As he releases a tell-all book, the Punk magazine founder and self-described ‘fuck-up’ holds forth on 1970s excess, the American roots of punk and why the Beatles are ‘stupid’
Legs McNeil vividly remembers the reaction he got from the original CBGB bands in 1975 when they heard the name of the magazine he co-founded: Punk, the first publication ever dedicated to the form. “Absolutely no one wanted to be called a punk back then,” he said. “Not even the Ramones. Johnny Ramone demanded that we cross out every reference to punk in an article about them.”
Flash forward a few years and, “suddenly everybody wanted to be called a punk!” McNeil said. “The Ramones started running around telling everyone, ‘you know, we were the first punk band!’”