom City Blues" - not a good cover, but not bad neither. At this point, Legs really wants us to stop listening to music and do something else. He hates this. It's like torture for him. Yes, he's managed to take all the fun out of it.
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Rubber City Rebels
Re-Tired
White Noise Records
www.rubbercityrebels.com
JOLLY:
"Gotta headache in my pants" for this line alone... Akron, Youngstown, Cleveland - Pere Ubu, Dead Boys, Pretenders, plus I've actually been to Ohio, plus it's next to Michigan - where Detroit is.
ANNA:
This is pretty good! In the photos in the liner notes I see one guy with a Flying V and another with a Hamer, so this band is ok by me. They were one of the early punk bands from Akron and they played good, pure punk. Sixties influenced. Some songs are pretty Who-ish. Best CD of the night so far.
JESSICA:
This is one of the original punk rock bands from Akron, OH. This CD was recorded live at the Crypt in 1977. This is really nice old school sounding punk rock. Unfortunately these guys broke up in 1980 but maybe all is for the best because this album sounds so good they really went out with class.
HEIDI:
They may all play well, but they're not listening to each other play. Interesting instrument interchange. Something very "I don't care what production or overall cohesiveness is". Kinda schitzo. Singer sounds kinda like Jaime Daun.
ERIC:
I didn't even get to see the CD cover because I got off on the wrong floor after doing that coke and someone had put the disc away by the time I got found the office.
HOLMSTROM:
Well, anyhow, this was "punk rock" in 1976-77... Kids in long hair, blue jeans and leather jackets... But this was not good punk rock... stuck somewhere between punk and glam... Well, Mary Anne is now reading from a sushi menu and Jolly left the room and no one wants to listen to music anymore. Legs successfully wrecked the Listening Party. Well, I get the feeling Frank did his part to break it up too. Almost no one is writing anything.
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Johnny Thunders
Book: In Cold Blood (with 9-song CD)
Book written by Nina Antonia
DVD: Dead Or Alive
Published by Jungle Books and Cherry Red Books
ANNA:
Our neighbor brought in his laptop so we could watch the DVD - very cool. I read the JT book but never saw the DVD. The footage is great - this is my first DVD ever. And this CD (that comes with the JT book) rocks! "Born To Lose" is an awesome song. I read this book about half a year ago when I won it in a contest - and good thing too, because I am way too poor to afford it. Great read, though. It's much easier to write about stuff you hate than stuff you love, so I am hard-pressed to think of something prolific to say...
JESSICA:
Legs McNeil sat directly in front of my view therefore I didn't see much of the DVD so I can't comment. Thanks Legs! But the Thunders CD that came with the book - all I have to say is that this is fucking amazing! You just can't go wrong with Johnny Thunders! He was truly an influential on so many people, and anybody who influenced everyone from Guns and Roses and Morrissey can't be bad! You can listen to anything Thunders and Heartbreakers and not want to skip any songs or turn it off. The book that this CD comes with looks really interesting and as soon as I'm done with Dee Dee's book I can't wait to pick this one up. And the fact that it comes with a bonus CD with tracks like "Born to Lose" means its fucking worth every penny. I highly recommend this book CD set and I think it would be a great read for any punk rock enthusiast.
MIKE:
Classic! If you like Johnny you'll like this no matter what! Oh yeah and it's REAL rock n' roll!
HOLMSTROM:
My neighbor Frank brought in his Mac Powerbook so everyone could watch the DVD, and we listened to the CD that comes with the Thunders book.
I was never a big fan of The Heartbreakers, nor of Thunder's solo stuff, although of course he was in the Dolls, so you have to respect the guy. A lot of people like Johnny Thunders, but for some reason - and I don't think I'll get a whole lot of argument here, his drug use overshadowed his music. I read through the book after the party and it sounds like Johnny Thunders was everything I thought and 100 times worse. This guy was really an asshole, had the mother of all drug problems, and totally screwed up his career as a result.
Heroin is a stupid, addictive drug. I learned a lot about it in high school when several friends got addicted to it. They told me then it was a shitty drug, warned me against ever trying it, but they said they were addicted almost as soon as they started, and talked about how their lives were over - they were only fifteen or sixteen! But it seems like I've run into people with bad drug habits ever since.
Stupid drug. Seems to bring out all the romance about death/dying young.
Faster and louder doesn't happen when you're shooting "dope." That makes you play slower and sloppier, and that's what it did to The Heartbreakers on most occasions. To me, methamphetamine was the rock and roll drug, not heroin, pot or coke. I heard a rumor once that Elvis got his chance to sing in the Sun Records studios only because his momma had the best stash of diet pills in town.
Heroin is a hippie drug. Speed was for punks. It was enjoyed by beatniks (via their then-legal benzedrine inhalers) and punks. The Sex Pistols "Seventeen" is the most famous song reference to speed, but of course Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, the greatest and most influential record in punk rock history, was, as we said in PUNK #1, a "Methedrine Love Letter." Cocaine was more popular than speed or heroin at CBGBs in the old days. It was the drug you took when you hit it big.
So Legs, stop insisting, as you did for the millionth time at the party, that everyone was doing dope at CBGBs. You were drug free back then, except for beer and cigarettes. (Legs was scared of drugs. He was always paranoid that someone would dose him, and he was convinced he'd go crazy or get instantly addicted, and pot made him really paranoid, so he avoided all drugs back then.)
Yes, everyone admires Legs for writing (transcribing?) Please Kill Me (with co-author Gillian McCain). And it's an amazing book. Thing is, Legs was never a rock'n'roll fan. That's why he never wrote about music in Please Kill Me, or in the old PUNK. In fact, when I started the magazine, Legs didn't want to work on it. He wanted nothing to do with music.
In 1976, Legs was most interested in getting his film company off the ground. (Untold story: Two fan mails we published in PUNK #3 were from genuine mental hospital in-patients who met Eddie while he was filming a movie about the facility.) He only began working on the magazine when he started getting laid because he was becoming the "famous Legs McNeil." This was right around the time his film projects bombed. In fact, one reason I thought Legs made a good Resident Punk in the first place was because he wasn't a typical scenester/fan-boy/rock geek. He wasn't star-struck. He didn't give a shit about what band someone was in. He had never heard of Lou Reed when we interviewed Lou. Legs was rock and roll without realizing it.
McNeil was acting like a big deal mostly because a TV documentary about "porn and the mob" he co-produced and narrated for Court TV was airing two days after the party. I pasted this gossip item from the New York Post that came out in that day's newspaper on the wall for the party that mentioned it:
PAGE SIX
Friday, July 20, 2001
Very employed
HIS daughter Kate Hudson disses him in the press, and wife Cindy ("Laverne and Shirley") Williams is divorcing him, but at least Bill Hudson can still find work. The former Hudson Brothers rocker wrote and performed original music for "The Secret History of the Other Hollywood," the three-hour porn documentary airing Sunday night on Court TV. It was produced by Bill's brother Brett Hudson, "Tabloid Baby" author Burt Kearns, and "Please Kill Me" scribe Legs McNeil. We hear Bill is shopping a book about his Hollywood exploits, which includes his bitter bust-up with ex-wife Goldie Hawn. I wrote "BILL HUDSON?" above it in big letters, 'cause, really - what kind of punk rock guy allows the Hudson Brothers to do the music for their porno TV show?
Anyhow, one thing that really screwed Legs up is that he can't remember anything. He was the worst drunk back in the 1970s, so they're like one big blackout to him. He learned all about punk rock by interviewing everyone for Please Kill Me, but now, after talking with everyone else and doing a gazillion media interviews Legs has the impression he was an important contributor and idea-man for PUNK. But he wasn't. In the entire history of PUNK magazine, he never wrote a single record review (since he didn't listen to music) and he contributed only three interviews (Richard Hell, Patti Smith and Alice Cooper). Legs wanted to write about TV instead. But Legs now goes around doing interviews and making it sound like he was a "founder" of PUNK magazine, and makes it sound like his biggest contribution was suggesting the name because the idiot doesn't remember what he DID contribute!
What Legs did, and the thing that no one (least of all himself) seems to give him any credit for, is: He was the first person in the world to call himself a "punk." When Ged and I started the magazine, we decided to call it PUNK on Legs's suggestion. Since I was a big punk rock fan, I figured the name would help make it a successful music magazine. (Ged wanted to call it "The Punk Journal," so you could see where some problems would come in down the road.) The three of us continued to brainstorm for the next few weeks. Legs said he wanted to be the Resident Punk of the magazine, bought a leather jacket, and started telling everyone he was a "punk," and told anyone who would listen that his lifestyle was anti-drug, anti-politics, anti-hippie, pro-beer, pro-hamburger and pro-violence (although Legs was the biggest wimp since Sid Vicious).
There was another magazine called PUNK before ours (edited by Billy Altman), so it was no big accomplishment to name a magazine after that particular four-letter word. Punk rock was a term that had been used to describe rock 'n' roll for years, and Creem was doing a great job of it, so putting out a magazine about punk rock was no big shakes.
What Legs, Ged and I did was convince the media in 1976 that a new rock and roll revolution was underway, even though there were only two authentic punk rock bands in New York at the time (The Ramones and The Dictators) and most of the "kids" who hung out at CBGBs were just an assortment of college kids, hippies, ex-glam rockers and weirdos. Not a single "punk" among them.
PUNK magazine soon attracted the media in droves. When they'd talk with Legs, the "authentic, real-life punk," he usually had a colorful quote for them. (I was usually too busy working on the magazine, and delegated the media crap to Legs.) They ate it up, and soon there were large stories about punk rock being published everywhere. A few months later Rough Trade ordered thousands of copies of PUNK magazine and airmailed them to England, where it sold like hotcakes (because the English music press picked up on the "punk" thing and all the music fans there wanted to find out more about it), the thing called "punk" took on its a life of its own. Punk rock and "the punk movement" weren't tied to our little magazine anymore.
Kids in London picked up on it immediately, started calling themselves punks, wearing leather jackets and homemade punk pins and buttons (with artwork inspired by or ripped off from the magazine), and acting obnoxious. (Chris Stein once told me at the time that kids would throw up in the streets, in imitation of Legs' "Story to Fill Space" in issue #3 where he mentioned throwing up on a subway train.) By 1977 in London, there were legions of kids calling themselves punks and hundreds of punk rock bands and finally, there was a real punk rock movement, but it was completely unlike the one Legs, Ged and I envisioned. The Sex Pistols and Johnny Rotten claim in The Filth & The Fury that they singlehandedly started the whole thing. They were a great band, but played their first gig in November 1976 and didn't release a record until December 1976. Legs McNeil, Ged Dunn Jr. and I put out PUNK magazine the first week of 1976, and put out six more issues before the end of the year and THAT is what put the p-word on the map. But we lost momentum after that and the large and powerful English press took it over.
Legs's biggest contribution to this whole thing wasn't suggesting the name, it was acting like a punk, telling everyone he was a "punk," and inventing "the punk movement" with Ged and I. The media took what we did, put their own spin on it, and turned it into something we didn't like, couldn't support and barely recognized after a year or two. So Legs quit, and I went down with the good ship PUNK. But the coolest thing to me is that punk didn't die, and after a while people figured out what it was all about. Punk rock in the 2000s is now exactly what I envisioned in 1975, which is why I am trying to bring the magazine back. It's not about a movement, or being a "punk" anymore, it's mostly about having fun, drinking beer and listening to music.
But it looks like Legs, like so many punks from the 1970s scene, has outgrown it. Too bad! Have fun eating your potato chips, Legs.
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