VI - Legs McNeil || Boy Scout Magazine

Legs McNeil is one of the three original founders of the seminal Punk magazine that gave the punk movement its name. At the age of 19, McNeil gathered with two high school friends and decided to create "some sort of media thing" for a living. The name "Punk" was decided upon because "it seemed to sum up...everything...obnoxious, smart but not pretentious, absurd, ironic, and things that appealed to the darker side”. A contemporary classic, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk is the definitive oral history of the most nihilistic of all pop movements. Iggy Pop, Richard Hell, the Ramones, and scores of other punk figures lend their voices to this decisive account of that explosive era. It is the number one best-selling Punk book of all time. It has been published in 12 languages and helped launch the oral history trend in music books. McNeil is a former editor at Spin, served as editor-in-chief of Nerve Magazine, writes a column for VICE and his own website pleasekillme.com. McNeil also co-author of The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry, I Slept with Joey Ramone (A Punk Rock Family Memoir) with Mickey Leigh, Joey Ramone’s real brother, and Dear Nobody: The True Diary of Mary Rose which is another collaborative effort with Gillian McCain. For 20 years, McNeil and McCain have been working on 69, a book that documents the late-‘60s California music scene and Manson’s role in it. Boy Scout talked to McNeil about CBGB, Cheeseburgers, and Charles Bukowski.