Resident Punk: How I Smoked, Drank, and Stumbled My Way Through the '70s Punk Scene (and Beyond)

"A wild ride through a vital chapter in rock 'n' roll history." --Publishers Weekly

Time-travel to the punk scene of 1970s New York and beyond, as seen through the eyes of its chief reporter known as "the original punk" who gave the movement its name.

Part memoir and part cultural history, Resident Punk offers a no-holds-barred expose chronicling the iconic and unforgettable music scene that would become defined by bands like the Ramones, Blondie, Television, the Heartbreakers, and Talking Heads.

In 1975 at just 19 years old, Legs McNeil--alongside John Holmstrom and Ged Dunn--cofounded PUNK magazine. In doing so, they inadvertently chronicled the start of a movement. McNeil's role in the whole thing? To be their resident punk, embodying the zeitgeist the magazine was looking to capture, often by getting f*cked up with musicians, artists, writers, and hangers-on . . . and sleeping with a different girl every day of the week.

Now, just in time for the 50th anniversary of PUNK magazine, Legs tells the stories behind the stories in a sleazy, star-studded adventure. The coauthor of Please Kill Me, Legs invites readers along for the ride as he tussles with musicians and artists, groupies and writers, Golden Age Hollywood film stars and legendary figures of '70s New York. Featuring untold stories about Joey Ramone, William S. Burroughs, Patti Smith, Alan Vega, Martin Rev, the Dictators, the Dead Boys, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and Poly Styrene, this book is an immersive look at the punk music scene as only a true insider can tell it.

What's more, Legs shares the raw meat of his life, starting with his gritty suburban childhood, and the teenage wasteland years that put him on a path to punk. Join him as he steals David Bowie's hubcaps, wrestles with Norman Mailer, and lives life on the edge, and wrestles his own demons--eventually setting in a small Pennsylvania town, where he's very much still the Resident Punk.

Author: Legs McNeil
Publisher: Benbella Books
Published: 09/15/2026
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.12lbs
Size: 9.31h x 6.30w x 1.06d
ISBN: 9781637749463


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 08/01/2026
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2026
Publishers Weekly 09/14/2026

About the Author
Legs McNeil, the original punk, is the coauthor of the 2.5-million-copy global bestseller Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (Grove Press, 1996), a book widely hailed as the Punk Bible. One of the cofounders of the seminal Punk magazine, which gave the movement its name and where he was known as the "resident punk," Legs is a former editor at Spin and editor-in-chief of Nerve. He is also the coauthor of The Other Hollywood (Regan Books, 2005), cowrote I Slept With Joey Ramone with Mickey Leigh (Touchstone, 2010), and coedited Dear Nobody (Sourcebooks, 2014).

Legs is a filmmaker, directing and narrating Pusherman: Frank Lucas & the True Story of American Gangster (MVD Entertainment, 2025), a documentary that examines the life and influence of a notorious drug kingpin. His next film, Johnny in Wonderland (MVD Entertainment, 2026) tells the true story of porn star John Holmes's involvement in the 1981 Wonderland Murders.

One of the foremost chroniclers of the punk movement, Legs's writing has long been the go-to for on-the-ground accounts of those heady years of New York and London in the late '70s and early '80s. He has appeared in innumerable documentaries exploring the punk years, on networks as diverse as the History Channel, Epix, and VH1. His journalism has appeared in the likes of Rolling Stone, Spin, New York Magazine, VICE, Details, High Times, AirMail, The Atavist, Cultured Mag, The Daily Beast, and many, many more.

Crispin Kott is the coauthor of Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to New York City, Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area (both Taylor Trade), and The Little Book of Rock and Roll Wisdom (Lyons Press). A longtime journalist covering music and beyond, Crispin has been published in PopMatters, Please Kill Me, Nerve, Legsville, Chronogram, Roll, and many other online and print media outlets.