Legs McNeil

Legs McNeil is the Co-Founder and a writer for Punk Magazine. He was also a features editor at Spin magazine and editor in chief of Nerve.

Related Topics:
Punk Magazine - Editor - Spin magazine

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At the age of 18, in 1975, disgusted with the hippie movement that seemed to be going nowhere, McNeil gathered with two high school friends of his; John Holmstrom and Ged Dunn. They were contemplating creating "some sort of media thing" for a living. They settled upon making a magazine, after all they thought "people will think we're cool and hang out with us" and "people will give us free drinks". It was settled then, but what to call it? PUNK, "it seemed to sum up...everything...obnoxious, smart but not pretentious, absurd, ironic, and things that appealed to the darker side".

Related Topics:
Hippie - John Holmstrom

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Nicknamed the "resident punk" in the magazine, he claims (to much dispute} that he was the first person(along with Co-founder John Holmstrom) to have coined the term "punk" to describe a certain type of music, fashion, and attitude. He says he came up with the name punk because Telly Savalas used the line on the show "Kojak" "you lousy punk!" Although, the term was quite open to question at the time (to his and "PUNK"'s dismay) and was not set in stone. After all, even Blondie was considered "punk" by some of the mainstream media after they stole the term from Punk Magazine. According to McNeil; "After four years of doing PUNK magazine, and basically getting laughed at, suddenly everything was 'PUNK!'". To McNeil PUNK had become what it and he hated originally, so he quit PUNK magazine. Punk continued to evolve, but the magazine left its mark on the history of one of art and music's most noteworthy movements.

Related Topics:
Punk - Telly Savalas - Kojak - Blondie - Mainstream media - Magazine

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