Savage’s England’s Dreaming, was a masterly work that got to the heart of the punk phenomenon. Even if some accused him of having elitist opinions, no one could doubt his expertise or depth of research. He interviewed around 100 people but, even with 610 pages to fill, he could only use a fraction of the material he amassed.
Here he presents many of those interviews, Q&A-style and divided into themed chapters, such as The Shop: 430 Kings Road, New York and Sex Pistols. The interviews were conducted in 1988 and ’89, long enough after the event for those involved to benefit from hindsight, but not so long that they had become jaded from rehashing the same old stories – and that’s where this collection scores over more recent punk tomes. Here are talks with all the original Pistols, Malcolm McLaren, Joe Strummer, Chrissie Hynde, Legs McNeil, Siouxsie Sioux – 59 people in all, along with a Where Are They Now? afterword. Yet another must-have from Savage.
