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‘Society SUCKS!’ The fanatical diary of a teen scribbler who threw herself into punk

Don’t live like everyone else! Angela Jaeger met every act going in punk, in New York and London – and had crushes on them all. Now 65, she talks us through her thrill-filled diaries

She would return many times, the diaries a compelling zigzag between the punk/post-punk cultures of Manhattan and London: hanging out with the New York Dolls’ flirty frontman David Johansen, a sarky Johnny Rotten and a complimentary Patti Smith, who approved of Jaeger’s ponytail. She followed the Clash on a UK tour, was kissed by both Joe Strummer and Billy Idol – “I had a crush on everybody!” – and “fell in love” with the Slits, becoming friends with key members Ari Up and Viv Albertine. “That first single,” she notes, blurting out a rendition of the famed frenetic bassline, “characterises the whole mood of the times.” By 1979 she’s loving the Specials, Madness, Joy Division, Tubeway Army, and performing in various bands (she would go on to join instrumental jazz-pop collective Pigbag as their singer in 1983).

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