Cover Image: The Hard Times

The Hard Times

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Member Reviews

If you need some humor in your life put on some music and pick up this book. This is a really fun book to relive your youth or wish you could have been there. Enjoy

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I received an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.


This book has a really awesome cover, and I would love to place it on display in store.



Unfortunately I did not get the chance to read it.

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Onion style articles about punk rock. Funny enough to dip into, but not enough to sustain a whole book.

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I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

The Hard Times is for every "punk" at heart out there. You don't have to enjoy punk to read this, but obviously this is about that life.

This book has a bit of everything... articles from the last four decades, behind the scene looks, original stories, and even reprints of zines. Oh do I miss zines.

This book was informative, interesting, and would be a great addition to the bookshelf!!!!

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You don’t have to be a punk to enjoy The Hard Times—but it helps.

Why is it funny that The Ramones forced their studio’s janitor to change his name to Gary Ramone? Because none of The Ramones were related in real life and all changed their name to enter the band. Why did a punk survive the Kool-Aid at Jonestown? Practice, practice, practice (of ingesting all manner of substances at punk rock concerts).

The articles collected here are actual reprints from the magazine during the past four decades. In between the original stories are a behind-the-scenes look at the zine’s creation and a bit of punk’s evolution over the years. Beginning with the 90s, the zine began covering emo, grunge, and alternative rock bands too.

I was pretty heavily into the LA punk scene from the late 70s through the 80s so I really enjoyed The Hard Times. It reminded me of bands I haven’t thought of in decades. Even if you are not into punk, the stories frequently have a Mad Magazine sense of parody that is enjoyable. 4 stars!

Thanks to Mariner Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

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This book made me smile and laugh, I was laughing out loudly reading about the CGBG's artist as blue grass, but it also reminded about a lot of artists I loved during the 70s/80s/90s
I think it's a great excursus and even if I never read The Hard Times it made me wish I had.
Highly recommended to music lovers.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

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