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The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret History of Jewish Punk

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Like most music freaks, if you ask me where punk rock originated, I wouldn't hesitate to tell you that it happened in England. After all, the Brits lay claim to pogo dancing, safety pins as a fashion statement, and the Sex Pistols. The whole concept of punk rock is, essentially, very Clockwork Orange.

Steven Lee Beeber's The Heebie Jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret History of Jewish Punk challenges that notion by showing us that punk began in New York -- and was heavily influenced and shaped by a variety of Jews from a variety of backgrounds. Beginning with the cutting-edge comedy of Lenny Bruce and the musical innovations that were Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, Beeber shows us how the music evolved. It is clear that without the involvement of Jews, there would have been no punk movement.

Chapter by chapter, Beeber traces the bands and the people, focusing on the Jewish players who coalesced around the Jewish-owned punk mecca, CBGB. This is dense reading, best taken slowly so that all of the facts and details -- not to mention the personalities -- can sink in.

One theme that Beeber refers to often is the link between the Holocaust and punk. His claims make perfect sense: the emotions invested in the children of survivors provided the fuel for punk's trademark anger. Yes, there is anger that so many people were eradicated, but one of the more surprising revelations is that some of the anger comes from and is fueled by the fact that the Jews allowed themselves to be victims. At the same time, though, there is an awareness that the word allowed is inaccurate. That anyone, faced with such a circumstance, would have done exactly the same thing. Ultimately, this isn't an emotion of victimization, but of helplessness and futility -- two strong emotions that run through the undercurrent of punk, both in its lyrics and its attitudes.

Beeber takes us across the ocean for a visit with the start of British punk -- the Sex Pistols -- but focuses on the Jews involved in creating that scene. From Sex Pistols creator Malcolm MacLaren to the ill-fated Nancy Spungeon, lover of Pistols frontman Sid Vicious, it is obvious that here, too, punk music and the Jewish tradition are linked so closely that removal of the Jew removes the music.

Many would argue that punk died out with the Sex Pistols, to be replaced by music from cities like LA and San Francisco, peopled with musicians and fans who shocked New York ex-pats with virulent anti-Semitic themes, attitudes, and lyrics.

Beeber returns to New York to show us what punk evolved into: John Zorn's dissonant art and even, perhaps unbelievably, the Beastie Boys, perhaps the most punk of all the bands in the book.

Even more than the Ramones, those poster boys for American punk?

You be the judge. For any music fan, this is essential reading. It's not just that this is a clear evolution of the music scene over the span of forty-some years, from the late 1960s to the present. This book traces the shifts in our culture during this time period, and the shifts in attitude that allowed punk to be as vibrant as it was.

Beeber's prose is smooth and charming, always focused on the topic at hand and never getting sidetracked like so many Jewish storytellers of old. He's also a master craftsman, showing his writer's roots in the construction of each chapter, bringing back points made in opening paragraphs, tying it all together with a neat black leather jacket and peppy beat.

For the music lover, the historian interested in Jewish history, or for anyone intrigued by how someone as tall, skinny, and scary as Joey Ramone could become a pop icon, The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret History of Jewish Punk is one of those books you won't want to miss. Certainly, my copy now occupies a space between Deena Weinstein's seminal Heavy Metal and Joe Berlinger's Metallica: This Monster Lives.

To bring up one last point Beeber makes: Jews are people of the book. Heebie Jeebies is just one in a long line that proves this.

You don't have to be a Jew or a lover of punk to appreciate this well-researched, smartly written book. Beeber's voice, part wise guy and part acolyte, carries this book even for a "shiksa goddess" like me. He opens up a fascinating culture (or two) in an accessible, enjoyable way. I highly recommend this book.

From his thunderbolt of an introduction, talented writer Beeber launches into a terrific history of New York's punk rock movement and its roots in postwar American Judaism. Beeber not only reveals the links between the Jews who played major roles in developing the new sound and sensibility--Lou Reed, Chris Stein, half of the Ramones, CBGB owner Hilly Kristal, Genya Ravan, and plenty of others--but going below the surface, he makes a persuasive argument about how alienation can give rise to irony--after all, one of the factors that made punk so popular was its dark sense of humor. It's a thesis that Beeber teases out very delicately, without bashing the reader's head in with academic hooey. And it allows him to survey the less pleasant aspects of the movement, such as its frequent fascination--even among Jewish punks--with Nazi paraphernalia. An eye-opening, dangerous, and way-the-hell fun book--I can't recommend it enough.

Steven Beeber's book manages to be highly entertaining as well as intellectually stimulating, which is no easy feat. He examines the relationship between Judaism (both secular and religious) and punk rock and argues that punk was a logical outgrowth of the post-Holocaust generation in this country. I'm a native New Yorker and I came of age in the mid-70s, so I was fortunate enough to have seen many of the bands that are profiled in this book. However, until I read it, I never made the connection between Jews & punk, though it makes perfect sense to me now. Beeber is a terrific interviewer and a fine social historian (and his investigative skills are quite impressive: who knew that Alan Vega and Tommy Erdelyi are both Jewish? And there's lots more where that came from). This is a great read and I suspect I'll be buying a few more copies to give as gifts.

At first, the topic of Beeber's book comes off as a bit of headscratcher. But once you get into it you realize how central Judaism is to so many people and aspects of the punk rock movement. This is a well researched, excellently written and very cleverly conceived piece of cultural criticism. Great stuff!

In this brilliant exploration of outsider identity, Beeber uncovers the links between Jewishness and punk rock rebellion. The book includes in-depth interviews with such punk rock luminaries as Tommy Ramone, Chris Stein of Blondie, and former Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren. Beeber also explores the inherent contradictions within the punk movement, including the use of Nazi imagery by bands whose family members may have barely escaped the Holocaust. The book includes fascinating anecdotes about punk rock legends, including a chapter that describes Lou Reed's attempts to bring his dog to a seder, and Richard Hell's defensive responses to Beeber's simple question: Are you a Jew? Beeber is an insightful writer and cultural historian who makes heretofore unseen connections between origins of punk in the aggressive outsider comedy of Lenny Bruce and the work of graphic novel pioneer Will Eisner.

The "heebie jeebies" in the title constitutes a fairly pointless pun on Hebes, as in Hebrews. It is the author's contention that punk rock, in most of its manifestations, was the product of a specifically Jewish mentality, that is, heavily influenced by and largely derived from the creativity of artists and promoters who happened to be Jewish. It's a little unclear what that has to do with getting creeped out inside the late, great punk rock palace of CBGB's, unless it's to invoke the Woody Allen stereotype of Jewish jitteriness.

Since Jews have always been heavily represented in almost every aspect of popular music, and arguably, in classical and jazz, it's not a particularly salient observation that there were a lot of Jews or those with Jewish antecedents in this particular genre, among them Joey Ramone (nee Jeff Hyman), Danny Fields, Malcolm McClaren, CBGB's owner Hilly Crystal, Lenny Kaye, Chris Stein of Blondie, journalist Charlie Frick, Mick Jones of the Clash and Richard Hell (nee Myers). He does make a case that the Jewish-outsider-socially-rebellious-hipster tradition had SOME kind of role to play in the rise of punk. Given that the Ramones' back-to-the-garage mentality inspired a zillion other young folks to join in the fun and urgency of making rock music, maybe it's not so surprising after all that Spin put them as number two in their list of the most influential bands, and perhaps credit is due to the Jewish hipster tradition. But was the Ramones' alienation particularly Jewish, or simply American white middle class? The intentionally cheesy adoption of retro junk artifacts and attitudes that helped define the subculture was codified by a (presumably) Irish-American and Scandinavian-American, Legs McNeil and John Holmstrom, who founded Punk magazine.

The author fails to mention that, perhaps as a part of its anti-hippie and therefore anti-egalitarian thrust, early punk could at times be right wing, homophobic and racist, hardly sociopolitical attitudes usually associated with Jews.