"In his brilliantly controlled intellectual rant/thesis, Dewar MacLeod proves beyond doubt that `punk scholarship' is not an oxymoron. Kids of the Black Hole is simultaneously meticulous,
drum-tight documentation and LOL fun. It's jammed with raw first-person club-scene anecdote as well as distanced but knowing cultural critique. Here is a timely study with an unerring sense of
the weird zeitgeist of twenty-first-century America." Neil Baldwin author of The American Revelation: Ten Ideals That Shaped Our Country from the Puritans to the Cold War
Los Angeles rock generally conjures memories of surf music, The Doors, or Laurel Canyon folkies. But punk? L.A.'s punk scene, while not as notorious as New York City's, emerged full-throated in
1977 and boasted bands like the Germs, X, and Black Flag. This book explores how, in the land of the Beach Boys, punk rock took hold.
Historian Dewar MacLeod reveals the origins of an as-yet-uncharted revolution. Having combed countless fanzines and interviewed key participants, he shows how a marginal scene became a "mass
subculture" that democratized performance art, and he captures the excitement and creativity of a neglected episode in rock history.
Kids of the Black Hole tells how L.A. punk developed, fueled by youth unemployment and aliention, social conservatism, and the spare landscape of suburban sprawl communities; how it responded
to the wider cultural influences of Southern California life; and how L.A. punks borrowed from their New York and London forebears to create their own distinctive subculture. Along the way,
MacLeod distinguishes between local styles, from Hollywood's avant-garde to Orange Country's hardcore.
With an intimate knowledge of bands, venues, and zines, MacLeod cuts to the heart of L.A. punk as no one has before. Told in lively prose that will satisfy fans, Kids of the Black Hole will
also enlighten historians of American suburbia and of youth and popular culture.
