Books like I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp by Richard Hell

Anthony Kiedis tells the raw, personal story of growing up with the Red Hot Chili Choppers from L.A.’s punk scene to global stardom, revealing the highs, lows, and lessons learned along the way.

Kim Gordon, founding member of Sonic Youth, shares her memoir of life as an artist, musician, mother and pioneer of alternative rock, charting her journey from California roots to the New York underground of the 1980s and 1990s.

Interviews with the Beach Boys, their collaborators, and fans reveal the stories behind fifty of the band's songs, including "Surfin' U.S.A.," "California Girls," and "Good Vibrations."

Down on his luck and disillusioned with the music industry, punk star Billy Mud's listless days are punctuated only by scoring drugs, empty sex, and scribbling brooding profundities in this ever-present notebook. So when he is offered a chance to drive a car from California back to New York - all expenses paid - he gladly accepts. Billy's assignment is to chronicle the trip in words, while Chrissa, an ex-girlfriend he hopes to win back, takes the accompanying photographs. As an opportunity to get out of New York and out of a long-term funk, the trip is irresistible. And if it also provides a chance to get clean and to prove he's a writer, well, all the better. . Author Richard Hell, an originator of punk, a poet, and now a novelist, takes us inside the head of this down-on-his-luck genius as he skids and ricochets his way across America. It is mostly the landscape inside Billy's own head that we see, and that is often a very scary place. Once out on the road, it is not long before our hero is up to his old tricks and we watch horrified and laughing as he slides inexorably toward a chilling, breathtaking denouement.

An intimate memoir of Alicia Armendariz—stage name Alice Bag—who fronted Los Angeles punk pioneers The Bags and appeared in Penelope Spheeris' film *The Decline of Western Civilization*.