Please Kill Me

Please Kill Me is the (poisonous) fruit of hundreds of hours of interviews with those who animated one of the most explosive cultural and musical movements of the end of the twentieth century: American punk-rock. Produced as a nervous montage, extremely dynamic and often very funny or tragic, the voices of this book are realy different and give us an incredible dive into the daily life full of noise and fury, drugs, disasters, sex and poetry (sometimes) of the Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop’s Stooges, mC9, the New York Dolls and the Heartbreakers of Johnny Thunders, Richard Hell, Patti Smith, Television, the Ramones, Blondie and dozens of others. With their language and verve or their deadpan humor, this artists offer us delirious anecdotes, bringing back to life these endearing and/or detestable characters (with iconic scenes in every chapter), that give us the impression of sharing with them this insane daily life of all kinds of problems, that one chokes with laughter at the evocation of the antics of unbridled Iggy Pop or of the priceless Dee Dee Ramone; or that one swallows one’s tears at the calamitous end of a Johnny Thunders, a Stiv Bators or a Jerry Nolan.
The irreverent sequencing of points of view produces comic effects that are often irresistible, since here, as the subtitle indicates, there is no censorship: unfailing friendships rub shoulders with persistent antipathies and explosive loves (Connie and Dee Dee, Sid and Nancy). Yet no one seems to have the slightest shame in revealing what was often an extremely rock’n’roll lifestyle, less focused on the English punk stereotype but more dedicated to a certain king of paradoxical innocence, rejecting both the outdated peace and love ideals of the 60s and the cult of money that was emerging with the arrival of the 80s. But this innocence pays a heavy price for its excesses (overdoses, stabbings, prostitution) and manipulates derision as a weapon of mass destruction. Please Kill Me sounds like a multi-voiced novel, breathtakingly fast like a Ramones song.