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Read This Book Before You Snapchat That Masked Punk Musician

"Placid Girl"

“Placid Girl”

“What if on the outside of this picture, where this guy is sitting on a chair with his guitar, there’s a chained up hostage being held outside the frame?” said Brenna Ehrlich, explaining the inspiration behind her debut novel. “That would be super weird.”

Ehrlich will launch Placid Girl tonight at her neighborhood bookstore, Word in Greenpoint. She describes the YA thriller as a punk rock version of Catfish. After Hallie, a young aspiring drummer, starts talking to her “favorite masked punk musician” on a photo-sharing app, she decides to travel with a group of friends to meet Haze in person. The result is a gut-knotting trajectory from suburban teenager to dangerously obsessed fangirl.

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Nightclubbing | Dead Kennedys

Nightclubbing | Dead Kennedys

Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library. Today, they look back on the N.Y.C. debut of the Dead Kennedys.

Jello Biafra (Credit: Emily Armstrong)

Jello Biafra (Credit: Emily Armstrong)

For die-hard NYC punks, the West Coast seemed a little daunting. It was so bright! But in the fall of 1979, we went to Los Angeles to be on a panel at an early MTV music video conference. We stayed at the Tropicana Hotel, which was the preferred accommodation for traveling rockers. Jim Morrison and Tom Waits had lived there – on this trip, it was Nina Hagen and The Slits hanging at the pool. More →