The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's A Secret History of Jewish Punk
Steven Lee Beeber
Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 978-1-55652-761-6

In my book (no pun intended), this book gets the award for the best title we have reviewed in a long time. With the recent demise of CBGB's, a lot has been written lately about the beginnings of punk, most of it very repetitive. So it is refreshing to get this book by Steven Lee Beeber that takes a fresh look at a story you have heard a hundred times. There is insight here that you will find in no other book.

Beeber starts his exploration with Lenny Bruce and Lou Reed as the predecessors of punk and moves into the generation that includes The Ramones, The Dictators, Richard Hell and all the rest. His thesis is that punk consciousness as it developed was developed from a very Jewish perspective. There is a great discussion about this first post-Holocaust generation of New York Jews and the alienation that they felt from their parents world and the non-Jewish world making themselves the ultimate outsiders and creating the fertile ground necessary for the beginnings of punk.

To prove his point, Beeber interlaces interviews with most of the survivors of this original scene. Most interesting are those, like Marky Ramone, that keep their Jewishness secret and are initially afraid Beeber is attempting to "out" Jews.

This is a great read for anyone who has been influenced by punk rock. I think you will gain new perspective.