Legs McNeil / Gillian McCain
Please Kill Me

THE REVIEW

It is not a record. But only in the sense that it's not made of vinyl. Because it sounds, oh it does. More than everything that plays today put together. In these five hundred and some pages, there's more or less everything I've always meant by rock 'n' roll. For better or worse. There's the music above all. Lives shaped and twisted around music, made great by music. Often screwed up by music. But lives in which music was certainly everything. Ramones, New York Dolls, Velvet Underground, Stooges, Dead Boys, Television, Patti Smith, Richard Hell. And then Pistols, Clash, Heartbreakers. Christ, if this isn't stuff that sounds.

A book halfway between reportage and cemetery. A long list of dead and battered living. The mirror of a truly lost generation that spawned the most exciting music ever. An unwritten book. A true oral history as the English subtitle states. Almost a Homeric epic where the narrator is absent, or rather shattered into a myriad of viewpoints. Splendors and miseries of lost lives and wasted talents. Beyond the inevitable nostalgia of those who remain for those who have already left, a faithful and exciting tale. At least for those who, like me, believe that rock 'n' roll is still one of those things worth living for. Despite the post-Nirvana. Despite post-rock, emo-core, and all those other labels that don't mean a damn thing. Starting with the punk label, which has never meant a damn thing. Word of Legs and Gillian, who deserve the deepest respect for their passion and (yet) restraint. Three-minute songs to hell with the dinosaurs of the '70s. Returning to the dear old rock 'n' roll of the origins. Which we like, though. Christ, if we like it.