"Punk" After All These Years

[New York Peasant by Kim Davis:  January 16, 2012]

In the late 1970s, even before I became a teenage "gunslinger" for the New Musical Express, I was fan of punk and punk fanzines.  I was in London, and Sniffin' Glue was the local acme of the species.

But I knew of Punk, launched by John Holstrom and "Legs" McNeil in Manhattan in 1975.  I was especially aware of the bug-eyed caricature of Lou Reed on the cover of issue number one.

If you missed any of that, you probably also overlooked the launch last week of Punk:The Best of Punk Magazine, held at Powerhouse Arena in DUMBO.  No sign of McNeil, whose oral history Please Kill Me is still the best book to read on the US punk scene. 

But Holstrom was there, conducting a characteristically goofy slide presentation.  Also Andy Shernoff, Dictator and wine connoisseur, and Tish and Snooky and some of the merchandise they are still moving, thanks to the improbable cultural durability of The Sic F*cks.

Exciting for me, though, the sight of three of rock's greatest photographs lined up behind a signing table.  Roberta Bayley, Bob Gruen, and Joe Stevens.

What they saw and what they captured -- especially, perhaps, Gruen's images of the Sex Pistols U.S. tour -- is hard-wired into our culture, whether you know/like it or not.

I got some autographs, and drank an awful lot of Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum.

The website marches on.

Right: Holstrom at the controls.