Get Hold Of Punk Elegies: True Tales Of Death Trip Kids, Wrongful Sex, And Trial By Angel Dust Drafted By Allan MacDonell Presented As Booklet

and space is nothing if not personal and unique, Allan MacDonell came about as close to the bullseye of a certain time and space, the birth of Los Angeles punk rock in the midtolates, and still he was just a bit off.
In his wandering portrait of less an era than a person, that being himself, PUNK ELEGIES: TRUE TALES OF DEATH TRIP KIDS, WRONGFUL SEX, AND TRAIL BY ANGEL DUST, he delivers on the lurid tease of the books subtitle.
His stories are full of abuse, which could get tiresome if not for his sardonic humor, a dark star at the center of a darker existence.
For the most part he sidetracks the storied “events” and “personalities,” focusing on the less successful, marginalized characters who deserve their own books but will have to settle for MacDonells until that wrong is righted.
He gives a maninthegutter view of what it was like to devote ones life to nothing, Thats not fair, but MacDonell is the picture of indifference, He mocks fandom, though comes across as a more rarified fan cant be bothered to be in a band, though his appreciation of music is visceral distances himself with a sharp comedic slant, though flirts with the intimacy of its dramatic twin, tragedy.
What can you say MacDonell is a complicated guy, Hes also a fine guide who makes you feel lucky to call him friend, even though you know outside the printed page hed never tolerate you.
Thats okay. Its what time and space is for, perspective, MacDonell doesnt say it, but you sense hes a different man now, The book is too honest to end with an epiphany, but you do feel by the final pages as if the wheels have gone off the ride.
Its a testament to MacDonells talents that you hope the crash wasn't too hard, I was not familiar with author Allan MacDonell when this book crossed my desk, but the title grabbed me and I put it on hold at the library.
I may have to start a new shelf for tales of punk rock and drug abuse in the/'s.


"Punk Elegies" is the author's personal tale of being young, poor and restless in Los Angeles in the late's.
He is attracted to the burgeoning punk scene but isn't part of a band, He simply gets wrecked on alcohol and cheap drugs and goes to shows with his gf/wife Tommie.
Together they survive the dirty streets of some of the worst parts of LA, Eventually she begins to care about having a future that contains a career and regular paychecks while the author continues his reckless lifestyle, occasionally writing for Slash magazine and exploiting the perks that come from the music and publishing industries.
Among the various tales are stories about the Germs, the Sex Pistols, the GoGo's, X and other bands.


It is rather fascinating

but I feel like I've read it all before, The descriptions of drug use and other depravities get a bit too gruesome for my taste, The sexcapades that also contribute to his breakup with Tommie are unnecessarily explicit the author wrote for Hustler and Taboo magazines for a number of years after the timeline of this memoir.
The saving grace is his obvious love for Tommie and regret that he was unable to stop his relationshipdestroying ways.
An intimate look at the LA punk "scene" from, I put scene in italics because I'm beginning to get a sense of just how small this group of junkies, hustlers and art school dropouts was, and the idea of a cohesive scene exists largely thanks to fanzines like Slash and Flipside which I wrote for, but much, much later.
Allan MacDonell was part of the mythmaking machine as a scribbler for Slash at least until he quit/got fired.
These elegies consist of mostly unflattering, but frequently hilarious, vignettes of punks you don't hear about every day but were larger than life figures in the clubs and on the streets: Black Randy, Kickboy Face, a Mau Mau here, a Go Go there.
Black Randy, in particular, steals more than one scene, and comes across as a junkie version of Seinfeld's Newman, full of vinegar and venom though entertaining nonetheless.
MacDonell's acerbic style had me laughing through scenes I'm certain I would have recoiled in horror from had I lived through them.
Stintingly unsentimental, Punk Elegies is a fresh take on a welldocumented chapter of music history, Highly recommended. Eh This started out with a bang, and I was allin, and then quickly descended into a litany of "I was so wasted" drug stories, one after the other, ad nauseum.
Really, is there anything more boring that someone's drug memoir It gets extremely tiresome about halfway in, by which point I'd lost all my interest and was totally deadened to this guy's mistakes and motivations, which seemed to revolve around destroying himself as quickly as possible, while making everything into a "party" no matter the day or hour.


The connection to the ''LA punk scene which is what I though this would be about is tangential.
MacDonnell's PCP freakouts and blackouts take place at or near The Masque, Whiskey, Canterbury House and so on and so forth, but it's more an insight into one man's druggedout stupidity than it is an illumination into anything new or different that we don't already know about that scene or era.
Music is barely existent in this book and resides in the background of dozens of drug stories, Huge yawn. Excellent memoir of growing up a hip, broke and strungout punk rock kid at the end of thes.
Most of the book takes place in Hollywood with a few names dropped throughout for dirt/authenticity, Writing style reminded me of Hunter S, Thompons's Gonzo magazine longpieces . but not at all in a derivative way, I was pleased to see by the 'after' photo of the author on the left flap that Allan made it out alive.
Bravo!!! I just wonder what happened to Tommie Still married fingers crossed

Based on my enjoyment of this first AM book, I'm looking forward to next reading his memoir about years working at Hustler.
If it's written in the same style as Punk Elegies, I'm sure I'll have coffee coming out of my nose.
This book was entertaining, energetic, uncomfortable and awesome, just like all good punk is, MacDonell is an excellent storyteller and I look forward to anything else he writes in the future, Punk/rock memoirs can be very hit or miss, Punk/rock memoirs by admittedly marginal figures even more so, But MacDonnells acerbic wit, brutal honesty, and significant writing chops transcend the genre with surprising success, Great stuff if you enjoy being a fly on the wall for the darker and dirtier corners of the LA punk underbelly.
This book is alive and fantastic in as many ways as it is depraved and degrading, The introduction says it all, From thisrd generationLA punk rocker, I offer only thanks and kudos on a mosttelling portrait and reportage of some certain truths and consequences of being an actual punk rocker in late's Los Angeles in this wellwritten 'memoir' of the author's youthful and otherwise indiscretions.
The only thing that bugged me and just a little was how much he seemed to have such a dislike for Claude 'Kickboy Face' Bessey, yet, in a way, his writing reminds me so much of the diatribes and rants I only heard Claude rip in 'Decline' so what do I fucken know I do know I was lucky enough to see the Weirdos at the Whiskey inand was instantly hooked on punk rock, big time though this story, sadly and ironically, ends in an early Decembertragedy.
The music, the energy and the scene were all raging, while oldtimers like Allan and Rick MauMau Wilder who almost fell over in a dopestupor asking me for a light at the Anti Club inwhile proclaiming 'Punk is Dead' had perhaps prioritized other things at that time, and that is all fine.
The MauMau's, one of LA's 'lost', great punk bands are still revered and loved by many, including myself, so no disrespect intended to the author or Rick.
Reading twisted tales involving Black Randy was more than enough to get me through this book, but the other stories hook it all together.
And every generation of punk rock is for the youth, even if they are 'doing it wrong', and I'll just leave it right there.
stars. I am having a hard time reviewing this book because parts of it were laugh out loud funny, like the description of the Time Motor Lodge, the most famous hotel in LA forminutes, because it had been the scene of a police shoot out the day before and even the refrigerator was pocked with bullet holes.
Although MacDonnell comes off as kind of a jerk, I admire him for at least admitting it,

Having been on the periphery of the New York punk scene, I recognize many of the behaviors chronicled here.
However, the LA Punk scene exceeded New York's capacity for outright nihilism by light years, What in the world do they put in the water out there This makes Danny Sugarman look like Pat Boone! At least he never shot up Angel Dust before a big job interview at AampM Records the label that famously signed and dismissed the Sex Pistols in one afternoon.


The big problem I have with this book is that he literally gets so blotto in every scene that he remembers almost nothing of his encounters with greatness the only thing he DOES remember is missing The Jam at the Whiskey A Go Go inthe concert of the century because he had to attend to his wife who was puking in the parking lot.
She eventually gets her act together and leaves him although the book just ends very abruptly and doesn't explain exactly when her patience finally ran out.
We just know that he regrets losing her,

If you are looking for stories about The Go Gos, The Germs, X, or any of that ilk, you won't find more than passing references here.
What you will find is endless tales of scoring heroin, speed, and dust in squalid apartments and a gay bathhouse in San Francisco which was another "WTF are they thinking" moment, although I admit I laughed hysterically.
And getting invites to the better parties always ended with him doing something stupid, either getting too trashed and wrecking the place, or stealing from the hosts.
And like the Missing Persons' song "Walking in LA" points out, "only a nobody walks in LA" which the author did quite a lot of.
I would have appreciated a more linear timeline because once he mentioned Darby Crash's suicide pact with his girlfriend, and then later, he is having a conversation with him outside of a Clash concert.
It was massively confusing because he seemed to be going in chronological order up until that point,

The biggest thing for me was that he got the time of John Lennon's assassination slightly wrong.
After noting that Darby Crash of the Germs had committed suicide that Sunday in what was intended to be a grand gesture which would get the whole town talking, but was obviously overshadowed the next day, the author claims he found out about Lennon in Monday morning's paper.
However, the world did not find out until later in the evening when Howard Cosell famously announced it on Monday Night Football.


How did that make it past an editor I cannot be the only one who noticed this Punk Elegies arrives like a chemically unstable mixture of Richard Yates and Damon Runyon.
Set along Hollywood Boulevard at the birth of punk and the death of the seventies, the thirtythree melancholic, comic laments of Punk Elegies are a mesmerizing concoction of delusion and revelation.
A cultural moment, a marriage, and one young mans mind and soul spiral through a series of boundless possibilities and arrive at a harrowing finality.
In the end, on the spin cycle of destiny, MacDonell circles alone, naked and bewildered in the labyrinth of a preAIDS bathhouse inferno.
The first sunrise of the rest of his life dares him to step outside,
.