Forming The Early Days of L. A. Punk

E-155: Smart Art Press. Very Good. 1999. Paperback. Trade PB. 4to. Smart Art Press, Santa Monica, CA. 1999. 96 pgs. Illustrated in black and white. Wrappers lightly worn with some light shelf-wear to the extremities present. Book is free of ownership marks. Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid. It must've been hard being a P-U-N-K in Californ-I-A. Bands like X and the Germs had to scream above the mythic surf and thundering sales of Fleetwood Mac's soft-rock opus Rumours to be heard by major record companies. This catalog to an exhibit of the same name in Santa Monica succeeds at giving an overview of the small but fierce punk scenes of L. A. And East L. A. , with excerpts from Slash magazine, three essays, black-and-white photos of its noirish and often bleeding instigators, color reproductions of seminal album/single covers, and a time line. The most insightful commentary comes from a brief Q&A with X's John Doe and Exene Cervenka, who cite the mutual aims of the hippie and punk movements despite their different tactics. Says Cervenka, "It didn't even have anything to do with bands, it was about people being bohemian even though they didn't know what bohemian meant. It was pure." Those in search of a more encompassing history can look to Make the Music Go Bang: The Early L. A. Punk Scene (St. Martin's, 1997) , but this is a good crash course. EB; 7.8 X 7.7 X 0.3 inches; 96 pages .