Punk Diary: The Ultimate Trainspotter's Guide to Underground Rock 1970-1982 By George Gimarc Backbeat Books August 1, 2005 ISBN 0-87930-848-6 (�15.99) This is a fucking massive telephone directory covering the bulk of punk events, landmark happenings and classic gigs as caught by the UK music press from 1970-82. This all encompassed edition handily incorporates the early work of George Gimarc�s acclaimed �Punk Diary 1970-79� with his �1980-1982 Post Punk� book that followed hot on its heels. All lovingly bound together with additional information, into one big, fat, juicy 746 page odyssey. This is worth your unbridled attention! George Gimarc is a fan of punk and must�ve poured through literally hundreds of copies of the music weeklies such as Sounds, NME and Melody Maker etc to bring us the beef of this expansive work. Punk Diary ain�t a book you can just pick up and read straight through. There ain�t any chapters or story lines to follow, just years, months and dates that jog your memory, make you think so thats when it actually happened or will bring a smik to your face! The pages are lit up with selected imagery as you wade through this encyclopaedia of punk. This journal of discovery is purely a chronological and factual snapshot of the day to day dealings from the UK (and to a lesser extent) US punk universes. Its biggest pull is that this will become undoubtedly a constant research source for budding punk historians or just fans after the information on your favourite bands. If you wanna track down those missing records you couldn�t date and even the ones you didn�t rate, Flock Of Seagulls anyone? You can literally dip into this and find out exactly what happened to who and when and where over an extensive period of time. And thank gawd for that 44 page band index at the back so that you can just jump right in where the action was in punks more explosive regions. There�s a staggering 1,276 bands detailed in here! From the Ants to Angst right through to the Sick Fucks and the Sex Pistols. They are all lovingly recorded and documented for your easy to digest dissection. Punk Diary will only be a minor disappointment for all the more obscure punk outfits; coz the bands that never made it into our UK weeklies don�t get covered, which is a shame. However all the main contenders of the day get a healthy treatment as do some of the lesser known outfits who made it through pure luck or maybe word of mouth? However if your from Europe you�ll be feeling totally estranged as there ain�t much coverage at all apart from bands such as Kleenex or the Stinky Toys who managed to breach the gap. But what is included will definitely wet your whistle. I hope George could maybe one day do a US version if he has the energy or resources to choose from. But I suspect this is purely a UK experience because let�s face it love em or loathe em, the British music press along with the zine heirarchy at that time, did a splendid job of covering punk when it was still a threat and worth printing. As an added bonus you get a FREE CD which give us a fascinating insight into George�s early 80�s Dallas �Rock N Roll Alternative� radio show, where he conducted one to one interviews with such droll characters as Devo, The Damned, Adam Ant, Stiv Bators, The Ramones and the Go Go�s along with 18 others segments from artists that appear in this book.You can view a couple of sample pages here! **** PETER DON'T CARE |
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