Better off punk

Mention the San Francisco music scene and the masses likely will think of the Summer of Love or the San Francisco Sound.

What about punk? Due to San Francisco’s oft forgotten punk scene—Los Angeles and New York long reigned as punk meccas—authors Jack Boulware and Silke Tudor decided to give a voice to the Bay Area’s underground punk story. Gimme Something Better: The Profound, Progressive, and Occasionally Pointless History of Bay Area Punk From Dead Kennedys to Green Day is an oral history of the punk scene in the Bay, with lots of photos of mohawks, naked punk rockers and partying.

The authors interviewed musicians and others who participated in the movement—folks who lived and breathed the music of Crime, Avengers and Dead Kennedys. Boulware and Tudor also show the development of the early ’80s hardcore scene and the eventual infiltration of punk into contemporary rock via Green Day and Operation Ivy.

Boulware will give a reading and have a Q-and-A session about the book on Sunday, February 7 at 7 p.m. at Time Tested Books.

Boulware also wrote Sex, American Style: An Illustrated Romp Through the Golden Age of Heterosexuality and San Francisco Bizarro: A Guide to Notorious Sites, Lusty Pursuits, and Downright Freakiness in the City by the Bay. Yeah, he seems to like long titles.