No More Heroes

In 1976 music changed forever with the arrival of a self-empowering alternative to the bloated, sterile rock music of the day. From Cardiff to Caithness, from Portrush to Plymouth, bands promoted their own gigs, designed their own artwork and organised their own pressing and distribution. This exhaustive book, based on over 200 interviews with the participants, chronicles not only the good and the great, the icons of the punk movement, but celebrates some of the fantastic lost bands and music of the era, as well as the cash-ins and artistic failures. There are detailed accounts, often at variance with conventional wisdom, about the career paths of the Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, the Buzzcocks, the Stranglers and Siouxsie & The Banshees. But No More Heroes also recounts the also-rans, the nearly men and women and those who simply made their statement to the world and then left the stage. Bands like the Desperate Bicycles, the Fruit Eating Bears and Helpless Hew. Stories that take in drug addiction, the Eurovision Song Contest, organised crime, contemptuous audiences, shows that were so poorly attended the musicians were arrested on suspicion of breaking and entering, jealous bingo callers, hippy-baiting, nervous breakdowns and publishing deals written on the back of beer mats. It is an exhaustive A-Z overview of the phenomenon, including extensive biographical notes, complete discographies, and a buyer's guide to help sort the wheat from the chaff among the thousands of CD reissues that have emerged in the last decade. Many of the accompanying photographs have never been published before. 2006 is the 30th anniversary of Punk Music exploding in the UK and this is the most detailed definite book on the subject to date. Alex Ogg is a London-based author whose work includes The Hip Hop Years, which accompanied the award-winning Channel 4 TV documentary, Rap Lyrics from The Sugarhill Gang to Eminem, The Men Behind Def Jam, Radiohead: Standing At The Edge, Channel 4's Top Ten, etc. He is the former editor of Spiral Scratch magazine and has written dozens of liner notes for punk bands including the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Undertones, Penetration, Adverts, Skids, Ruts, Sham 69 and many others.