Stephanie Kuehnert

Stephanie Kuehnert is a punk rock chick. She hung out with Riot Grrls, wrote a bunch of zines, she works at a legendary club in Chicago and she wrote a kick ass book called I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone. She has a great blog where she has a great thing that she does called Women Who Rock Wednesday's.

Behold, Stephanie's Essential Punk list!

thank you for asking me for my punk essentials list! It was hard to come up with one and some of what I consider punk may not be punk, but whatever. I tried to do 13 cause that is my lucky number, but ended up having to do 17, I hope that is okay :) - Stephanie





1. Story of My Life by Social Distortion
2. Death or Glory by the Clash
3. Radio by Rancid
4. Pretty On The Inside by Hole
5. Negative Creep by Nirvana
6. Second Skin by The Gits
7. I Am A Revenant by The Distillers
8. Bastards of Young by The Replacements
9. Gimme Danger by Iggy and The Stooges
10. Son Of A Bitch by Civet
11. Oh Bondage Up Yours! by X Ray Spex
12. Unity by Operation Ivy
13. Black Masks and Gasoline by Rise Against
14. Pints of Guinness Make You Strong by Against Me!
15. Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill
16. Radio by Alkaline Trio
17. Apparently I'm a PC Fascist by Propagandhi

Douglas Wolk

Douglas Wolk is a pop culture critic. He writes about comic books and he even has a new book of essays out about them called Reading Comics. He also did an ultra cool 33 1/3 book on James Brown Live at the Apollo. I met him at CMJ when I was in Nerdy Girl. We hit it off, and Douglas used to send his friends the COOLEST mix tapes. He really just knows music. And it was cool when in my new incarnation as comic book writer, he came back into my life again!

So I am delighted to share with you Douglas and his very multimedia essential punk!

Thanks, old buddy!


X-Ray Spex: I Am a Poseur (no embedded version available)
Poly Styrene was way, way ahead of her time--angry, funny, smart, really loud, and a better lyricist than almost anyone ever. X-Ray Spex basically self-destructed after one album, Germ Free Adolescents, but everything on it is great. Also see the intro to their first single (which I notice is perched at the top of your iMix, Cecil): Polly announcing "Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, but I think--OH BONDAGE! UP YOURS! ONE TWO THREE FOUR!"

The Raincoats: Fairytale in the Supermarket

Raincoats bassist Gina Birch's original video for their first single--I had no idea this even existed. In a way, it's too bad that YouTube's compression makes Vicky Aspinall's violin sound like squeaky crud. In another way, that's not so bad: the Raincoats were never as cranked-up as their scenemates, but the most punk thing about them is the way they lunge at you to catch your attention--"listen to me, damn it, LISTEN to me!"

Devo: Uncontrollable Urge

A live version that's way too quiet--crank it up, please--but it gets across the two big things about Devo that get lost by reducing them to, like, "Whip It": 1) The point of the band was that they felt totally, profoundly, agonizingly alienated from mainstream culture, and from the pre-packaged way they were supposed to experience reality and emotion. 2) They were freaking hilarious.

Wire: Another the Letter/The 15th

A live 1979 performance of two songs from the German TV show Rockpalast, by the band I probably listened to more than any other in my late teens. "Another the Letter" is the great one here, stripping the already-pretty-minimal studio recording down to a one-chord rocket-blast. I'm pretty fond of the way that the four of them, even on stage, look and sometimes sound like they're in totally different bands...

Flying Lizards: Money

Punk as prank, or rather as getting into the "normal" way of doing something and eating it whole, from the inside. You can also read that as "not even trying to do anything right," if you like. The self-titled Flying Lizards album (on which this appears), by the way, is fantastic and mostly nothing at all like "Money"; it can be found in used record stores everywhere, thanks to having been bought by people who thought the rest of it would be more like this.

The Clean: Tally Ho

The greatest band in the history of New Zealand. This was their first single; they still get together every five years or so for a tour, and miraculously keep getting better over time. Here's what they sound like now...

Delta 5: Mind Your Own Business (no embedded version available, and actually I think this is somebody's homemade clip)
One of the most perfect songs ever written: a loping loop of a groove, eight flawlessly indignant lines, a neatly affectless unison-then-not vocal, and two guitar breaks that are pure spattering havoc.

The Fall: Totally Wired (live)

The band that will outlast us all, live in New York in 1981, monomaniacal flame-jets in their eyes, on the verge of falling apart, even though they're mostly just hammering away at one note. I love Mark E. Smith's top-of-the-dome spasm of obscenity two minutes or so into this clip... trying to keep track of the Fall's enormous discography and still-ongoing career can be exhausting, but the 1979-1982 period is pretty impeccable.

Melt-Banana: Monkey Man

Oh, right, the other thing about punk rock? It's fast a lot of the time. This is somebody's ridiculous homemade video for the phenomenal Japanese hardcore band Melt-Banana's cover of Toots & the Maytals' "Monkey Man"; I'm sure there exist faster songs and recordings, but Melt-Banana give the impression that they're actually playing so fast they can't stop.

The Thermals: No Culture Icons

You can argue that all punk is about punk--I don't think so, but this is, for sure: the Thermals' first single, it's also their manifesto, a declaration of what they demand and what they're rejecting. Low-fi, low-tech, high-minded in a really good way--a testament to what punk rock is good for in the 21st century. And one of my favorite things about living in Portland is getting to see them play a lot.

many thanks, & I hope you'

Ed Brubaker

Ed Brubaker writes comics. You may know Ed from his stint on Captain America, which had a lot of press when issue #25 came out. He's written Uncanny X-men, Catwoman and The Authority just to name a few other titles. But I know him and I love him because he wrote a monthly series called The Deadenders that made me long to write comic books because it was so YA. When Shelly Bond called me to ask if I was interested in maybe writing a graphic novel, I told her that one of my fave Vertigo titles was The Deadenders. Turns out Shelly edited that.

The Deadenders is where it's at. Go get it.

So, flash forward to my new life in comics and color me so excited when I got to meet Ed at Wizard World LA. Everyone else in line had their copy of Captain America Issue #25 in their hands to get autographed, but me, I had my copy of The Deadenders.

Ed was kind enough to give me not only his punk list, but his YA list, too.

Because he rules.

Cecil -

Here's my list, but this is all off the top of my head, and could change tomorrow. I think these are the ones that made me care back then, though:

The Once Over Twice - X

Away From the Numbers (I know it's the ballad, shut up it's still punk) - The Jam

Courage - Minutemen

Celebrated Summer - Husker Du

I'm So Bored With the USA - The Clash

I Wanna Be Sedated - Ramones

Beverly Hills - the Circle Jerks

Look at the Rain - Meat Puppets (this is more from their post-punk era, but it's a punk song)

I Love Livin' in the City - Fear


I still like most of those songs, I think.


Here's my top ten YA books, which is easier:

Nobody's Family is Going to Change - Louise Fitzhugh

Great Brain at the Academy - John D. Fitzgerald

You Must Kiss a Whale - David Skinner

The Farthest Shore - Ursula K. LeGuin

The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death - Daniel Pinkwater

Young Adult Novel - Daniel Pinkwater

The Egypt Game - Zilpha Keatley Snyder

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler -- E.L. Konigsburg

The Long Secret - Louise Fitzhugh

Harriet the Spy - Louise Fitzhugh

Simmone Howell

Simmone is from down under, we've never met, but she wrote the YA novel Notes From The Teenage Underground. I liked it so much, I blurbed it. I said ""Notes From The Teenage Underground is a refreshingly honest, straight-to-the-heart story of a girl finding her own artistic vision. This is like a primer for any teen that is serious about doing art."

She gives us her Punk essentials Aussie style!

Oz punk ish
(or songs that made me lose it when I was young and wore too much eyeliner)

xsimmone

shivers - boys next door

Immortal first line: I've been contemplating suicide ...

jack the ripper - nick cave & the bad seeds

This is all stomp and primal: I got a wooooman she rules my house with an iron fist she screams out jack the ripper everytime I try to give the girl a kisss)

true love - marching girls

First found on the Dogs in Space soundtrack. Awww, cute.

aloha steve and danno - radio birdman

Rob Younger - knows how to pony


she's crackin' up - cosmic psychos

she's a dish - hard ons

my pal - god

My friends and I were in awe of joel silbersher who was only 16 when he was in God. Wikipedia says he is "like history, short and violent"

slave girl - lime spiders

(I'm) stranded - the saints

psycho - beasts of bourbon
(Tex Perkins! He's still got it!)

Brian Wood

Brian Wood is my new friend, but he feels like an old friend. I met him last year at the San Diego Comic Con at the Vertigo / Minx family dinner. I felt Brian was a kindred spirit from the get go and it was confirmed to me the next night when I went by myself to the bar to hang out, only I didn't know anyone in the comic book community yet, and so I was feeling shy and lonely and stupid. Basically, I was pretty much hugging the wall, sipping my beer, and not talking to anyone, just like a wall flower, when Brian walked up and rescued me from myself by introducing me around.

He writes great comic books, DMZ is simply astounding. Demo is so great that it was named an ALA Great Graphic Novels For Teens and a NY Public Library Book for the Teen Age. And he also has Supermarket. His next series, Northlanders, is about Vikings, so I already know, sight unseen, that I'm going to be ga ga over it.

Other things I know and like about Brian Wood:

He's got the nicest, coolest & cutest family.

He designs the best t-shirts.

And, more importantly, he has great taste in music.

Cecil:

my top 10, avoiding the obvious ones already listed:

Transmetropolitan by The Pogues
Sacred Love by Bad Brains
Clampdown by The Clash
Blueprint by Fugazi
America by Sick Of It All
How To Start a Fight by Murphy's Law
Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill
Slip It In by Black Flag
Blank Generation by Richard Hell
Good Guys Don't Wear White by Minor Threat

here's a pic of me and brian at NY Comic Con

BEIGE is out today!

Learn a little bit about Beige and why I wrote it!

Holly Black

How do I love Holly Black? Let me count the ways... she's fantastical, she writes exquisite books ( Tithe, Valiant, Ironside, The Spiderwick Chronicles, ) she likes coffee, she has a great laugh, she's smart as hell, and I adore her. She is a little Goth, a little Punk and more than a little bit awesome.

She even liked BEIGE so much, she blurbed it. She said, "Subversive and raw and surprising."

I love her list. I'm cranking it to 10 right now.

Cecil,

Here are my essential ten punk songs. Okay, I was a little liberal with my definition of punk, but I hope they will do.

Love, Holly

1. Whip in My Valise - Adam Ant
2. Clash City Rockers - The Clash
3. Teenage Lobotomy - Ramones
4. The Killing Jar - Siouxsie and the Banshees
5. The Man Who Sold The World - David Bowie
6. God Save The Queen - Sex Pistols
7. California Uber Alles - Dead Kennedys
8. Shadow Play - Joy Division
9. I Want to be Your Dog - The Stooges
10. Waiting for the Man - Velvet Underground