📗 Libro en inglés NEW YORK ROCKER: MY LIFE IN THE BLANK GENERATION, WITH BLONDIE, IGGY POP AND THE OTHERS 1974-1981

Gary Valentine

Gary Valentine, the bassist for punk-rock band Blondie from their inception in 1975 until his acrimonious departure two years later, recounts his story against a prototypically seedy 1970s New York background in NEW YORK ROCKER, a memoir of his misspent youth and its aftermath. The evocatively rendered New York punk rock scene of Valentine's late teens actually consists of very little "scene" to speak of, and no punks--as he points out, when the first bands began to perform in mid-'70s downtown Manhattan dive bars, punk rock hadn't yet been invented. Valentine's recollections are full of the endearingly clumsy would-be erotic adventures of inexperienced but enthusiastic youth, including an abortive night spent with notorious bondage queen Anya Phillips and a makeout session with a transvestite. He later falls foul of the machinations of Blondie's Machiavellian manager Peter Leeds, quits the band (though not before having written their first hit, "X Offender," and another major song, "Presence, Dear"), and moves to Los Angeles, becoming temporarily enamored of black magic. This entertainingly gossipy memoir with its cast of creative and creatively damaged characters expertly conjures the prickly, drug-fueled atmosphere of 1970s Manhattan.