We Were Going to Change the World Hit So Hard, the heartbreaking memoir by Hole drummer Patty Schemel, gets love below, but Stacy Russo’s collection of interviews with women musicians and journalists lived was in print because of the librarian’s attention to detail it gives to often unheard of — yet still vital — players in the ‘70s and ‘80s southern California punk scene. Sure, Exene Cervenka and Alice Bags show up, but the 283-page work also includes talks with Nature Core’s Tammy Talbot and fan-turned-punk-rock-historian Kathy Rodgers. At first, a foreword by Mike Watt seems like an odd choice (a man, ‘splaining a book about women?), but the Minutemen and Dos bassist ends up beautifully capturing the influence women had on the scene and his own life, too. (Santa Monica Press)
This article appears in Dec 21-28, 2017.
