From the writer who coined the term “punk” and spent half a century as the movement’s definitive voice comes a riveting, star-studded memoir —out September 15
NEW YORK — With Resident Punk: How I Smoked, Drank, and Stumbled My Way Through the ’70s Punk Scene (and Beyond) publishing September 15, Legs McNeil — the man who coined the phrase “punk” is ready to recount his personal story.
The book arrives at a milestone moment: the 50th anniversary of PUNK magazine, which McNeil cofounded in 1975 at age 19 alongside John Holmstrom and Ged Dunn, and the 30th anniversary of the punk bible Please Kill Me. The response has already been overwhelming — since the book was announced, interview requests for McNeil have poured in from print, broadcast, podcast, and digital outlets alike. Because demand has far outpaced his schedule, only a select number of interviews are being arranged around publication, and McNeil is choosing them carefully to keep each conversation substantive. Outlets interested in time with him are encouraged to reach out as early as possible.
Time-travel to the gritty punk scene of 1970s New York and beyond — as seen through the eyes of its chief reporter, Legs McNeil, “the original punk” who coined the phrase.
Part memoir and part cultural history, Resident Punk offers a no-holds-barred exposé chronicling the iconic and unforgettable music scene that would become defined by bands like the Ramones, Blondie, Television, the Heartbreakers, and Talking Heads. But it’s also so much more.
In 1975 at 19 years old, Legs McNeil cofounded PUNK magazine alongside John Holmstrom and Ged Dunn. In doing so, they inadvertently chronicled the start of a movement. Legs’s role in the whole thing? To be their “resident punk,” embodying the bold new zeitgeist the magazine was looking to capture. Now, just in time for the 50th anniversary of PUNK magazine, the coauthor of Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (2.5 million copies sold!) tells the stories behind the stories in a sleazy, star-studded adventure.
Legs shares the raw details of his life, starting with his gritty suburban childhood and the teenage wasteland years that put him on a path to punk. He invites readers along for the ride as he tussles with musicians and artists, groupies and writers, shady characters and legendary figures of ’70s New York. Featuring untold stories about Joey Ramone, William S. Burroughs, Patti Smith, Alan Vega, Sinéad O’Connor, Tom Waits, Sid Vicious, Ozzy Osbourne, and Ron Jeremy, this book is an immersive look at the punk music scene as only a true insider can tell it.
Join Legs as he steals David Bowie’s hubcaps, hangs at CBGB with Norman Mailer, annoys Lou Reed, rafts down the Mississippi River with Richard Hell, faces off with corporate executives and uptight haberdashers, and wrestles his own demons — eventually settling in a small Pennsylvania town, where he’s very much still the resident punk.
Resident Punk (BenBella Books, dist. Simon & Schuster) by Legs McNeil with Crispin Kott features a foreword by Chris Stein of Blondie, and includes photographs by Stein, Tom Hearn, Bob Gruen, Roberta Bayley, Victor Bockris, and Jim Tynan.
Praise for Resident Punk
“Legs McNeil revisits his hard-knock adolescence and run-ins with Lou Reed, the Ramones, and Talking Heads with a finely honed sense of mischief. Essential reading for anyone who came along too late for CBGB — or arrived on time but can’t quite recall what happened.” — Graydon Carter, former editor of Vanity Fair and cofounder of Air Mail and Spy
“Legs McNeil has made a profession out of inviting mockery. Few have been able to resist accepting, but among his admirers have been Sinéad O’Connor, Norman Mailer, and a sexually disadvantaged elderly rich woman in the vicinity of Cheshire, Connecticut. I did love finding out about his childhood. Eddie Haskell (look him up) was a kindred soul. Obsequious ineptitude, with a suburban-swamp dash of surly, as survival tactic and comedy engine. The Legs is still standing. You have to salute him. Viva Legs!” — Richard Hell, rock star and poet
“Having read this propulsive, gasp-inducing mosh pit of memories, I’m not 100% sure that 100% of Legs lived to tell this tale. But what’s left of him has written a knockout book.” — Patton Oswalt, actor and comedian
“Legs is a true original and he was THERE, baby. Personally, I can never get enough of this . . .” — John Taylor, musician and author of In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death, and Duran Duran
“Legs tells a story I remember well; through a haze of heroin and coke-soaked lenses told in utterances that stink of puke and stale beer, when Times Square was a real red-light district temple to vice and depravity and the Bowery had real ‘dive-bars.’ The music was as raw, violent, and dangerous as the streets. Literature came out of pulp paperbacks. Politics came out of Screw Magazine. And art came out of underground comix and fanzines. It was a time when we were all innocent before our fall from paradise.” — Joe Coleman, artist
“Legs McNeil has always been the coolest guy in the room. He’s also a brilliant writer. Resident Punk is a heartfelt, hilarious, hell-bent journey through a downtown NYC that’s been lost forever. A fantastic memoir.” — Elizabeth Hand, award-winning author of A Haunting on the Hill
“The sordid story of a dissolute youth.” — Roberta Bayley, photographer who shot the Ramones’ first album
“I have known Legs for half a century. Always thought he was a keeper. This funny, wise, autumnal yet still duked-up autobiography proves it. Punk roots here!” — Mark Jacobson, New York Magazine and author of The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans
“I’m not fucking kidding, it’s great. Funny, evocative; makes me yearn to have been there, even though that scene was never my thing. I kind of obsess about books about NY history. This belongs on a shelf with those. Really great.” — Curtis Armstrong, Booger in Revenge of the Nerds