Note: Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Chris Stein for the advanced reader copy of the book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

After reading Debbie Harry’s memoir Face It, when I saw Chris Stein’s memoir available on NetGalley, I simply had to read it. There are no great reveals here that weren’t covered in Debbie’s memoir, but Chris seems to have a better memory of happenings during the punk scene in New York City.

Chris was a City boy, having been raised there by parents who were once part of the Communist Party. His youth would seem to be completely alien to how we parent today, with a lot of freedom to venture out and figure things out for himself. He tells his story in a stream-of-consciousness style, with the memories flowing as he remembers them. I was actually surprised he was able to remember so much and in such detail. I don’t think I could have done it, and I didn’t have the drug issues he did.

The punk scene in New York was unique, and the band Blondie came out of that. However, they were not known necessarily as a punk band. Chris shows how they grew out of the scene, surrounded by so many punk icons and playing at CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City. I loved all the details about The Ramones, having grown up in the late 1970s and 1980s and been a fan of theirs. David Johanssen and the New York Dolls figure prominently as does David Bowie. Chris and Debbie were also part of Andy Warhol’s Manhattan scene.

He’s honest about the drug use and abuse that cost him so much, almost including his life. It started with pot but grew into just about every drug available throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He doesn’t get into the whys of his drug abuse; it was just something they did. He wasn’t trying to escape, or if it was a means of escape he doesn’t admit it. For much of the ten years prior to Blondie finally hitting it big, Chris and Debbie lived in abject poverty in a Manhattan that doesn’t exist anymore. The buildings they resided in have been gentrified and cleaned up. I don’t know that this new Manhattan can produce characters like Chris details here. It’s become much more like the suburbia I grew up in in many ways, with much higher prices.

His relationship with Debbie Harry ran its course and died out eventually around the same time the first incarnation of Blondie died out. They remain close friends. Chris says she’s the closest friend he’s ever had. When they started touring again and were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, there was friction among the original members. Some of that is due to lawsuits and some of it is just time changing things. Chris and Debbie are still the core of the group that has been touring and making records.

I found Under a Rock to be an easy read for the most part. The style of writing might be hard for some as at times there’s no clear separation from one story to another. Having known the New York he writes about is a big help, I think. The tragedy for him comes in the epilogue, which I guess he wrote after the book was finished. Although he takes the reader up until the current time, the epilogue contains the information that he and his wife lost his older daughter to an overdose in 2023. Having lost a child to drugs myself, I felt his pain as he brushed the surface of grief and the guilt he has over his own drug use and whether he impressed how bad it was on his daughter.

I really enjoyed this read and I recommend it to people who are interested in the history of rock music, particularly the New York music scene in the 1970s. There’s also a good deal in here about rap and hip-hop as the first time Chris and Debbie heard it they were astounded they hadn’t come upon it before. Really, Under a Rock covers so much territory that it’s a must-read for any music historian.