Gimme Something Better: The Profound, Progressive, and Occasionally Pointless History of Bay Area Punk from Dead Kennedys to Green Day

I really enjoy reading punk rock related oral histories- my favorite is Our Band Could be Your Life by Michael Azerrad. Gimme Something Better starts at the very beginning of the SF punk scene and takes you up to about 2007. There is a fair amount on the very early SF punk bands which I was less familiar with. I was hoping for more history on Op Ivy and other Lookout! bands but you get a good amount of Green Day history. If you are at all interested in punk history, then this is worth a read. I would recommend not purchasing the Kindle edition.The formatting in the Kindle edition is a bit weird- there are a lot of places where the name of the speaker is not bolded or offset and so you have to read twice to see who is speaking. Also, there is one image that is not rendered at all, it's just a target mark with a caption. For a book with very few images, you'd think they could have made sure all 4 or 5 of them made it into the Kindle edition especially for the $14.99 price.

Great book, I really enjoyed it. The first half is great, but when they began talking about stuff like Rancid, who to me are such derivative, cliche sell outs, and Gilman street, where you have to read and follow their little punk rock rule book to be down...Clearly the early days, with incredible bands like Crime, Avengers, Flipper and Negative Trend, were of a totally different vibe and mind set... In a nutshell, the early bands were amazing, then it all got regimented and lame. Still, this book is totally worth picking up!

Not the best version of an oral history on punk, but it does pertain to the San Fran Bay Area and that is not easy to come by. As per most books of this type, it is random in spots and moves quickly (adding confusion to the experience of reading it). All in all, it is an important aspect of history and the result is a treasure trove of quotables and one-liners.

Great book! The oral history style lends itself well for punk rock scene stories. This ones better than others because it continues through the years & into the current century. You experience how violence & factionalism nearly killed punk but celebrate how it bounced back with a vengeance. My main complaint is the don't even mention my favorite band J Church. I don't understand how a band with hundreds of releases(really!) could somehow be overlooked. Anyway the rest is good...

Pretty good. Too bad they focused so much on Rancid and Green Day and never talked about Hickey, arguably one of the best punk bands out of San Francisco in the 1990s.

This does not come off as filtered through the perceptions of the editors. On the contrary, if I recall correctly they make no contributions at all, they only quote interviewees. Fantastic read, can't recommend it enough. I've seen a person or two put it down, I think they are silly. You won't go wrong with this.

Semi nailed it. But not quite. 1988 Punk scene, The Farm on Potrero Hill. Suicidal Tendencies, Circle Jerks, and Dead Kennedy's. Green Day? Never heard of 'em! The Farm was gross, but the music was cheap, and they let minors in. Speaking of minors....FYI the female author wasn't punk then. If this is the same female as the author....She was a skinhead, bleach blond with bangs in front. Skinheads, are different than punk. WAYShe attended the same "alternative" high school in affluent Larkspur, CA that I did in 1987 or so....which makes her elementary school age when punk was at it's heyday.

Kinda interesting, but to be honest, as someone who was right in the middle of punk in SF throughout the 80's, and in the Haight when some of the events in one chapter were kinda/sorta mentioned, this book left me kind of disappointed. If you were one of the two dozen or less people repeatedly mentioned in the book, I am sure it was great, but to give a feel of what the City was like in those years and in that mix...eh, really was a bunch of name dropping...and let's admit it...Green Day?? 1990's? Not really the heyday of the punk era. Would really have liked more about the entire vibe of the scene, more venues, and interviews with more people.

great book with insight into the early US punk rock scene from those who were there.

Informative in-look into one of music's & possibly punk rocks most influential and creative scenes. A blast! Makes me wish I was in SF & the East Bay to see some of it. Waiting to see the movie now!

Great read for fans