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 “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 McNeil has made a profession out of inviting mockery. Few have been able to resist accepting, but among his admirers have been Sinead 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 “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 dukes-up autobiography proves it. Punk roots here!” —Mark Jacobson, author of The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans “I’ve been way too busy making a living, but I finally finished Legs McNeil’s stupid book. Now I know way more about him than I would ever care to, so thanks for that! Despite the trauma, I really enjoyed it. I still can’t believe Legs can form whole sentences, never mind put enough of them together to make a paragraph.” —Elaine Aaronson, comedy writer for The Larry Sanders Show “Before there was punk, Legs McNeil was the prototype. When punk was a scene, he was the living embodiment. When punk was a genre, he was the chronicler. Now that punk is an American subculture, Legs is the Godfather, a pop culture superhero who tells his origin story so intimately that you can smell the warm beer. This punk Pilgrim’s Progress speeds by like a song by the Ramones, as stark as William S. Burrough’s Junky and more hilarious than Will by G. Gordon Liddy.” —Burt Kearns, author of Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel and SHEMP!

Legs McNeil is the coauthor of the global bestseller Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, widely hailed as the Punk Bible. He is also one of the cofounders of Punk magazine, which gave the movement its name. McNeil is a former editor at Spin and editor-in-chief of Nerve. He has also coauthored The Other Hollywood, cowrote I Slept With Joey Ramone with Mickey Leigh, and coedited Dear Nobody.

A filmmaker, McNeil directed and narrated Pusherman: Frank Lucas & the True Story of American Gangster and his next film is Johnny in Wonderland, which tells the true story of porn star John Holmes’s involvement in the 1981 Wonderland Murders.

McNeil is a foremost chronicler of the punk movement, known for his on-the-ground accounts of New York and London in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. He has appeared in numerous documentaries about the punk years and his journalism has been featured in Rolling Stone, Spin, New York Magazine, VICE, and many other publications.

Crispin Kott is the coauthor of Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to New York City, Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area, and The Little Book of Rock and Roll Wisdom. A longtime journalist covering music and beyond, Kott has been published in PopMatters, Please Kill Me, Nerve, and numerous other online and print media outlets.

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