New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation

by Gary Valentine (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $6.55

  By 1970, the hippie dream of the 60s was dead - the sound track to revolution had become a multi-million dollar industry, and 'rock' had lost its 'roll'. Glitter tried to save music's soul, but was too commercial to be cutting-edge for long. Then in 1974, a rescue movement arrived on the streets of New York City. Within two years it had spread West to California, and then East to London. Punk was born. Three chords, black jeans, a pair of shades and a lot of attitude accompanied music whose intensity matched the hard facts of life on its home ground, New York's East Village.This is a first hand account of this little documented era - of life alongside Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, the Velvet Underground, David Bowie and the New York Dolls, of the gigs at CBGBs hitting the news as Warhol and his glittering crew descended - to its worldwide explosion, with Malcom McLaren hijacking the scene's momentum...'Gary was pretty much everywhere at the right time...it's fortunate that the man who wrote X Offender and Presence Dear survived to tell the tale so well' - MOJO.

• New

  Paperback
  2006

  $21.43

  By 1970, the hippie dream of the 60s was dead -- the soundtrack of the revolution had become a multimillion-dollar industry. Glitter tried to save music's soul, but was too commercial to be cutting edge for long. Then, in 1974, a rescue movement arrived. Three chords, black jeans, a pair of shades, and a whole lot of attitude made music that matched the facts of life on its home ground, mid-70sNew York City's East Village. The initiators of punk, Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine, and Patti Smith had one foot in nineteenth-century French symbolist poetry and the other in the raw sound of their predecessors such as the Velvet Underground. This first-hand account of a little-documented era features luminaries such as Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Debbie Harry, Divine, Devo, and the New York Dolls, and tells of the gigs at CBGB hitting the news as Warhol and his glittering crew descended. What began as a unique blend of fin-de-siecle ennui and razor-sharp rock became anarchic frenzy and safety pins, overrun by gutter decadence and stupid-chic. With Malcolm McLaren hijacking the scene's momentum, the Blank Generation plunged into excess and eventual ruin, its survivors making the leap into mainstream.