Best Of Archives

A selection of our top stories, for your reading pleasure…

COOL TOWN: HOW ATHENS, GEORGIA CHANGED AMERICAN CULTURE

Parke Puterbaugh·February 24, 2021

In her book Cool Town, Grace Elizabeth Hale offers a history of the Athens, Georgia, music scene, how it came about, thrived and then served as a model for other towns beyond the pale (and free from the dilution) of...

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HIAWATHA BAILEY: PANTHER, PUNK, CULT HERO

Todd McGovern·February 18, 2021

If you spent any time in the Detroit/Ann Arbor cultural scene in the last 50 years, chances are you know the name Hiawatha Bailey, the only Black and Native American member of the White Panther Party. He was on the...

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THE LOST TESTAMENT OF SAM BUTERA: THE RISE & FALL OF ‘THE WILDEST SHOW IN VEGAS’

Burt Kearns·February 16, 2021

Sax player and arranger Sam Butera was ‘Keith Richards to Louis Prima’s Mick Jagger’ once he joined the great trumpeter, singer and bandleader in Las Vegas in 1954. With vocalist Keely Smith, the group leaped into national consciousness on the...

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PINK FAIRIES: THE COSMIC ROCK FUZZ OF PUNK’S PIONEERS

Adam Ganderson·February 15, 2021

The story of the Pink Fairies is like a trip down a rabbit hole into a psychedelicized wonderland that includes characters like Lemmy Kilmister and Hawkwind, Mick Farren and The Deviants, Twink, Larry Wallis, Steve “Peregrin” Took, Sandy Sanderson, the...

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JUNIOR KIMBROUGH’S JUKE JOINT: KEEPING DIRTY BLUES ALIVE

Bob Pomeroy·February 4, 2021

During the 1990s, a legendary but crumbling juke joint in the northern Mississippi hills kept the ‘dirty blues’ of Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf and Fred McDowell alive. It was run by a Memphis bluesman named David “Junior” Kimbrough. After...

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JOHN TAYLOR: STILL IN THE PLEASURE GROOVE WITH DURAN DURAN

Crispin Kott·January 27, 2021

John Taylor is the bass guitarist in Duran Duran, a band that stormed out of the New Romantic movement in the early ‘80s with a series of songs, albums and videos now considered classics. Duran Duran will release their 15th...

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DON VAN VLIET AND FRANK ZAPPA: TWO PEAS IN A MISSHAPEN POD

Gary Lucas·January 14, 2021

Guitarist Gary Lucas found himself smack dab in the middle of two of America’s musical geniuses, Don ‘n’ Frank. Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa were boyhood chums whose fates were inextricably linked, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in...

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PLEASE READ ME: THE BEST OF 2020, PART II

PKM Editor·December 30, 2020

Keep that tankard of coffee warm because here’s another bracing batch of 2020’s top stories on Please Kill Me. These include features and interviews on the Cramps front man Lux Interior; the peerless bassist, Gail Ann Dorsey (who played for...

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PLEASE READ ME: THE BEST OF 2020, PART I

PKM Editor·December 28, 2020

Put another log on the fire, top that tankard of coffee, and kick back with Please Kill Me’s Top stories of 2020…starring Poison Ivy and Lux Interior, united again in a tandem of stories by Ingrid Jensen; the tough-talking Carol...

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LUX INTERIOR: WHERE ON EARTH DID YOU COME FROM?

Ingrid Marie Jensen·November 23, 2020

The Cramps’ frontman was impossible to miss, on or off stage, the perfect foil to his equally striking partner in life and music, Poison Ivy Rorschach. Ingrid Jensen reflects on what made the former Erick Lee Purkhiser, a suburban boy...

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GOIN’ HOME WITH THE ROLLING STONES

Tosh Berman·November 16, 2020

Thinking about moving into your first home away from the family? Well, there was a time when even the members of the Rolling Stones had to go through that rite of passage. A new collection of photographs by Gered Mankowitz,...

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POISON IVY OF THE CRAMPS: UNCROWNED QUEEN OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

Ingrid Marie Jensen·October 27, 2020

Poison Ivy Rorschach, lead guitarist, songwriter, arranger, producer and sometime vocalist of one of the greatest bands in the universe, the Cramps, which she co-founded with her lifetime partner Lux Interior (RIP), has yet to get her crown. Well, PKM...

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IN THE LIMELIGHT: THE VISUAL ECSTASY OF NYC NIGHTLIFE IN THE ‘90S

Cree McCree·October 20, 2020

Steve Eichner was the photo king of NYC mega-clubs. He is also a chameleon who moved seamlessly through the multiverse of colliding worlds that was New York City nightlife in the 1990s. Cree McCree talked with the photographer about his...

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BADFINGER: THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF ‘THE NEXT BEATLES’

Scott Schinder·October 1, 2020

Signed to Apple with direct hands-on help from all of the Beatles, particularly Paul (who gave them “Come and Get It”) and George (who co-produced their 3rd album), Badfinger was ‘on top of the world’ by the early 1970s. Ten...

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wmsagittarius on WE NEVER LEARN: GUNK PUNK IN THE 1990SNirvana were really great - never liked any other 'grunge' bands, only later liked some Mudhoney - though i did own a flannel shirt, but
Chris Ghiardi on THE KNACK … AND HOW TO GET IT: AN INTERVIEW WITH PRESCOTT NILESInteresting that both Niles and Richard Lloyd knew Velvert Turner.
wmsagittarius on ALEX COX: THE RETURN OF WALKERI am sorry that the ending with Walker speaking to a fifty dollar a plate soiree at the Sheraton, while a rabble of crippled, betrayed,

Jack Kerouac based his muse/lover “Mardou Fox” in The Subterraneans on Alene Lee, a mixed race (Black/Cherokee) bohemian writer and intellectual who was a part of the NYC Beat circle of Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Lucien Carr. Despite her intimate connection to these writers, the real Alene Lee is nowhere to be found in most accounts and biographies—partly due to her own reticence to speak. Erika Blair did some digging and presents a more rounded portrait of this fascinating woman. Read more!

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SAM CUTLER: LIFE WITH THE STONES, THE DEAD & OTHER WONDERFUL REPROBATES

ALL THE RAJ: HOW ‘NORWEGIAN WOOD’ UNLEASHED THE ‘INDIAN INVASION’

THE KNACK … AND HOW TO GET IT: AN INTERVIEW WITH PRESCOTT NILES

Best Of

PLEASE READ ME: THE BEST OF PKM FOR 2021, PART II

UTOPIA PARKWAY: THE ENDURING MYSTERY OF JOSEPH CORNELL

RUTH UNDERWOOD: A MOTHER OF INVENTION

WERE WE ALL BRAINWASHED BY THE CIA WITH SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK & ROLL?

THE DEATH OF SGT. CARTER

THE KID WHO RECORDED THE FIRST PUNK ROCK RECORD (AND INFLUENCED SURF GUITAR)

Best Of

COOL TOWN: HOW ATHENS, GEORGIA CHANGED AMERICAN CULTURE

HIAWATHA BAILEY: PANTHER, PUNK, CULT HERO

THE LOST TESTAMENT OF SAM BUTERA: THE RISE & FALL OF ‘THE WILDEST SHOW IN VEGAS’

PINK FAIRIES: THE COSMIC ROCK FUZZ OF PUNK’S PIONEERS

JUNIOR KIMBROUGH’S JUKE JOINT: KEEPING DIRTY BLUES ALIVE

JOHN TAYLOR: STILL IN THE PLEASURE GROOVE WITH DURAN DURAN

DON VAN VLIET AND FRANK ZAPPA: TWO PEAS IN A MISSHAPEN POD

PLEASE READ ME: THE BEST OF 2020, PART II

PLEASE READ ME: THE BEST OF 2020, PART I

LUX INTERIOR: WHERE ON EARTH DID YOU COME FROM?

GOIN’ HOME WITH THE ROLLING STONES

POISON IVY OF THE CRAMPS: UNCROWNED QUEEN OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

IN THE LIMELIGHT: THE VISUAL ECSTASY OF NYC NIGHTLIFE IN THE ‘90S

BADFINGER: THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF ‘THE NEXT BEATLES’

SAM CUTLER: LIFE WITH THE STONES, THE DEAD & OTHER WONDERFUL REPROBATES

ALL THE RAJ: HOW ‘NORWEGIAN WOOD’ UNLEASHED THE ‘INDIAN INVASION’

THE KNACK … AND HOW TO GET IT: AN INTERVIEW WITH PRESCOTT NILES

POLY STYRENE: BREAKING DOWN THE BONDAGE

WE NEVER LEARN: GUNK PUNK IN THE 1990S