I read Please Kill Me by Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil

500 pages of oral history style narratives of the US punk scene, from the Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop to eventually Blondie and The Talking Heads having walk-on roles. This really communicates a coherent aesthetic and attitude of punk in a way that "it's punk to use the library"/"it's punk to listen to folk music because it also sounds bad" etc are the opposite of. A cultural space predicated specifically on negation, rather than affirming (likely already existing) values is vital, and in the tradition of dada and conceptual art, can be quite jarring and controversial when it emerges.

It really articulates the close connections between the art world of the time and the emergence of punk (Jonas Mekas even makes a brief appearance?), but also the drug abuse and interpersonal gore that can come from an ethos of negation suddenly catapulting an (unevenly distributed) coterie of weirdo teenagers to fame and maybe a little fortune, though no one really seems to have money lying around for long, due to all the heroin lol. It's amazing Iggy Pop of all people is still alive. Our Band Could Be Your Life is a good follow up, similar in style and in a roundabout way how the next generation of DIY musicians dealt with the fallout of this generation.