DS Book Club: Kill the Punks: A Hated Youth Memoir By John Oliver Hodges

Hardcore punk rock bands sprouted up everywhere across the country in the early 1980s. While we celebrate the bands that broke through, we often overlook the smaller ones that were revered in their own region. One of those bands is Hated Youth. John Oliver Hodges, the guitarist for Hated Youth, has written a book about his experience in the band and growing up in Florida, titled Kill the Punks: A Hated Youth Memoir. Two hundred pages of mayhem, music, and memories guaranteed to make you laugh and squirm.

Hodges’s book leans into the “youth” of Hated Youth more than anything, and that’s where it finds its real pulse. While not as big as some of the bands worshipped at the punk rock altar, Hated Youth had their time in the sun. Hodges details his adolescence as a stoner-metal kid getting in trouble and being sent to the principal’s office. Eventually, he is sent to the School of Analytical Reasoning, a hippie high school, as Hodges would describe it. This is where he meets his future bandmate Eric and transforms into a mohawked punk rocker.

Adolescent mythology walks a fine line between the experimentation of extremes and the embracing of familiar norms. While his friendship with bass player Eric had flourished, John was sometimes a third wheel to Eric and his girlfriend Lucia as they pushed their own boundaries. These adventures, punctuated with multiple screenings of the movie The Road Warrior, give the book a cinematic and feral energy. Despite varying degrees of intensity, the activities aren’t so different from other generations of kids growing up.

A lot of stories recounting the origins of bands coming together start to fall into the same tropes. What makes them great is the presentation. Hodges’s writing is accessible. It moves fast and keeps the reader locked in. There were many times I didn’t want to put the book down. Hodges’ memories are super clear, and the story itself is compelling. While the band may be the catalyst, the real jolts come from the tales in between the shows.

At this point, many punk rockers have told their stories about how they got into punk. Each of these stories is different but shares the same emotional weight in terms of what it meant to them and how it shaped their lives. Hodges’ book still manages to stick out. Kill The Punks: A Hated Youth Memoir feels much more personal than other books about youth and punk rock. The writing is raw and feels closer to something like Henry Rollins’s Get in the Van. The advantage here is that Hodges has many more years of writing under his belt, and it shows.

As if the book wasn’t enough, you can see the Tallahassee Pioneers of Punk from March 5th to March 8th. The exhibition celebrating the underground scene will be on display at 621 Gallery. There will be sets from some bands of the Tallahassee scene playing at the Bark. Bands like Persian Gulf, Insect Fear, Hated Youth, Silly Wabbit, and Frankenfinger will all be playing sets.

In the meantime, you can get Kill The Punks: A Hated Youth Memoir by John Oliver Hodges in either paperback or ebook from Amazon.