Cherry Red to release "Complete History of UK Punk" book

This month Cherry Red Books will release Alex Ogg's book No More Heroes: A Complete History Of UK Punk From 1976 To 1980. The book, which claims to take a comprehensive look at the era, is described by the publisher as follows:

This exhaustive book, based on over 200 interviews with the participants, chronicles not only the good and the great, the icons of the punk movement, but celebrates some of the fantastic lost bands and music of the era, as well as the cash-ins and artistic failures. There are detailed accounts, often at variance with conventional wisdom, about the career paths of the Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, the Buzzcocks, the Stranglers and Siouxsie & The Banshees.

But No More Heroes also recounts the also-rans, the nearly men and women and those who simply made their statement to the world and then left the stage. Bands like the Desperate Bicycles, the Fruit Eating Bears and Helpless Hew. Stories that take in drug addiction, the Eurovision Song Contest, organised crime, contemptuous audiences, shows that were so poorly attended the musicians were arrested on suspicion of breaking and entering, jealous bingo callers, hippy-baiting, nervous breakdowns and publishing deals written on the back of beer mats.

The work contains over 300 individual band biographies, unpublished photos, and complete discographies with capsule reviews. The book's forward was written by the Damned's Captain Sensible and author / musician David Marx. The release follows a similar project from the publisher, Ian Glasper's The Day The Country Died - A History Of Anarcho Punk 1980 To 1984.