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| View Larger Image | We Got the Neutron Bomb : The Untold Story of L.A. Punk
by Marc Spitz, Brendan Mullen
| | List Price: | $14.95 | | Price: | $10.17 | | You Save: | $4.78 (32%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 216916 | | Studio: | Three Rivers Press | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 320 | | Publication Date: | November 13, 2001 | | Publisher: | Three Rivers Press |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Book Description
Taking us back to late ’70s and early ’80s Hollywood—pre-crack, pre-AIDS, pre-Reagan—We Got the Neutron Bomb re-creates word for word the rage, intensity, and anarchic glory of the Los Angeles punk scene, straight from the mouths of the scenesters, zinesters, groupies, filmmakers, and musicians who were there.
“California was wide-open sex—no condoms, no birth control, no morality, no guilt.” —Kim Fowley
“The Runaways were rebels, all of us were. And a lot of people looked up to us. It helped a lot of kids who had very mediocre, uneventful, unhappy lives. It gave them something to hold on to.” —Cherie Currie
“The objective was to create something for our own personal satisfaction, because everything in our youthful and limited opinion sucked, and we knew better.” —John Doe
“The Masque was like Heaven and Hell all rolled into one. It was a bomb shelter, a basement. It was so amazing, such a dive ... but it was our dive.” —Hellin Killer
“At least fifty punks were living at the Canterbury. You’d walk into the courtyard and there’d be a dozen different punk songs all playing at the same time. It was an incredible environment.” —Belinda Carlisle
Assembled from exhaustive interviews, We Got the Neutron Bomb tells the authentically gritty stories of bands like the Runaways, the Germs, X, the Screamers, Black Flag, and the Circle Jerks—their rise, their fall, and their undeniable influence on the rock ’n’ roll of today. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 27 reviews)
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Anyone who loves punk needs to read this. 
The first time i read this book was in college and I loved it so much that I checked it out over and over again untill a few years down the road I eventually purchased it. Anyone who loves Fear, The Germs, X, The Go-Go's, The Screamers must read it, but I can guarentee you will want to read it again and again, like I did.
September 01, 2008 | |
It's no "Please Kill Me" 
Picked this and the new _American Hardcore: A Tribal History_ up at the same time. Despite listening to the West Coast punk bands growing up, I knew far less about them and that scene than I did about their contemporaries in New York, England and even DC (well-covered in "Our Band Could Be Your Life").
The first half is tedious, spending too much time on the fading glam scene and teenage groupies - unlike the Doors/VU/Iggy chapters of _Please Kill Me_ they don't really tell you how this scene fed into punk rock.
The latter half takes off fairly well, when X and the Germs (and Black Flag and Social Distortion, etc.) start to make records and we actually get to read about them instead of which Chinese restaurant/bar was booking shows for a little while.
A key difference with this one vs. _Please Kill Me_ is that they had (it seems) less access to personalities that readers will recognize. Fewer famous acts from LA than NY, and some wouldn't speak to the authors, so they had to rely on people.
Skip this and find a bootleg of _The Decline of Western Civilization_ for a more intimate account of what LA punk rock looked and sounded like.
August 15, 2006 | |
Art and Homosexuals is not what I remember about Punk
I had high hopes for this book. The History of Punk in LA! Man that sounded great. What I found was half the book was dedicated to the Glitz scene of the 70's. This book talked as much about disco and glitz as it did punk. I remember punk being hardcore, in your face agression coming from bands like TSOL, Black Flag, Fear, etc. These bands were covered as an afterthought. Instead I read all about how punk evolved from homosexuals and gay art. Gay art? Lots of coverage about Darby Crash but most focused on him being a closet homosexual. I was hoping for more info on the hardcore movement and reading about concerts at the Olympic Auditorium. Like I said, I was disappointed to say the least.
July 14, 2006 | |
Starts slow, improves, but could be better overall 
I had a really hard time getting into this book at the beginning. While I understand that talking about the glam and glitter scene of the early 70s is important in setting the stage for a punk history, I found the first few chapters of this book rather tedious, whereas the chapters on glitter and glam in "Please Kill Me" were much more interesting and insightful as to educating in the origins of punk.
Once it got going it was a little better, but everything seemed a little glossed over. I always felt that I was missing some key element to the story. Just comparing the size of the book with Please Kill Me shows how much of a difference there is between the two. McNeil really brought you into the depths of late 70s New York, where Mullen and Spitz let you look at it from the outside. The focus is limited to a few bands, the only one that got any major focus being the Germs. To be fair, X, Black Flag, The Screamers, The Go-Gos, and The Runaways all get some coverage.
If you don't know much about L.A. Punk, this is a good palce to start. But it really only whets your appetite.
May 01, 2005 | |
Interesting.... 
I had mixed feelings about this book. On one hand it was interesting and I learned something about the LA Punk scene in the 1970's on the other hand I wanted more. It seemed to just skim the surface and some of the subjects in the book really were/are interesting enough to devote an entire book to. I wish it was more in depth.
September 06, 2004 | |
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