Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond, 1977-1981
“Every once in a while, maybe in every century, a city has its moment. And I think a lot of Toronto’s moment was between 1976 and 1980. There was just an incredible amount of energy in Toronto. I think it was a pretty boring place before all of us. We kind of were the instigators in terms of changing an awful lot of the direction of the city, artistically and musically and stylistically. People wanted Toronto to be more New York than New York, but keep its own identity. They wanted it to be important; they wanted it to matter. A lot of what I see in Toronto now is the product of what we created in a five-year period of time.” —Paul Robinson, lead singer,The Diodes"The people involved were, and are, intensely passionate about the music, the Toronto scene, their places in it.Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond 1977-1981reflects its subjects; it's filled with that same punk intensity and passion." —www.PopMatters.com (November 2011)