May CultureCat- Punk/Metal Reads

We're reading about Punk & Metal* this month. Whether it's an autobiography by a musician or an overview of the genre in general, let us know what you're reading for this challenge.
*I think we can stretch this to include grunge, new wave, hard rock...

Some Reading Recs...

PUNK
England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock and Beyond
This Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story of the Misfits
New York Rock: From the Rise of The Velvet Underground to the Fall of CBGBs
Debbie Harry: Face It
Under A Rock
Punk Rock Blitzkrieg
Commando: The Autobiography of Johnny Ramone
Lobotomy: Surviving the Ramones


Metal
White Line Fever: The Autobiography by Lemmy
Confess by Rob Halford
What Does This Button Do? by Bruce Dickinson
It's So Easy and Other Lies by Duff McKagan
I Am Ozzy
Living Like A Runaway by Lita Ford
Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir
Sounds of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal
And this one is exactly what it says, combining the band and the discipline: Metallica and Philosophy

Join in, have fun, tell us what you thought of your reads.

Uh-oh, is this theme that unpopular? If someone wants to take May in a different direction, go ahead.

>2 mstrust: I wouldn't worry! Sometimes people just need time to come up with something they want to read...or just aren't feeling chatty.

I'm finding it hard to search for something for this, especially since I'm not really much of a memoir fan and so many of them are... but my library has Punk Rock Karaoke, a YA graphic novel, or Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Both of those look interesting.

>3 christina_reads: Thanks! I guess we'll see what happens.

>4 antqueen: I hadn't heard of either of those and they both sound perfect for this theme.

I'm going to read The Philosophy of Punk.

I'll see if I have anything on the tbr. I had a detached retina 2 weeks ago and am just back online today (still can't see out of the one eye, though). I may be trying to finish up some from April, as well (no tv, reading or online for almost two weeks), so if there is nothing on my tbr (there might or might not be, I'm not sure), I might end up not reading for this. We'll see.

I'm really sorry to hear that, it sounds really bad!
Hopefully you'll heal quickly, and if you do, maybe you'll join us. Audio books may be your best friend for a while :-)

>7 mstrust: Thank you! Yes, for a couple of weeks there, it was podcasts, audio books, talk radio and CBC tv with a towel over it so I could listen but not be tempted to watch!

Sorry to drop in late, I always procrastinate on planning my reads (:
I'm thinking I might give Making Stuff and Doing Things: A Collection of DIY Guides to Doing Just About Everything a full readthrough, since it's a collection of punk DIY zines, but nothing's set in stone (...or, hard rock????) yet, since I'm still finishing April's reads.

Happy to have you join us!

>4 antqueen: Burning Down the Haus sounds really interesting, I think I'll have to check that one out!

I've started reading Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot by Masha Gessen. was looking for something on punk and came across Gessen's book - and checked it out as I'm always interested in her writing. (The official YouTube channel of Pussy Riot describes them as a "Russian feminist protest and performance art group"; but elsewhere they're referred to as punk, or that they started out as punk and hardcore punk band.) an interesting read so far.

two other books have also snagged my interest for this theme : a memoir : hunger makes me a modern girl by Carrie Brownstein, guitarist/Sleater-Kinney ; and in fiction: the future of another timeline by Annalee Newitz which begins at a riot grrrl concert

The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise! did something that I would have thought was impossible, in that it made punks sound boring. Very little about the music itself, the author lifts large portions of essays about politics, vegetarianism and gender equality from other publications in a sort of puzzling together of his beliefs that he attempts to blanket the whole genre in.

I read Burning Down the Haus, which I never would've heard of were it not for this challenge, and I'm glad I did--it gave me a more nuanced view of life under communism in the decade or so before its collapse, and some thoughts on how best to live under and resist authoritarianism.

I've read The Lightning Bottles by Marissa Stapley. This a novel about a husband & wife duo's rise to fame and demise during the early 90s grunge/alternative music scene.

I read Burning Down the Haus too. An interesting history of a group that I'd barely known about at all. I'm sure I wouldn't have heard about it either if not for the challenge, so thanks :)

Glad to see people reading outside their norm because of this challenge! I'm halfway through I Slept with Joey Ramone, which has been on my shelf for years. It's a memoir by Joey Ramone's brother, who was present for the birth of American punk, and spent a few years as a roadie for the band.

Written by Spin regular Legs McNeil and Ramone's brother Leigh, who was also a rock musician, this is a memoir of growing up with Jeff Hyman (Joey Ramone), who had physical problems from birth, was picked on for his strange appearance in childhood and developed OCD and other behavioral issues. Then, when he had nothing else going for him, he got together with three other neighborhood guys and formed the band that invented American punk.
It's also Leigh's own memoir of being in the same industry as a very famous sibling but having much less success. Even with the author's many, many passages praising himself at the expense of his brother, or Johnny Ramone in particular, this book is hard to put down. Every chapter is filled with what was going on behind the scenes, which is catnip for a Ramones fan.

I also read Burning Down the Haus and really liked it! Before reading this book I knew almost nothing about life in East Germany, let alone East German punks, so I learned a lot. And I thought the writer did a great job weaving all the information into a coherent narrative.

Pretty in Punk: Girls' Resistance in a Boys' Subculture

Ever seen stuff about punk and wondered where all the girls and women are? This is the book for you. As a disclaimer, this book was published in 1999, and probably took a year to write after all the research was finished in the first place, so plenty has changed, especially in a subculture that is generally dominated by youths. Nonetheless, I found this an interesting and at times very moving read about punk girls who choose to resist mainstream cultural pressures, gendered expectations, and the males who dominate the punk scene, and the cost they pay for that resistance, being kicked out of school, kicked out of their families, and frequently harassed. Yet these punk girls refuse to give in or apologise for who they are. I think we all have something to learn from these brave girls and women.