The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret History of Jewish Punk

About this book

Based in part on the recent interviews with more than 125 people among them Tommy Ramone Chris Stein (Blondie) Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group) Hilly Kristal (CBGBs owner) and John Zornthis book focuses on punks beginnings in New York City to show that punk was the most Jewish of rock movements in both makeup and attitude. As it originated in Manhattans Lower East Side in the early 1970s punk rock was the apotheosis of a Jewish cultural tradition that found its ultimate expression in the generation born after the Holocaust. Beginning with Lenny Bruce the patron saint of punk and following pre-punk progenitors such as Lou Reed Jonathan Richman Suicide and the Dictators this fascinating mixture of biography cultural studies and musical analysis delves into the lives of these and other Jewish punksincluding Richard Hell and Joey Ramoneto create a fascinating historical overview of the scene. Reflecting the irony romanticism and above all the humor of the Jewish experience this tale of changing Jewish identity in Americareveals the conscious and unconscious forces that drove New York Jewish rockers to reinvent themselvesand popular music.