Punk rock music

Amy Rigby was a sheltered Catholic teen from the Pittsburgh suburbs when she moved to New York City to attend Parsons School of Design and fell in love with the '70s punk scene.

This week, we're listening back to some favorite Fresh Air interviews from the past decade. The punk icon reflected on her career and her 22-year friendship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe in 2010.

"We weren't going to try and be this constructed ideal of femininity," the Slit's guitarist says of the band. Albertine's memoir is To Throw Away Unopened. Originally broadcast July 16, 2018.

Growing up in North London in the 1960s and '70s, Viv Albertine never dreamed that one day she'd be a rock star. For one thing, she says, "There [were] just no role models ... I never heard of anyone, any female playing guitar."

The Ramones helped launch the punk rock scene in the mid 1970s with songs that were short, fast and loud. In 1988, lead singer Joey Ramone spoke to Terry Gross about the band's history.

Growing up, punk rocker Laura Jane Grace always felt conflicted about gender. She tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that she felt like two "twin souls" were warring inside of her, fighting for control. "I thought that I was quite possibly schizophrenic," she says.

Gordon co-founded Sonic Youth with Thurston Moore. When their marriage broke up in 2011, so did the band. Gordon talks about rebuilding her life, writing her memoir and her new band Body/Head.

"I think if I had been an accomplished songwriter I wouldn't have written 'You Really Got Me,' " Davies tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. Originally broadcast Nov. 26.

Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker says that one of the best books he's ever read about punk rock is a new memoir by Viv Albertine.

"I think if I had been an accomplished songwriter I wouldn't have written 'You Really Got Me,'" Davies tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.