I just started Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk curated by John Doe of X. So far, it's mostly good.
It's divided up into small-ish chapters written by a single player from the late 70's / early 80's L.A. scene. It almost feels like Doe was going to write a memoir by himself but then decided to include others (including, naturally, Exene Cervenka).
This is a fine choice -- a multi-voiced oral history of L.A. punk, but it also leads to some Liverjournal-esque sloppiness ("i had never seen so many punk kids w/ drugs ZOMG"). That's cringe-worthy in what should be taken as a significant work of pop culture history, to say the least.
That said, the best chapter so far is by The Go-Go's Jane Wiedlen. Having read some short articles and seen some interviews with her, it's no surprise that she's funny and self-aware and seemingly a pretty reliable narrator of what exactly went down, despite the fog of drugs, sex, violence, and more drugs.
No comments:
Post a Comment