It was the most beautiful place I’d ever been in my life. So when you got to New York you spent a lot of time CBGBs, what was it like back in the 70’s? I was just taken by John.īecause he just had incredible vision and I knew he was getting out of Cheshire and I kind of attached myself to him. And John had a theater group and my friend Tommy Hearn, his sister had been in the theater group so I thought I’d hire them and skim some more money off the time. I called him because I had just done a successful concert promoting for the March of Dimes and I skimmed money off the top, like $30 or $40. So, it’s true what I’ve read that getting involved with the punk movement was a lot about getting laid for you. Sexuality and beer were probably the only two things I was concerned about in the world. That’s why you went to New York, because you were not safe with your sexuality? They didn’t need to go to New York to start punk, they were safe with their sexuality. A ‘56 Chevy with a Hurst shifter, vrrroom…vroom. It’s just your basic suburbs, guys in pick-up trucks and SUVs now. Oh god, it was so awful in Cheshire, it still is.

A founder of Punk Magazine and former editor at Spin and Nerve, Legs is also the co-author of Please Kill Me and The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry.īy the skin of my teeth.

Just prior to the television debut of IFC’s punkumentary, Punk: Attitude, Gothamist spoke at length with the original resident punk, Legs McNeil.

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