Legs McNeil

“Rock & Roll is so great, people should start dying for it. You don't understand. The music gave you back the beat so you could dream. A whole generation running with a Fender bass...

The people just have to die for the music. People are dying for everything else, so why not the music? Die for it. Isn't it pretty? Wouldn't you die for something pretty?

Perhaps I should die. After all, all the great blues singers did die. But life is getting better now.

I don't want to die. Do I? - Lou Reed (1965-1968)”
― Legs McNeil, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk

“The sixties have a reputation for being open and free and cool, but the reality was that everybody was straight. Everybody was totally straight and then there was Us - this pocketful of nuts. We had long hair, and we'd get chased down the block. People would chase you for ten blocks, screaming, "Beatle!" They were out of their fucking minds- that was the reality of the sixties. Nobody had long hair- you were a fucking freack, you were a fruit, you were not like the rest of the world. - Ronnie Cutrone (1965-1968)”
― Legs McNeil, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk

“Arturo Vega: I always thought the ONLY way to really conquer evil is to make love to it. My favourite dream is always the one where I face the devil. I'm in the nude and the devil appears, and he is a beautiful blue. He looks like a mannequin, he looks like a robot. He doesn't have any clothes on, of course, and he's blue and shiny. I keep hearing voices that say, "It's him! It's him!" And I go, "Okay."

So he comes and faces me and I look at him and he's a little taller than me, not much taller, but a little taller, and I say, "I like you." And he says, "I like you too." But he starts beating me up, RA RA RA RA, and I'm down on the floor - and then all of the sudden, he turns into a little baby, like a baby, just a few months old, and then I fuck him, ha ha ha ha. And while I'm fucking him, he's moving his hands, he's moving them like a helpless baby.

So I always thought that to conquer evil, you have to make love to it. You have to understand it.”
― Legs McNeil, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk

“How can U say one style is better than another. You ought to be able to be an Abstract Expressionist next week, or a Pop artist, or a realist, without feeling you"ve given up something. ... I think that would be so great, to be able to change styles. And I think that's what's going to happen, that's going to be the whole new scene. - Andy Warhol, 1963”
― Legs McNeil, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk