[mangajunky]

One of my favorite TV shows is No Reservations with Tony Bourdain.
He wrote the tell-all book Kitchen Confirdential and didn't hold anything back.

Here are a few questions from his recent AV Club interview talking about punk rock, feeding Johnny Thunders and liking bands like the Contortions.

AVC: Speaking of your non-fiction work, you dedicated The Nasty Bits to the Ramones. Why is that?
AB: I think they were the most important rock 'n' roll band to come out of my lifetime. They made my life good for a while.
AVC: Isn't there something very "un-punk" about fine dining?
AB: It depends on if you're in the dining room or the kitchen. [Laughs.] Yeah, sure, no question. But I've had dinner with Marky Ramone, and he enjoys fine dining very much. And he was a punk for much longer than 10 minutes. Although, you know, the whole movement, such as it was, lasted only 10 minutes. Yeah, I would say that they seem opposed. Certainly, Ramones-style punk was ostensibly about pizza and cold cereal. [Laughs.] But it's grown up a little.
AVC: It seems like your favorite bands—The Stooges, The Dead Boys—would have gotten thrown out of your restaurants.
AB: Actually, I fed a lot of those guys back in the day. I used to feed Johnny Thunders. We fed him because we wanted free tickets and stuff. They were very uncomfortable in the restaurant, that's for sure. They were always very intimidated. They didn't know which fork to use, whether to mix the red and the white, they didn't know what to do. But I mean, that's being 18 and strung-out. I didn't know any of those things when I was 18, either.
AVC: I think the biggest revelation from this interview will be that Johnny Thunders actually ate something.
AB: Oh yeah, oh my God. He came in and we laid it all out for him. He came in all dressed up, wearing a formal, rock 'n' roll tux outfit, and was quiet like a church mouse. He was really intimidated and didn't know what to do with the various glasses and drinks. It was kind of sweet.
AVC: So were you a fan of the British punk bands, or the post-punk bands that followed?
AB: I liked The Clash a great deal, some of the no-wave stuff. I liked The Contortions. You know, it's funny: I was always really resentful of Soft Cell and Tears For Fears and Depeche Mode when that music was current. I've since taken to enjoying a lot of that music. I listen to a lot of Depeche Mode now, and New Order. Back then, I didn't like them. I liked the rawer, angrier stuff. I mean, I hated Lynyrd Skynyrd back then, too, and now I find myself listening to a little Lynyrd Skynyrd. [Laughs.] Things change.

the rest of the interview is here:

http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/anthony_bourdain