Having soldiered through Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" (actually really good til the end), I indulged in a bit of pure "High Fidelity bloke" reading recently, namely "Please Kill Me". It's an "oral history" of American punk music in the 70s, in that it's purely a collection of quotes from those involved, arranged by topic. The absence of any comment is highly effective, as most of the protagonists make it quite clear that they are the most narcisstic, parasitic, manipulative, degenerate bunch you could conjure up. I might, just might have been thrilled with some of the squalid behaviour they triumphally describe when i was 15, but now I'm just sickened. The thing is that I still love a lot of the music- the Stooges and Ramones in particular, but there are a few stone classics among the various others.

Truth is, I've always been more of a hippy, man, even when sighing and poncing my way through the indie 80s and 90s. I was reading the book this evening while listening to David Crosby's "If I could only remember my name". Far out.