Product 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 CarlisleAssembled 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)

Disappointing by Son of Rimbaud (USA)

2 Stars
June 09, 2009
As an important figure in the early LA punk scene, Brendan Mullen theoretically would have amounted to an ideal figure to recount its history. Alas, he and co-author Spitz fall short of the mark, though to be fair, this may have owed more to their publisher. What should have been colorful anecdotes are compressed into blips that barely make an impression. The lingering after-effect, on finishing this book, is that it follows too closely in format the superior "Please Kill Me," which largely concerned the NYC punk scene -- and that in turn reflects poorly on the scene in LA, as if that, like this book, followed too closely the scene in NYC. Not true! The LA scene awaits a better recounting. But "Neutron Bomb," although seriously lacking, it still a decent place to begin.

Anyone who loves punk needs to read this. by Andrea (Fresno, CA)

5 Stars
September 01, 2008
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.

It's no "Please Kill Me" by M. Powell (Arlington, TX United States)

2 Stars
August 15, 2006
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.

Art and Homosexuals is not what I remember about Punk by Jeffrey L. Blair

2 Stars
July 14, 2006
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.

Starts slow, improves, but could be better overall by Eleanor (Bangor, ME)

4 Stars
May 01, 2005
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.

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