What Britain refined, America defined. Assembled by two key figures at the heart of the movement and told through the voices of musicians, artists, iconoclastic reporters and entrepreneurial groupies, Please Kill Me is the full decadent story of the American punk scene, through the early years of Andy Warhol’s Factory to the New York underground of Max’s Kansas City and later, its heyday at CBGB’s, spiritual home to the Ramones, Talking Heads, Television and Blondie.

Please Kill Me goes backstage and behind apartment doors to chronicle the sex, drugs and power struggles that were the very fabric of the American punk community, to the time before piercing and tattoos became commonplace and when every concert, new band and fashion statement marked an absolute first. From Iggy Pop and Lou Reed to the Clash and the Sex Pistols (the first time around), McNeil and McCain document a time of glorious self-destruction and perverse innocence – possibly the last time so many will so much fun in the pursuit of excess.