Resident Punk UK Launch Party

Stewart Lee at The Lexington

Resident Punk is a memoir and cultural history of the 1970s New York punk scene, written by Legs McNeil, who co-founded PUNK magazine in 1975 at the age of 19 with John Holmstrom and Ged Dunn. Published to mark fifty years since the magazine's launch, the book recounts McNeil's encounters with Joey Ramone, Patti Smith, Alan Vega, Martin Rev, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and Poly Styrene, and covers bands such as the Ramones, Blondie, Television and Talking Heads. McNeil, who joins the evening via Zoom, is also the coauthor of Please Kill Me.

The evening opens with a conversation between McNeil and Stewart Lee, an English stand-up comedian, writer, director and musician whose first album, What Would Judas Do?, came out in 2009. Two bands, with guests, then perform music by artists featured in the book, mostly drawn from CBGB between about 1976 and 1982. Musicians taking part include Miki Berenyi, a British alternative rock musician active since 1987; Fyfe Dangerfield, a British indie rock musician whose first album, Fly Yellow Moon, appeared in 2010 on Polydor Records; and Gina Birch, a British musician whose first album, I Play My Bass Loud, was released in 2023. Kitty Fitz and Dilettante also take part.

The Lexington is a London venue for concerts and shows. The evening will suit readers of the book and anyone interested in the New York punk scene of the 1970s and the bands it documents.