"In this history, Clinton Heylin begins by tracing the origins of punk to a small circle of critics who defined the aesthetic before the music even existed. Writers like Nick Kent, Ben Edmonds and, most significantly, Lester Bangs reacted against rock as it had evolved by the mid-70s, and argued for something altogether freer, younger, louder and more anarchic. And as the word spread out - to London, New York, Sydney and all the corners of the earth where the small music rags reached - so the music itself began." "Having interviewed many of the prime movers of punk in Britain, America and Australia, Heylin tells the tale with fresh authority. As one part of the story comes to an end with the deaths of Ian Curtis of Joy Division and Malcolm Owens of The Ruts (whose blistering song gives this book its title), so another part begins with the arrival of Nick Cave in London and the first proper stirrings of a scene on the west coast of America - leading arguable to the final death-throes of punk with the demise of Kurt Cobain a decade and a half after the Pistols blazed their trail."--BOOK JACKET.