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Gimme Something Better: The Profound, Progressive, and Occasionally Pointless History of Bay Area Punk from Dead Kennedys to Green Day
An oral history of the modern punk-revival's West Coast Birthplace
Outside of New York and London, California's Bay Area claims the oldest continuous punk-rock scene in the world. Gimme Something Better brings this outrageous and influential punk scene to life, from the notorious final performance of the Sex Pistols, to Jello Biafra's bid for mayor, the rise of Maximum RocknRoll magazine, and the East Bay pop-punk sound that sold millions around the globe. Throngs of punks, including members of the Dead Kennedys, Avengers, Flipper, MDC, Green Day, Rancid, NOFX, and AFI, tell their own stories in this definitive account, from the innovative art-damage of San Francisco's Fab Mab in North Beach, to the still vibrant all-ages DIY ethos of Berkeley?s Gilman Street. Compiled by longtime Bay Area journalists Jack Boulware and Silke Tudor, Gimme Something Better chronicles more than two decades of punk music, progressive politics, social consciousness, and divine decadence, told by the people who made it happen.
Outside of New York and London, California's Bay Area claims the oldest continuous punk-rock scene in the world. Gimme Something Better brings this outrageous and influential punk scene to life, from the notorious final performance of the Sex Pistols, to Jello Biafra's bid for mayor, the rise of Maximum RocknRoll magazine, and the East Bay pop-punk sound that sold millions around the globe. Throngs of punks, including members of the Dead Kennedys, Avengers, Flipper, MDC, Green Day, Rancid, NOFX, and AFI, tell their own stories in this definitive account, from the innovative art-damage of San Francisco's Fab Mab in North Beach, to the still vibrant all-ages DIY ethos of Berkeley?s Gilman Street. Compiled by longtime Bay Area journalists Jack Boulware and Silke Tudor, Gimme Something Better chronicles more than two decades of punk music, progressive politics, social consciousness, and divine decadence, told by the people who made it happen.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
37 people are currently reading
2032 people want to read
About the author
Jack Boulware
8 books9 followersJack Boulware is an American author and journalist, and was founding editor of the satirical Nose magazine. He is author of Sex American Style and San Francisco Bizarro, and co-author of the recent oral history Gimme Something Better: The Profound, Progressive, and Occasionally Pointless History of Bay Area Punk From Dead Kennedys to Green Day.
He writes regularly for a variety of publications, and is co-founder of San Francisco's Litquake literary festival (http://litquake.org/). He is proud to contribute to the canon of literature authored by Boulwares, which includes The Oratory of Negro Leaders: 1900-1968, The Truth About Boulwarism: Trying to Do Right Voluntarily, and Snoring: New Answers to an Old Problem.
He writes regularly for a variety of publications, and is co-founder of San Francisco's Litquake literary festival (http://litquake.org/). He is proud to contribute to the canon of literature authored by Boulwares, which includes The Oratory of Negro Leaders: 1900-1968, The Truth About Boulwarism: Trying to Do Right Voluntarily, and Snoring: New Answers to an Old Problem.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
June 12, 2011
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.
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.
January 24, 2022
So. I loved this book. I absolutely fucking loved it. I loved it more than I loved Please Kill Me, which I loved very much. I suspect my heart grew three sizes for generational reasons: I’m into the Ramones and it was awesome to read about the trainwreck that was Johnny Thunders, but none of the bands in PKM are my bands, it wasn’t my scene, I’m not old enough. I found my way to Television and the Velvets and the Voidoids and the Dolls later in life, and so the book was basically an intellectual exercise for me. A fascinating one, to be sure, and one I recommend everyone engage in, but an intellectual exercise nonetheless.
But Gimme Something Better… I mean, I’ve been to San Francisco maybe twice, but I was probably eight years old when I found the Dead Kennedys. I drew that DK in sidewalk chalk all over my stultifying suburban neighborhood, and I sang to myself and danced in the driveway. The last time I went home my stepbrother handed me his four-month-old child and left, and I put on Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables at top volume and I danced with that baby in the living room, because it’s important to start 'em off right. And apparently, I felt that starting him off right meant with the Dead Kennedys.
Which really is to say that a lot of the bands in this book are bands I grew up listening to, and therefore the people and the stories and the music in GSB are much closer to my heart than those of PKM. Given that, you are free to take this review with an appropriately sized grain of salt. But I’m hoping that grain will be very small, because come ON, read this and tell me it doesn’t sound totally awesome:
So anyway. As stated, Gimme Something Better is an oral history of Bay Area punk: San Francisco, Berkeley, the East Bay, etc. And as I was deciding whether to buy it — there is actually a very complicated ethical algorithm involved whenever I decide to buy a new book — I read a review that said the book was confusing and difficult to follow, that it was not well-organized or well-put-together, that there was no cohesive narrative, that the reader had to constantly flip to the who’s-who in the back in order to have any hope of understanding who was talking. Which is to say that the reviewer listed, one by one, all of my usual gripes with the oral history format.
I, on the other hand, had virtually none of those complaints. I didn’t see much of a cohesive narrative, true, but I also didn’t particularly need one. It felt to me as if the scene were splintered, in time and in place and in genre, and so it felt right and made sense to me that the book was splintered along those same lines, with a few slim threads running through the whole thing (Maximum RockNRoll, for one, and Jello Biafra for two). It’s organized more or less chronologically and by band/zine/venue, and it certainly helps to know your history because the chapter titles are all references to the entities those chapters are about, but almost none of them are explained.
I think what I am trying to say is that it’s possible this book isn’t for beginners, but I don’t have any way of knowing. I think you should start with the who’s-who (I think you should do that anyway, and that those things should go at the beginning of oral histories so people read them first, because I swear to god it helps, even if you already know who’s in the book), and see if you have any feel for the people or the bands, and if not, maybe you should come back to it later.
As for me, I read this book very quickly, mostly on trains and planes and curled on the floor at various airports. I hadn’t slept in a few days, and my plan had been to do so while I traveled, but I couldn’t put this book down. I found it fascinating and funny; several times, the few rows around me on the airplane looked at me like I’d lost my mind because I wasn’t able to quiet my laughter. (“…the real industry people couldn’t get their mouth around the dick of it, you know?” What a completely perfect phrase.)
It has all the expected antics that punks get up to (like the one chick who takes her date to an abandoned punk house for sex, except the last people out of there had booby-trapped the place, and so her date ended up with a bucket of urine dropping on his head); and the capital-C-Characters that inhabit any given scene (I liked the roadie who didn’t bathe or wash his clothes for like three years, and nearly lost his foot to gangrene, and wanted to know why girls didn’t like him); and the usual gossip and politics and he-said-she-said factions with four sides to the same story (WTF happened to Jello Biafra at Gilman? No one knows! But then he sucked some chick’s strap-on at a queercore show, and all was forgiven. Or… something like that.). There is some story about Bille Joe Armstrong being at a party and there is one guy there smashing eggs in people’s faces and also some inexplicable chickens. There’s Sheriff Mike Hennessey, who’s been the sheriff of San Francisco for thirty years, who is a total punk rocker, and he lends a really interesting perspective to the usual stories of punks vs. police. There’s a point in the story where my jaw literally dropped, and I’m not going to tell you about it in case you do not want spoilers for actualfax history. I found it pretty riveting from start to finish.
I also found it poignant in the way people spoke about music, about their love for it and their lives within it; page after page is dogeared because there was some quote I wanted to come back to and chew on and tell people about. (“What’s the definition of punk rock?” “Three chords and a cloud of dust.”) I also liked the fact that although the music occasionally takes a back seat to the larger scene, it’s never there for long. Sometimes these books are not about the music at all, but this one very much is.
I found it surprisingly and pleasingly diverse in the topics it covered: Queers could be around more (this is pretty much always the case), but they’re definitely there, and women are well-represented throughout, and not just in the kind of offhand, “oh, and also chicks sometimes came to shows and the bands’ girlfriends were super important to the scene, honest,” that happens a lot. There were girl gangs beating the fuck out of people with skateboards, and there were all-girl punk houses, and there were chick bands and chicks IN bands, and there were women writing and photographing and documenting and kicking ass. It starts early in the book and in the scene, with Ginger Coyote (White Trash Debutants) and Jennifer Blowdryer (the Blowdryers) on page four, and it keeps on keeping on from there.
[Oh, I almost forgot! On the off chance you are thinking to yourself, “Pam, you have now written a gazillion words about punk rock without once mentioning Mike Ness. Are you feeling okay? Is he in this book?” YES, I am feeling just fine, and YES, Mike Ness is in this book. I was not expecting him to be, but he weaves in and out of the narrative in a fitting drugged-out haze: “I chose to continue my career as a down-and-out junkie. My bullshit took me back to Orange County, where I met Mike Ness, having the same ‘interests’ as me. I ended up playing with Social Distortion for a short time. Those are the last gigs I’ve done.” Basically, I felt that this book had exactly the right amount of Mike Ness, which is to say: hardly any. SEE, I’m not totally irrational about it, honest.]
Right, so have you figured out that I loved this book? Because I did, and I think you should read it. I’m going to leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the book, from the chapter titled Outpunk:
To me, too.
But Gimme Something Better… I mean, I’ve been to San Francisco maybe twice, but I was probably eight years old when I found the Dead Kennedys. I drew that DK in sidewalk chalk all over my stultifying suburban neighborhood, and I sang to myself and danced in the driveway. The last time I went home my stepbrother handed me his four-month-old child and left, and I put on Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables at top volume and I danced with that baby in the living room, because it’s important to start 'em off right. And apparently, I felt that starting him off right meant with the Dead Kennedys.
Which really is to say that a lot of the bands in this book are bands I grew up listening to, and therefore the people and the stories and the music in GSB are much closer to my heart than those of PKM. Given that, you are free to take this review with an appropriately sized grain of salt. But I’m hoping that grain will be very small, because come ON, read this and tell me it doesn’t sound totally awesome:
Oran Canfield: I was nine. I was sharing a room with a night nurse, just a normal person who lived there. There was the main building with the stage and the preschool and the kitchen. This guy Bruce lived in a fucking animal cage downstairs — he was always practicing drums. There were weird, dark passageways that led to building C, where I lived, which was a hangar. The other hangar was Mark Pauline’s SRL, Survival Research Laboratories.
Dale Flattum: There’s always been a strange noise scene here, but one of the things that really influenced us was Survival Research. They were like, “Awww, you play in a band? That’s neat. We build robotic machines and set the freeway on fire.”
So anyway. As stated, Gimme Something Better is an oral history of Bay Area punk: San Francisco, Berkeley, the East Bay, etc. And as I was deciding whether to buy it — there is actually a very complicated ethical algorithm involved whenever I decide to buy a new book — I read a review that said the book was confusing and difficult to follow, that it was not well-organized or well-put-together, that there was no cohesive narrative, that the reader had to constantly flip to the who’s-who in the back in order to have any hope of understanding who was talking. Which is to say that the reviewer listed, one by one, all of my usual gripes with the oral history format.
I, on the other hand, had virtually none of those complaints. I didn’t see much of a cohesive narrative, true, but I also didn’t particularly need one. It felt to me as if the scene were splintered, in time and in place and in genre, and so it felt right and made sense to me that the book was splintered along those same lines, with a few slim threads running through the whole thing (Maximum RockNRoll, for one, and Jello Biafra for two). It’s organized more or less chronologically and by band/zine/venue, and it certainly helps to know your history because the chapter titles are all references to the entities those chapters are about, but almost none of them are explained.
I think what I am trying to say is that it’s possible this book isn’t for beginners, but I don’t have any way of knowing. I think you should start with the who’s-who (I think you should do that anyway, and that those things should go at the beginning of oral histories so people read them first, because I swear to god it helps, even if you already know who’s in the book), and see if you have any feel for the people or the bands, and if not, maybe you should come back to it later.
As for me, I read this book very quickly, mostly on trains and planes and curled on the floor at various airports. I hadn’t slept in a few days, and my plan had been to do so while I traveled, but I couldn’t put this book down. I found it fascinating and funny; several times, the few rows around me on the airplane looked at me like I’d lost my mind because I wasn’t able to quiet my laughter. (“…the real industry people couldn’t get their mouth around the dick of it, you know?” What a completely perfect phrase.)
It has all the expected antics that punks get up to (like the one chick who takes her date to an abandoned punk house for sex, except the last people out of there had booby-trapped the place, and so her date ended up with a bucket of urine dropping on his head); and the capital-C-Characters that inhabit any given scene (I liked the roadie who didn’t bathe or wash his clothes for like three years, and nearly lost his foot to gangrene, and wanted to know why girls didn’t like him); and the usual gossip and politics and he-said-she-said factions with four sides to the same story (WTF happened to Jello Biafra at Gilman? No one knows! But then he sucked some chick’s strap-on at a queercore show, and all was forgiven. Or… something like that.). There is some story about Bille Joe Armstrong being at a party and there is one guy there smashing eggs in people’s faces and also some inexplicable chickens. There’s Sheriff Mike Hennessey, who’s been the sheriff of San Francisco for thirty years, who is a total punk rocker, and he lends a really interesting perspective to the usual stories of punks vs. police. There’s a point in the story where my jaw literally dropped, and I’m not going to tell you about it in case you do not want spoilers for actualfax history. I found it pretty riveting from start to finish.
I also found it poignant in the way people spoke about music, about their love for it and their lives within it; page after page is dogeared because there was some quote I wanted to come back to and chew on and tell people about. (“What’s the definition of punk rock?” “Three chords and a cloud of dust.”) I also liked the fact that although the music occasionally takes a back seat to the larger scene, it’s never there for long. Sometimes these books are not about the music at all, but this one very much is.
I found it surprisingly and pleasingly diverse in the topics it covered: Queers could be around more (this is pretty much always the case), but they’re definitely there, and women are well-represented throughout, and not just in the kind of offhand, “oh, and also chicks sometimes came to shows and the bands’ girlfriends were super important to the scene, honest,” that happens a lot. There were girl gangs beating the fuck out of people with skateboards, and there were all-girl punk houses, and there were chick bands and chicks IN bands, and there were women writing and photographing and documenting and kicking ass. It starts early in the book and in the scene, with Ginger Coyote (White Trash Debutants) and Jennifer Blowdryer (the Blowdryers) on page four, and it keeps on keeping on from there.
[Oh, I almost forgot! On the off chance you are thinking to yourself, “Pam, you have now written a gazillion words about punk rock without once mentioning Mike Ness. Are you feeling okay? Is he in this book?” YES, I am feeling just fine, and YES, Mike Ness is in this book. I was not expecting him to be, but he weaves in and out of the narrative in a fitting drugged-out haze: “I chose to continue my career as a down-and-out junkie. My bullshit took me back to Orange County, where I met Mike Ness, having the same ‘interests’ as me. I ended up playing with Social Distortion for a short time. Those are the last gigs I’ve done.” Basically, I felt that this book had exactly the right amount of Mike Ness, which is to say: hardly any. SEE, I’m not totally irrational about it, honest.]
Right, so have you figured out that I loved this book? Because I did, and I think you should read it. I’m going to leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the book, from the chapter titled Outpunk:
Jon Ginoli: Kids get so much anti-gay propaganda and so much anti-gay peer pressure. Here is a gay band in your midst, being as blunt and outspoken as possible. And people responded to that. […] If some parents were upset, well, whoop-do-do. We’re countering propaganda just by being ourselves. And to me that’s punk rock.
To me, too.
May 19, 2010
Another great oral history in the tradition of We Got The Neutron Bomb and Please Kill Me, Gimme Something Better packs a serious punch. The Bay Area music scene from the 70’s to today gets serious coverage from those who were there. Bands like Dead Kennedys, Avengers, Nuns, Crime, etc. are covered and just as expected as Green Day, Op Ivy/Rancid, AFI, etc. The thrill is reading about Negative Trend, Flipper, Fang and all the rest. Especially considering this is an insiders’ view. I dug that Andy Asp, singer/guitarist for Nuisance (a favorite of mine) was interviewed, though I wish there would have been more about Nuisance. The Maximum Rocknroll and Gilman Street phenomena are covered and discussed thoroughly, as are labels like Lookout!, zines like Cometbus and Outpunk and info on the squats, venues and people that made it happen in the Bay.
Although the information is presented in an occasionally disjointed manner, I found that I was pulled along from chapter to chapter like a runaway train. It helps that I’m a fan of so much of this music. This book will make you curious to know more about some of the topics because the authors could only go so deep presenting the information they did. At over 450 pages, this is a hefty volume but still, there was only so much that could be included. And there really is so much included.
There seems to be an underlying message here, if perhaps one of many, that nothing gets done until you get off your ass and do it. That lesson always has been and will always remain among the most important in life and is the foundation of D.I.Y. philosophy.
Once you've read the book, if you're still hungry for knowledge, gimmesomethingbetter.com has "bonus" materials (chapters that didn't make it to the book) for your dining pleasure.
This was a lot of fun to read. If you’re a fan of punk in general and Bay Area punk in particular, this will knock your socks off.
Although the information is presented in an occasionally disjointed manner, I found that I was pulled along from chapter to chapter like a runaway train. It helps that I’m a fan of so much of this music. This book will make you curious to know more about some of the topics because the authors could only go so deep presenting the information they did. At over 450 pages, this is a hefty volume but still, there was only so much that could be included. And there really is so much included.
There seems to be an underlying message here, if perhaps one of many, that nothing gets done until you get off your ass and do it. That lesson always has been and will always remain among the most important in life and is the foundation of D.I.Y. philosophy.
Once you've read the book, if you're still hungry for knowledge, gimmesomethingbetter.com has "bonus" materials (chapters that didn't make it to the book) for your dining pleasure.
This was a lot of fun to read. If you’re a fan of punk in general and Bay Area punk in particular, this will knock your socks off.
November 20, 2023
The thing that struck me hardest here is how many fucking rules the Bay Area punk scene had, especially in the late 80s. Everything and everyone had to be carbon copies if they were in any way to be considered punk rock. Listening to old jaded assholes bitch about Green Day is a tired trope. I dig Green Day but I’m far from their biggest fan. I just don’t get how they aren’t punk because of this or that but Flipper & Crime are for this & that. Why can’t it be both? The Ramones were poppy as fuck, their entire career, and they never fucking wrote political or social commentary songs at all. The Clash messed with a ton of ska & reggae. The Buzzcocks were straight catchy ass pop songwriters. If bands aren’t allowed to be poppy after the Ramones then no one should be allowed to be hardcore after Black Flag or Straight Edge after Minor Threat or whatever the fuck after whoever the fuck. It’s all fucking punk rock. You can like all kinds of it or be real fucking limited and only dig a certain type but you can still acknowledge that different types of punk exist. Joy Division was punk. So was Nirvana. The TV Personalities were punk as fuck. So are the Queers & Bikini Kill & The Melvins & Hank III & Dillinger Four & the fucking Crudos & GBH & The Bad Brains & The Copyrights & the Persuaders & Dead Moon & Blondie & Devo & R.E.M. & The New Bomb Turks & Alkaline Trio & The Kills & Weekend Nachos and etc…etc…
It’s always the fucking crusty punks & hardcore MRR elitist assholes who decide this shit. I never hear a pop punk kid say Black Flag isn’t punk or Flipper isn’t punk but you bet your ass the guys in Flipper bitch a lot and any of the MRR shitworkers have a very defined set of rules. I dig a good chunk of all of it and there’s plenty I fucking hate but I never tell anyone Simple Plan isn’t punk because they aren’t my thing or that the Casualties aren’t punk because they look and sound like a walking cartoon. It’s all punk rock and that’s ok to say.
I did like this book but it’s not on the level as say Please Kill Me because the Bay Area was very clearly full of jaded assholes who were/are way too elitist to be of any interest beyond a surface level curiosity. Fuck in all honesty I’ve always found a good chunk of these bands to be boring and uninteresting as fuck. Isocracy sucks ass. Still punk but they suck. So does Crime & Crimpshine & Fifteen & Blatz & Negative Trend & it’s gonna sound blasphemous but Flipper. They all bore the shit out of me but they exist in this wonderful spectrum that is punk rock. That New York scene was way more interesting because The Ramones existed along side Talking Heads. Both of these bands would be ostracized in the Bay Area for being too poppy and too mainstream.
It’s always the fucking crusty punks & hardcore MRR elitist assholes who decide this shit. I never hear a pop punk kid say Black Flag isn’t punk or Flipper isn’t punk but you bet your ass the guys in Flipper bitch a lot and any of the MRR shitworkers have a very defined set of rules. I dig a good chunk of all of it and there’s plenty I fucking hate but I never tell anyone Simple Plan isn’t punk because they aren’t my thing or that the Casualties aren’t punk because they look and sound like a walking cartoon. It’s all punk rock and that’s ok to say.
I did like this book but it’s not on the level as say Please Kill Me because the Bay Area was very clearly full of jaded assholes who were/are way too elitist to be of any interest beyond a surface level curiosity. Fuck in all honesty I’ve always found a good chunk of these bands to be boring and uninteresting as fuck. Isocracy sucks ass. Still punk but they suck. So does Crime & Crimpshine & Fifteen & Blatz & Negative Trend & it’s gonna sound blasphemous but Flipper. They all bore the shit out of me but they exist in this wonderful spectrum that is punk rock. That New York scene was way more interesting because The Ramones existed along side Talking Heads. Both of these bands would be ostracized in the Bay Area for being too poppy and too mainstream.
January 18, 2021
The format of this book drove me nuts. It is just quotes from interviews the authors did put into topical and somewhat chronological order. There is no context. If you didn't recognize the name of the person attributed to the quote, you didn't know if they were a band member or what band or what role they played in the scene. There are short biographies at the end of the book (which I discovered after reading the book), but there are so many people it would be hard to keep it straight without constantly referring to the biographies. Instead, I gleaned who people were from what they were saying or just gave up on knowing who they were. This book would be a million times better if the interviewers had chosen to write an actual book and provide context to the quotes. They try to justify this choice in the introduction by writing that they wanted the stories told in the voices of the people who lived them, but that can still be done while providing context.
Aside from all that, the stories told here are unique, and they give a very comprehensive picture of the Bay Area punk scene from in its inception. The interviewers included all different kinds of players in the scene from promoters to roadies to fans to venue owners. I learned a ton about what this scene was like, everybody's different opinions about how it went down, and some fun insider history about lots of Bay Area punk bands. But be warned, there are a few disturbing stories in here. Overall, I'm really glad I read it, but I really wish I could have understood it better.
Aside from all that, the stories told here are unique, and they give a very comprehensive picture of the Bay Area punk scene from in its inception. The interviewers included all different kinds of players in the scene from promoters to roadies to fans to venue owners. I learned a ton about what this scene was like, everybody's different opinions about how it went down, and some fun insider history about lots of Bay Area punk bands. But be warned, there are a few disturbing stories in here. Overall, I'm really glad I read it, but I really wish I could have understood it better.
October 24, 2009
The 500 pages of this book flew by. It covers quite a length of time, about 25 years from the late 70s to the present. All of the text is from excerpts of interviews with participants in the various phases of the Bay Area scene.
In some cases editing makes people appear to comment on other people in a way that the interviewees probably didn't intend. Also a lack of contextualizing intros to the chapters makes the chronology unclear. For instance, two chapters on 924 Gilman, the second of which mentions that Tim Yohannan quit and a new crew started running it, but doesn't make clear whether this happened in the middle of the previous chapter's events or after it. Also, the Dead Kennedys' Frankenchrist legal battle and the lawsuits between band members are in the same chapter, with no indication that more than a decade separated the events.
The sheer quantity of material meant that several chapters didn't make it and are on the associated website instead; I would have preferred the chapter on Epicenter to be in the book in favor of some of the material on fights.
But complaints aside (and where would the San Francisco Bay Area punk scene be without complaints) it's definitely a worthwhile read.
In some cases editing makes people appear to comment on other people in a way that the interviewees probably didn't intend. Also a lack of contextualizing intros to the chapters makes the chronology unclear. For instance, two chapters on 924 Gilman, the second of which mentions that Tim Yohannan quit and a new crew started running it, but doesn't make clear whether this happened in the middle of the previous chapter's events or after it. Also, the Dead Kennedys' Frankenchrist legal battle and the lawsuits between band members are in the same chapter, with no indication that more than a decade separated the events.
The sheer quantity of material meant that several chapters didn't make it and are on the associated website instead; I would have preferred the chapter on Epicenter to be in the book in favor of some of the material on fights.
But complaints aside (and where would the San Francisco Bay Area punk scene be without complaints) it's definitely a worthwhile read.
May 3, 2015
I thought I'd like this better than I did, because I had such a strong reaction to We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk, 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.
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.
April 13, 2019
This was a hell of a ride. It's not for everyone, and probably peaks 80% of the way through, but man it was the perfect thing for me. So much more appreciation for the insane people and even better music. If you're wondering what punk is, this book won't answer it, it'll answer it 30 different times after telling you to screw off.
April 16, 2022
I read this more because I loved the author's great magazine "The Nose", but this book delivered. doing it as an oral history was the way to go! Best punk rock stage name from this book: Dinah Cancer (45 Grave). Say it out loud if you don't get it.
October 15, 2020
Don't know how I hadn't heard of this in the decade since it was printed, but I love these punk rock oral histories. I mean, I love them inordinately. People I've never met and never will meet; things that happened 20, 30, and 40 years ago; fucked up shit and inspiring stuff; all of it.
Since the authors formatted this in short chapters with multiple voices, it reads like a transcript of a conversation. This is a contrivance that is slightly misdirecting but makes for a fun read.
I learned some things:
1) I never get bored hearing about punk rock from the participants
2) There were and are a ton of fucked up, stupid, and/or violent people in the scene and I wish they'd go away
3) The shift from the wide open verve of seventies punk rock to the more aggressive and rigid eighties is always blamed (rightfully) on hardcore, but these recollections always forget that the eighties was a dark time of backlash against idealism, a growth in wealth inequality and oppression, and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Hard to party and dance.
4) The mostly white and/or male participants evidence a high percentage of entitled bullshit--they are bothered more by people pointing out their sexism and racism then the actual sexism and racism, systemic and personal--just like regular white folks
5) I'm glad I didn't grow up in big city areas.
I wish the nineties zine explosion in the Bay Area--especially of feminist, riot grrl and women's zines--was covered in this book. I could have done with 50 pages less on Green Day and some other stuff and heard from some zinesters. But punk rock has always had such a music focus, zines from the regular folks are not remembered.
Since the authors formatted this in short chapters with multiple voices, it reads like a transcript of a conversation. This is a contrivance that is slightly misdirecting but makes for a fun read.
I learned some things:
1) I never get bored hearing about punk rock from the participants
2) There were and are a ton of fucked up, stupid, and/or violent people in the scene and I wish they'd go away
3) The shift from the wide open verve of seventies punk rock to the more aggressive and rigid eighties is always blamed (rightfully) on hardcore, but these recollections always forget that the eighties was a dark time of backlash against idealism, a growth in wealth inequality and oppression, and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Hard to party and dance.
4) The mostly white and/or male participants evidence a high percentage of entitled bullshit--they are bothered more by people pointing out their sexism and racism then the actual sexism and racism, systemic and personal--just like regular white folks
5) I'm glad I didn't grow up in big city areas.
I wish the nineties zine explosion in the Bay Area--especially of feminist, riot grrl and women's zines--was covered in this book. I could have done with 50 pages less on Green Day and some other stuff and heard from some zinesters. But punk rock has always had such a music focus, zines from the regular folks are not remembered.
March 1, 2021
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.
February 21, 2018
Strange to read Gimmie Something Better, a book whose entirety is made up of quotes from all my friends and acquaintances from the good old days of the San Francisco punk scene. For the first half at least it was invigorating to dive in deep to all the old tales. It was almost as if there was still that lingering sense that we could go out and play for the sake of playing—if only the people, clubs, and culture were still intact. So yeah, it’s 2018 and Green Day is/was considered punk—which is not only sad, but horrifying (although I guess there’s a lineage of sorts and you have to mention everyone?). Punk is dead, thank you Jack Boulware and Silke Tudor for reminding me of when it wasn’t.
September 26, 2024
At nearly 500 pages, Gimme Something Better is an invaluable reference for punk rock history in general. The Bay Area is the punk rock scene that made this music a mainstream phenomenon on a global scale and yet it has received the least amount of coverage. New York, England and Los Angeles have all been well documented, but this book is the first document on Bay Area punk that is painstakingly researched with interviews from those who lived it. The authors did an incredible job at covering all of the important, and some less important, aspects, events, bands and people from punk’s beginning in the 70’s up to it’s climax in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.
April 17, 2018
Entertaining throughout, it reads like a high school yearbook, filled with loose anecdotes and barely remembered factoids.
Prior to reading it, the only era I had particular familiarity with was Gilman centered. The book exposed me to legions of new, terrific bands from all periods (Dils, Avengers, Flipper, Fang, etc).
If you’re into the music or just happen to be interested in loose oral histories, you’ll love it.
Prior to reading it, the only era I had particular familiarity with was Gilman centered. The book exposed me to legions of new, terrific bands from all periods (Dils, Avengers, Flipper, Fang, etc).
If you’re into the music or just happen to be interested in loose oral histories, you’ll love it.
March 15, 2021
There's a lot to like here but it just a bit too long. It's noting if not comprehensive but a little more concision would have gone a long way. I did love seeing multiple scenes spring up as a response to what came before. Also, there's an interesting take on "selling out."
November 18, 2016
Maybe because I had the luck of growing up over the mountain from Gilman Street but something made me love this book and go back to listening to a lot of Op Ivy and Filth!
January 22, 2018
Illuminating for me because I didn't follow the Bay area scene closely growing up. Makes me want to go out and listen to all the bands I haven't heard of.
March 1, 2019
Up and down. It sort of tells a story about Bay Area Punk. It can drag and glosses over certain things. If you love Bay Area punk, you will dig it
October 8, 2023
Instagram watch out!!
December 13, 2024
Such an awesome intro to the Bay Area punk scene. A bit meandering and dense at times but I really enjoyed this and found a bunch of really sick bands to dive into
January 1, 2025
Journey to the end of the East Bay and just about every stop along the way
May 7, 2025
Made me think of where I’m at
Read
August 7, 2024Super interesting and enjoyable read. Lots of fun facts and different perspectives.
March 14, 2013
Gimme Something Better provides a deep, thought-provoking look into the California punk scene and the seeds that were sowed by bands all the way from Crime to the Dead Kennedys to Social Distortion to Bad Religion, all the way to Operation Ivy, Crimpshrine, Isocracy and the beginnings of the 924 Gilman Street Project in California.
Jack Boulware and Silke Tudor both manage to cover almost every ounce of drama, controversy, and several stories about the scene and its ridiculous history from the 1970s to today, provided as an oral history, so you get the word straight from the horse's mouth, from every notable member of the punk groups covered.
Each chapter focuses on a specific moment in time, and everyone has something to say. You'll hear about the infamous Dead Kennedys royalty trial in 2000, Operation Ivy's short but amazingly sweet rise to the top, a Misfits show gone horribly wrong, the sad tale of Fang and their frontman "Sammytown" as well as the beginning of legendary California label Lookout! Records, which is only scratching the surface of what's covered here.
However, along with the positives, there's plenty about Tim Yohannon and the influence of MaximumRock&Roll on the Gilman Project's scene. The infamous "No Major Label Band" rules, and expressive dislike of anything without "three chords and a cloud of dust", which leads into Gilman's income troubles near the end of the history.
Despite always believing that Gilman was a place of excessive and unneeded rules onto a genre that populated and created the mindset of "no rules", Gimme Something Better taught me a lot about the scene that I had once brushed off, and every page had me on the edge of my seat. I may have not agreed with it at the time, but that didn't mean this book wasn't the most intense oral history on music I'd read in a long while. I spent the better half of a summer reading through it and I couldn't wait to crack open another chapter and discover something new about a band I always enjoyed.
So for anyone who is even the least bit interested in California punk rock, Gilman, Lookout Records, Operation Ivy, Green Day, Black Flag, Crime, Dead Kennedys, Fang, NOFX, Bad Religion, Agent Orange, Social Distortion, etc, this book is for you.
Have fun going through this heavy tome, as I know I really did, and now I find myself reading through it again at least once a year. Not only highly recommended, this is ESSENTIAL.
Jack Boulware and Silke Tudor both manage to cover almost every ounce of drama, controversy, and several stories about the scene and its ridiculous history from the 1970s to today, provided as an oral history, so you get the word straight from the horse's mouth, from every notable member of the punk groups covered.
Each chapter focuses on a specific moment in time, and everyone has something to say. You'll hear about the infamous Dead Kennedys royalty trial in 2000, Operation Ivy's short but amazingly sweet rise to the top, a Misfits show gone horribly wrong, the sad tale of Fang and their frontman "Sammytown" as well as the beginning of legendary California label Lookout! Records, which is only scratching the surface of what's covered here.
However, along with the positives, there's plenty about Tim Yohannon and the influence of MaximumRock&Roll on the Gilman Project's scene. The infamous "No Major Label Band" rules, and expressive dislike of anything without "three chords and a cloud of dust", which leads into Gilman's income troubles near the end of the history.
Despite always believing that Gilman was a place of excessive and unneeded rules onto a genre that populated and created the mindset of "no rules", Gimme Something Better taught me a lot about the scene that I had once brushed off, and every page had me on the edge of my seat. I may have not agreed with it at the time, but that didn't mean this book wasn't the most intense oral history on music I'd read in a long while. I spent the better half of a summer reading through it and I couldn't wait to crack open another chapter and discover something new about a band I always enjoyed.
So for anyone who is even the least bit interested in California punk rock, Gilman, Lookout Records, Operation Ivy, Green Day, Black Flag, Crime, Dead Kennedys, Fang, NOFX, Bad Religion, Agent Orange, Social Distortion, etc, this book is for you.
Have fun going through this heavy tome, as I know I really did, and now I find myself reading through it again at least once a year. Not only highly recommended, this is ESSENTIAL.
October 15, 2009
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 Please Kill Me The Uncensored Oral History of Punk 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.
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 Please Kill Me The Uncensored Oral History of Punk 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.
June 18, 2025
This book was both everything I hoped it would be and not at all what I expected.
Not all that long ago I read a lengthy and extremely well written biography on Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. I enjoy classic rock, but punk and emo were my gateway into the wider world of rock and will always be important to me, so this book was an instant purchase after I found out about it through a video from YouTuber I used to enjoy. The Mick Jagger book gave the preconceived notion that Gimme Something Better would be something that would be both polished but that would also not shy away from the nitty gritty of the strange and dark world of East Bay punk through its first three decades. Thus, I was a bit shocked when it turned out to be almost 500 pages of transcribed interviews from artists, journalists, roadies and punk fans who lived through that scene. It's so raw and unfiltered, and that's exactly how it should be a for a book like this.
The insights are absolutely mesmerizing, but what really comes across in this book is just how much that scene meant (and still means) to each and every person interviewed in this book. You can practically hear the emotions in their voices as they go back through and deconstruct this wild time and culture that made some of them superstars and nearly killed others. Also, I can't reiterate enough how raw the interviews are. These are people who were (with a few exceptions) active pretty much entirely in the 70's 0r 80's in a genre that was all about a complete disregard for everything around you, so this book is very far from being politically correct. It never comes across as being deliberately offensive or anything, but it's still going to be pretty uncomfortable for modern readers. If you have any interest in this genre or its modern day offshoots, this book is an absolute must.
Not all that long ago I read a lengthy and extremely well written biography on Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. I enjoy classic rock, but punk and emo were my gateway into the wider world of rock and will always be important to me, so this book was an instant purchase after I found out about it through a video from YouTuber I used to enjoy. The Mick Jagger book gave the preconceived notion that Gimme Something Better would be something that would be both polished but that would also not shy away from the nitty gritty of the strange and dark world of East Bay punk through its first three decades. Thus, I was a bit shocked when it turned out to be almost 500 pages of transcribed interviews from artists, journalists, roadies and punk fans who lived through that scene. It's so raw and unfiltered, and that's exactly how it should be a for a book like this.
The insights are absolutely mesmerizing, but what really comes across in this book is just how much that scene meant (and still means) to each and every person interviewed in this book. You can practically hear the emotions in their voices as they go back through and deconstruct this wild time and culture that made some of them superstars and nearly killed others. Also, I can't reiterate enough how raw the interviews are. These are people who were (with a few exceptions) active pretty much entirely in the 70's 0r 80's in a genre that was all about a complete disregard for everything around you, so this book is very far from being politically correct. It never comes across as being deliberately offensive or anything, but it's still going to be pretty uncomfortable for modern readers. If you have any interest in this genre or its modern day offshoots, this book is an absolute must.
September 14, 2010
A few of the "P" words that could have been thrown into the title of this book with equal alliterative appositivity: Peurile, Pervasive, Petty, Parochial, and Paradoxical. Bay Area Punk represented a movement (or a non-movement) at its best and at its worst: Punk pervaded the larger culture of the Bay Area as it has in few, if any, other places; and Punk subjected itself to more doctrinaire backstabbing, niggling criticism, and sectarian baggage, exemplified by the "Punkier than Thou" ethos of Maximum RocknRoll, than in any other place. In his Introduction, Jesse Michaels states that "many of the people who speak here are as smart and creative as it gets" and that "also featured are many complete morons"..."everybody will have a different idea of which is which"; sometimes, the geniuses say moronic things, sometimes the morons are right on the money.
This account of the movement (or non-movement) bears obvious similarities to Legs McNeil's epic PLEASE KILL ME, but it forgoes the grounding of that book, jumping immediately into Year Zero at the Savoy Tivoli and the Mab. A couple of early chapters on the Residents and the Tubes, the Bay Area's equivalents to the Velvet Underground and the New York Dolls, might have proved useful in establishing some context. Also, the Contractions, and any non-hardcore SF bands post-Flipper, seem to have been written out of this history, which makes sense: the City scene was evanescent, whereas the East Bay scene gave us Green Day, AFI, and Rancid. After reading this book, it's impossible to say which side came out ahead.
This account of the movement (or non-movement) bears obvious similarities to Legs McNeil's epic PLEASE KILL ME, but it forgoes the grounding of that book, jumping immediately into Year Zero at the Savoy Tivoli and the Mab. A couple of early chapters on the Residents and the Tubes, the Bay Area's equivalents to the Velvet Underground and the New York Dolls, might have proved useful in establishing some context. Also, the Contractions, and any non-hardcore SF bands post-Flipper, seem to have been written out of this history, which makes sense: the City scene was evanescent, whereas the East Bay scene gave us Green Day, AFI, and Rancid. After reading this book, it's impossible to say which side came out ahead.
January 31, 2010
The only thing that kept me from enjoying this book more is the simple fact that it's so full of information. I didn't know much about punk before I read the book, so almost everything in the book--names, bands, clubs, songs, album titles--was new to me. It was an enormous information dump, and so it took me a while to get through it. That doesn't make this a bad book, of course; "Gimme Something Better" is a great book that just happens to be very dense with information. I wouldn't really recommend that someone do what I did, which is to introduce themselves to Bay Area punk through this book. I'd recommend that someone wait until they're a little familiar with the scene before tackling it.
The format is interesting. It's entirely a written oral history--the authors interviewed dozens of musicians, critics, and punk fans, and the book is all excerpts from these interviews. So the authors never insert their own opinions into the narrative--they just let the experts tell us what the story is. I like that aspect, but the downside is that while the authors never tell us what to think, they don't always tell us what's going on, either. Usually it's pretty easy to follow what the interviewees are talking about, but occasionally I wished I had more background information about certain situations.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of music, especially if they have any knowledge already of the Bay Area punk scene.
The format is interesting. It's entirely a written oral history--the authors interviewed dozens of musicians, critics, and punk fans, and the book is all excerpts from these interviews. So the authors never insert their own opinions into the narrative--they just let the experts tell us what the story is. I like that aspect, but the downside is that while the authors never tell us what to think, they don't always tell us what's going on, either. Usually it's pretty easy to follow what the interviewees are talking about, but occasionally I wished I had more background information about certain situations.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of music, especially if they have any knowledge already of the Bay Area punk scene.
July 8, 2010
This book is time travel for the punk scene (myself 1981-83). It transports you back to the clubs – The Elite Club, The Farm, On Broadway, Tool and Die (a fire trap of a single stairwell into an unventilated, smoke-filled basement), and Mabuhay Gardens. I will never forget my visit to the Vats and "Gimme Something Better" bought back the experience.
A cultural experience from an altered state of youth, "Gimme Something Better" brings up old memories (if you were there), the rawness of the time, the bands – Dead Kennedy’s, The Avengers, Discharge, TSOL, MDC (Millions of Dead Cops), Bad Religion, Crucifix, Op Ivy, right up to the earliest days of Green Day.
"Gimme Something Better" is written in an interview/dialog format that brought out different point of views of that time, what is punk, and what is not. Was it a political movement? The book had me laughing out at times, but also, a reminder of the bad times – addiction and death way too young!
As a kid stuck in the middle of the Central Valley, I appreciated the credit given to MRR – Tim Yohannon’s East Bay zine “Maximum RocknRoll” – which provided information about, and a link to, Bay Area punk shows. I believe, Tim Yo also hosted a KPFA radio show that was also broadcast on Sunday nights out of Stockton’s UOP Campus. The book gives the credit due to spread punk near and far. "Gimme Something Better" has given me a list of names of bands that I have to seek out and share with my kids. Bravo!
A cultural experience from an altered state of youth, "Gimme Something Better" brings up old memories (if you were there), the rawness of the time, the bands – Dead Kennedy’s, The Avengers, Discharge, TSOL, MDC (Millions of Dead Cops), Bad Religion, Crucifix, Op Ivy, right up to the earliest days of Green Day.
"Gimme Something Better" is written in an interview/dialog format that brought out different point of views of that time, what is punk, and what is not. Was it a political movement? The book had me laughing out at times, but also, a reminder of the bad times – addiction and death way too young!
As a kid stuck in the middle of the Central Valley, I appreciated the credit given to MRR – Tim Yohannon’s East Bay zine “Maximum RocknRoll” – which provided information about, and a link to, Bay Area punk shows. I believe, Tim Yo also hosted a KPFA radio show that was also broadcast on Sunday nights out of Stockton’s UOP Campus. The book gives the credit due to spread punk near and far. "Gimme Something Better" has given me a list of names of bands that I have to seek out and share with my kids. Bravo!
January 6, 2011
This book is clearly modeled on Legs McNeill's seminal "Please Kill Me," but really fails to live up to the model. As a Bay Area native I found it interesting to read about a scene that I have observed from the fringes for 15 years, but the authors don't make that scene accessible to non-locals the way McNeill does with the NY scene. I think that anyone who has been deeply involved in the Bay Area punk scene for the last 40 years will find this book a wonderful time capsule. In fact, it reads almost like a high school yearbook, filled with inside jokes and "had to be there" stories. For an outsider it can be difficult to keep track of the enormous cast of characters involved, with the appendix in the back being only vaguely helpful in that regard. Although the book follows a mostly chronological timeline, I think it would have been nice to have dates given with the chapter headings and perhaps some explanation of the content within; instead each chapter is titled with a song lyric, which may or not have any obvious connection to the content. Sometimes it doesn't become clear until several pages into a chapter which band is being discussed. I don't feel I came away from the book with any new insight into the history of punk; maybe I have some new insight into my contemporaries who were once a part of it.
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