I thought I'd like this better than I did, because I had such a strong reaction to [b:We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk|89326|We Got the Neutron Bomb The Untold Story of L.A. Punk|Brendan Mullen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320452826s/89326.jpg|1233005], because I like oral history as a format and because I'm from the Bay Area. And while it was fun recognizing all the venues mentioned in the book, there's only so many times I can read the same grouse about punk without losing interest. To wit: the first half of the book is really good, with the format being used to its best advantage to show the competing histories and egos of bands like Crime and The Nuns and The Avengers. But the second half of the book was "It's so unfair that people think punk began with Green Day" and "it's so unfair that people at Gilman are mad at Green Day for signing with a major label."

Okay. And? Go somewhere with that. And by somewhere I don't mean Ukiah, because for some reason that's the part of the book where my eyes totally started to glaze over.

Solidly compiled 30-year history of Bay Area punk. Would have liked to have seen the original 800-page MS, since at times it skips quickly over bands and anecdotes trying to make room for more, but over all it's an informative and satisfying read.

Entertaining and informative, this book gives a great overview of the punk scene in the Bay Area which led to the rise of bands like Green Day, Rancid, and AFI. Because of its oral history format, there are some contradictory accounts of events, which only adds to the interest. It does drag at times though, so only the truly dedicated will probably enjoy the whole thing.

The title says it all; profound, progressive, and often pointless, this oral history of the Bay Area punk scene is colorful, entertaining, and informative. By getting the history from the participants in their own words, Gimme Something Better has limited value as research tool (many of the statements provided are contradictory or even downright false) but the breakneck speed and dark humor and fantastic voice recreates the often misunderstood and maligned youth who just wanted to find their place. You can't escape the common gripes of someone not really "punk" or who started what; there's the various Dead Kennedys' lawsuits, the questioning of Green Day's credibility, the murder that still follows Fang, the Gilman's experiment, blah blah blah. But anyone who listen's to the music understands there is more than a little tension (and a lot of contradiction) inherent in the scene. After all, it's a bunch of kids who wanted to see how far they could push the envelope. A phantasmagoria of sound and fury, but by no means is it meaningless; as many of the testimonies included in Gimme Something Better claim, punk bettered our lives.

Good but not great. I wish the authors had made a bit more of an effort to include women in the scene. Were there really so few of them?

there are a lot of fascinating stories here and little pieces of forgotten history (as a norcal social worker, the story about a punk show at napa state hospital was particularly delightful to me), but there are so many people interviewed who just seemed like assholes (including not one but TWO completely unrepentant murderers!) it's the story of punk from a straight white dude perspective, which is unsurprising considering how punk scenes often are, but there's a LOT of shit here that is fucking gross. why are there so many quotes from dudes about whether or not a woman in the scene is attractive or ugly? like, why bother putting it in there? what does that add? especially when you KNOW about 80% of these dudes speaking are probably ugly as sin, but that's never commented upon. i made it through the whole thing, and i'm not completely sorry i did, but it was frustrating on many levels.

I was expecting to really enjoy this book, seeing as this is exactly where I was at during the early 90s - going to 924 Gilman St. every weekend. Ever since then, I've held this kind of pride that said "i was there when this all went down", and I watched all of my favorite bands go from playing that tiny club to becoming MTV mult-millionaires.

But after reading this book, I realize that what it really was, was a bunch of misguided people (myself included) desperately looking for something to belong to - but it didn't mean sh*t. Hearing the anecdotes straight from the horses mouths so to speak, really put it in perspective for me. It was a nice moment in an interesting time, but nothing to cling to like Al Bundy and his four touchdowns at Polk High. I consider this closure, and as of tonight I am officially an adult. Sad times.

I lost 2-4 hours of sleep each night finishing this, reading until my eyes blurred, which took three nights. I'm probably about as interested as possible in the subject matter, the rise of the punk movement in the Bay Area, for someone who knows next to nothing about it.

My brother is in the Who's Who section in the back, a fixture on the local punk scene for two decades now. I've always wondered if I would have ended up in the punk scene myself if I had grown up here (where I was born) as well. Long story. I now go to underground punk shows occasionally, and went to more back in the 90s when I first moved here so I had some familiarity with some of the venues which helped.

I had previously read [b:Please Kill Me The Uncensored Oral History of Punk|14595|Please Kill Me The Uncensored Oral History of Punk|Legs McNeil|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166639593s/14595.jpg|1820137] and loved it, so the oral history format seemed like a natural extension to that for me and worked very well.

In the end I was disappointed they spent so much time focusing on the bands that went to the major labels in the Green Day period, since I was never a fan of any of them. It was still fascinating though. I came out of it with some respect for bands like Green Day, although I still don't like the music. The band that seemed to be most up my alley given my own musical background (Chapel Hill, NC indie rock in the 90s) was Flipper. I really wish I could have seen Flipper at The Farm.

Thanks to youtube I was able to put together a soundtrack as I read. What an age we live in.

I do wish the format was played with a bit more. Maybe using slightly different fonts or colors for different people. I was also constantly wishing this was in some sort of digital format so I could search back quickly. It would have been nice to include some clever infographics as well. Things like a timeline, or bands-mentioned listing band members, or a map of places mentioned.