Treat Me Like Dirt – An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond 1977-1981 – Liz Worth
Bongo Beat Book, 2049 Melrose, Montreal, Quebec,H4A 2R6, Canada, www.bongobeat.com /Nmd
This was a sucker to get thru and I was so happy once I finnished with this book, for various reasons…. One reason is its length, alomst 400 pages in 2 columns per page with only a few small photos here and there, then there is the amount of people, the author of the book Liz Worth, spoke to: almost 150(!) people of which I have never even heard the names of (ca.98%) and what had most of these people to say? Not much, at least not much of interest. The same boring old bullshit over and over again, little memorys of people from 30 years ago.
This could have been a interesting book if the author would have edited her material and made a 100 page book out of it, so more people can learn about unknown Toronto punk bands like Diodes, Viletones, Teenage Head, B-Girls, Curse, Denics, Forgotten Rebels, Uglys…… I can not recall it ever was such a pain in the ass to read thru a book. Therefore I got a pretty good insight in the Toronto-scene from back then. What a bunch af loosers, most people only had drugs and alcohol on their mind, some of the scenesters where impertinent brats, others where full on stupid thugs.
Most of the bands got together in order to „make it“ and now speak about „what could have happend if…“ to their bands, passed chances and about the rivalry that was going on. Reading how many drugs and alcohol was consumed back then, it surprises me that so many people have relativly clear memory, when what they shoud remember is nothing. There is a couple of funny/intersting storys of happenings and individulas, but those get totally lost in the mass of hot air expressed by most of the people. And, it is mostly about total chaos, pain, betrayal, dissappointments, failure… mostly negative aspects of punk.
Usually when you read a great book about a lengendary scene you say „I wish I could have been there“, in this case I can only say: „I’m so glad I was not around!“ And, dont get me wrong, this is not my perception, this bases on what the people who have been there are telling the reader of the book. I spent already way too much time of my life on this… can not recommend, unless you have been around back then in Toronto and know half of the people. I’m afraid this is the final nail in the coffin of „oral history punk books“, if I ever run into another book like this I will stop reading it. 39,99 Us $ (dolf)
Isbn 978 0 9813694 0 2
[Trust # 150 October 2011]
