Glory Guitars: Memoir of a ’90s Teenage Punk Rock Grrrl

by Gogo Germaine

Ensconced in the black hole between childhood and adulthood, a glorious degenerate-grade freedom endures. A rebellion from respectability. An anathema to normalcy. It is the type of defiance that’s hopeful―hurt by the world but looking to reconcile it.

Enter Gogo Germaine and her girl gang of delinquents.

As manic teens in the ’90s punk scene, they engage in a vivid spectrum of misbehavior―from truancy to tattoos to trespassing. Here, in the underbelly of adolescence, music is God and the rest is a rush of nihilism. Gogo and her friends stumble through sound and fury into questionable firsts at varying degrees of sobriety.

Many of us blunder through that black hole. It is a point of universal convergence, manifested by divergent experiences. Gogo’s rebellion may look different from yours, but the soaring highs and visceral lows will be familiar.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

245 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 11, 2022

Reviews

[Erin Patton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even having been a part of the punk rock scene with lots of friends in Fort Collins and experiencing lots of shows at The Starlight, I had a hard time with this book. It needed some serious editing. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did, but I think it just came across too much as a random collection of naughty teenage goings-on.

[Matty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up on a whim while wandering around the book fair at AWP '23. I got to talking to the publisher at University of Hell, Greg, about punk music and writing about all the things involved with it, from coming of age listening to punk music to engaging with it as members of bands, touring artists (and support), and promoters.

Glory Guitars is a memoir a lot of people who grew up in the punk scene and beyond can relate to: that good intentions from parents for so-called "troubled teens" can make things worse, and send us into a hole that's difficult to claw our way out of. As Gogo Germaine puts it, referring to an early visit to rehab on behalf of her parents' nervousness, "It was our degenerate education, and we became next-level degenerates ourselves. In my case, it convinced me that I was no good, so I stopped trying altogether."

While the writing is a bit sloppy at times (meandering, hedonistic, reveling in equally sloppy decision-making), the author's voice is endearing, heartfelt, true to itself. "Sloppy" isn't an insult: punk rock was founded on sloppiness, on power chords and decadent fashion and making a mess, so the storytelling is not only engaging from a subject matter perspective, but also from the stylistic techniques used to tell it. To be short: it's a great book and worthy of being read, and Germaine has made me a permanent fan.

Bonus points for the little aesthetic and thematic bits peppered through this book. From the cover that looks like a punk flyer (complete with different colors in printing, I went with a mustard yellow) to the sections broken up by song titles (songs that don't limit themselves to just punk rock, but include all aspects of 80s and 90s alternative rock, grunge and metal) to the illustrations that mark chapters and decorate its outer pages, it's refreshingly stylized.

Highly recommend this book, especially if you were never a teenage degenerate like myself.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm skeptical when it comes to autobiographies from anyone under 50 years old, but the punk rock topic and from a town I lived in for many years had me interested. The writing is crisp, and tactile. Germaine takes the reader on a synesthesia experience and jumping topics with side tangents including age jumps adds to the experience and drives to the point home of a too-young teenager experimenting with drugs and sex. There is one odd editing issue where we are following her growing up to 19 years old, then jump to the concluding chapter with Gogo as an adult looking back at it all. That transition is harsh and feels like about 20 pages were edited out. Other then that, the book is excellent and she's a fantastic author. Reading this is time well spent.

[James Kirby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heard about this on the Jon of All Trades Podcast and knew it'd be a must-read for me, as a fellow 90's punk rock kid in Colorado. However, my similarities to the author pretty much stop there, because her memoir describes a coming-of-age that involved an astonishing amount of risky, illicit behavior. To that end, this was a pretty fascinating alternate perspective to how life could've been (while still ending up doing just fine).

The memoir is a bit meandering and self-indulgent at times, but overall it moved at a good pace and kept me interested. I loved the inclusion of recommended soundtrack selections throughout the chapters, and the band name footnotes were a ton of fun. :)

*Required reading for anyone growing up with Fat Wreck Chords and clove cigarettes.*

[MsMaddyMax · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book and the author does a good job of capturing teenage emotions & motivations. But it was so far removed from my '90s punk rock experience (DC area) and was almost entirely about sex and drugs. Music was limited to the headings which were fun, but very disappointing that music played almost no role in a book with the word "punk" in the subtitle.

[Emma Burger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love, love, love this book!! Great life stories, awesome illustrations, love the playlist incorporated throughout, and so cool that it comes in multiple colors.

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was like a love letter to recklessness and self-destructive behavior, both of which I am here for

[Haylee Medeiros · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this feels like listening to an older sibling on a quiet night. Germaine perfectly captures all the wild and sentimental sides of her experience in a way that feels relatable and raw. Her inclusion of songs throughout the chapters was what really set this book apart... I couldn't think of any better way to preach the punk experience.

[Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This maximalist air all around you, it's degenerate-grade freedom. A freedom of deviants. You can physically feel the lack of math, or walls. It's like you're stumbling home from a party in the morning twilight, clutching your friend, and you spot the speed-walking neighbor in front of you. Seeing adults going about their routine when you're flying so far above it hits a deeply gratifying chord; you finally understand why movie villains won't fucking stop laughing."

For everyone who has felt boundless and beyond, who has felt this particular vitality of doing something you're not supposed to, who has felt electrically alive and connected to the vastness of the universe. And that's all of us, in some way, isn't it?

*POTENTIAL SPOILERS*

My experiences aren't identical to Gogo's but there are enough similarities to grip my insides with pains of nostalgia for the types of feelings that can only be experienced in Teenageland. Reading this book makes me remember getting high in the tree house (garage, in our case) at the house of the parent who didn't care, the allure of the heshers and skaters boys, the punk show venues, the buying of weird clothes at the vintage stores that actually came from dead grandpas. And we're of a similar age where the details the ground her timeline are in my cultural consciousness too: life before Columbine, the murder of Matthew Sheppard, the days where a robot called your family if you were ditching school, before it was illegal to smoke indoors, before it was legal to sell booze on Sundays in Colorado.

Glory Guitars soars with mischief and escapades, the bonds of childhood friendship, a reverence for degenerate youth, and the splendor of the Kings and Queens of Teenageland. It also checks us with the harsh realities of exploited power dynamics, gross disregard for consent, and those moments where we know something is wrong due to the unsettling feeling in our guts.

[Steven Foley · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can I say about this book? For starters, thank you Gogo for gifting me a copy. Thank you for opening yourself up and making yourself vulnerable to the intimate parts of your life.

When I started this book, I thought how cool, I can read about my badass friend. But what really happened is that I felt connected on a deeper level with Gogo. Reading about her life experiences I expected to be oo’d and ah’d, but walked away with this awe of connections like damn, I too felt that way, I too had a trauma like that, I too had so many fucked up wild and rebellious moments, but here I am now, a much different person.

Gogo’s book is a journey through teenage rebellion good/bad decisions (depending on your pov), and how to overcome them. How to make sense of them. How to grow from them. There were many comedic moments, and a few darker, deeper, emotional ones where I had to close the book and walk away, to take a minute, and return. Plus there’s a kickass soundtrack featured throughout the book. A fellow reader beat me to it and even made a Spotify playlist for it!

If you were a teenage dirtbag, baby* then you will love this wild ride that Gogo takes you on. Grab a copy and let your teenage rebellion come back, or to continue thriving. After all, age is just a number, but punk rock is a lifestyle! 🤘