Jon Savage, England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond

Jon Savage, England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond - If you want to know about punk rock, LOOK NO FURTHER. This is an exhaustive tomb charting the rise of punk subculture and punk rock in the '70's, right through its destruction in the early '80's and co-option by skinheads and the development of Rock Against Racism. Savage refers back not only to exhaustive interviews with key players from nearly every band you can think of, but an archive of old punk fanzines, hundreds of records and an immense amount of press clippings. Plus he lived through it.

The book does a wonderful job of not only providing a ridiculous amount of information about various punk bands including The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, The Buzzcocks, The New York Dolls, as well as post-punk acts like Siousxie and the Banshees, it describes the culture and the graphic art as well as the inspirations behind it and it situates the whole thing both socially and historically, explaining where it came from and why it was so important. If you want to know about the history of punk this should be the first place you start.