"Do You Have a Band?"

Daniel Kane’s ‘Do You Have a Band’ illuminates the connection of Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine, Patti Smith to Ted Berrigan, Anne Waldman, Bernadette Mayer, and beyond. The dialogue among poets hanging out at CBGB and punk rock pioneers reading at the Poetry Project in early-seventies NYC is where so many of us in the sonic-lit lineage enter, charmed into the future. – Thurston Moore, recording artist and cofounder of Sonic Youth Daniel Kane’s incisive study confirms what poets have known for years: that punk rock was spawned by the New York School. Meticulously researched, “Do You Have a Band?” is a must-read for any literature buff, poet, or punk rock fan. This book seamlessly blends historical analysis with literary critique, pop culture, and just the right amount of dirt. – Gillian McCain, coauthor of Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk “Do You Have a Band?” is a formidably researched and galvanizing cultural history of the poetry-punk rock connection, with its lofty aspirations, history, gossip, and genius. This tome continues Kane’s passionate scholarship of the formative years of the downtown New York performance/poetry worlds. When were we ever so free to incubate our wild desires in language and sound? Current and next generations of artists, rockers, scholars, and fans will love this book. – Anne Waldman, author of Voice’s Daughter of a Heart Yet to Be Born Critics have long remarked that Lou Reed, Richard Hell, Patti Smith and other musicians associated with the emergence of punk rock began their careers in the New York poetry world. Why then are timeless evocations of the Rimbaudian maudit all we ever hear about their interest in poetry? Banishing these cliches with a critical power chord, Daniel Kane’s “Do You Have a Band?” finally brings into view the actual landscape of later New York School poetics in which (and often against which) New York punk rock took shape. – Lytle Shaw, New York University, author of Frank O’Hara: The Poetics of Coterie

Daniel Kane is reader in English and American literature at the University of Sussex in Brighton. His books include We Saw the Light: Conversations Between the New American Cinema and Poetry (2009) and All Poets Welcome: The Lower East Side Poetry Scene in the 1960s (2003).