The Punk Stacks at City Lights

If you thought City Lights was all about poetry, we're reminded today of the store's connection to punk.

City Lights has a long history of engagement with the punk rock scene, you may know already that V.Vale started the insurrectionary Search and Destroy fanzine with financial help from Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg. Ruby Ray who took many of the photos featured in Search and Destroy has a new book coming out (which we will hopefully receive copies of soon!) and an exhibition opening this Saturday in San Francisco of her punk photos… But punk rock is not just a historical artifact! It’s an ongoing endeavor, a possibility constructed out of noise, DIY, bad taste and a million other unexplainable attributes. City Lights carries long-running Bay Area punk mag Maximum Rocknroll, which turned 30 last year and still relentlessly covers the international DIY punk and hardcore underground if you want to keep abreast of what’s now and new in distortion and destruction.

Head to their blog to see punk titles they've pulled from their basement stacks. And because it's Friday, here's a dose of Bikini Kill to get you through the day!