New Brunswick, New Jersey, Goodbye: Bands, Dirty Basements, and the Search for Self
By Ronen Kauffman
Sub City

I picked this book up at a strange time in my life. I moved out of New Jersey a year ago and I’ve been really wondering about my decision to leave the East Coast for the Midwest. As I was thinking about this one day, I happened to see a listing for a book about the underground/punk scene of a town I went to college in and lived in for five years. I even knew the author and many of the bands and people he wrote about.

My nostalgia for New Brunswick, NJ is strong enough, now I have this book to remind me about all the fun things I didn’t do, people I didn’t talk to, bands I didn’t see… My college - and just after - years (ages 18-22) were indeed a formative time and made me into the person I am today, and Ronen Kauffman’s memoir serves as a reminder that I may have wasted too many years watching pro wrestling and Nick-at-Nite reruns. Okay, that’s a bit melodramatic because I love having an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure TV and wrestling history.

ANYWAY… I had a hard time getting through this book – not because it’s bad, it’s the exact opposite. This book is very honest and vivid in its descriptions of a town I lived in and a scene I experienced but didn’t appreciate fully until I was gone. I highly recommend this book to anyone involved in or a fan of the New Jersey underground/punk scene. While it might not appeal to people who didn’t live in this particular state at this particular time, Kauffman’s book should be seen on a larger scale of a coming-of-age tale for many punks/musicians/artists in many states.