Akashic
Review by David Starkey
As someone who has been listening to rock and roll radio almost as long as he was old enough to switch it on, and who spent his teenage years, not unlike the author of this book, hanging out with punk rockers trying to start bands, I must admit I feel a bit ashamed that Jesse Malin’s name was only vaguely familiar to me before I read Almost Grown: A New York Memoir. I suspect a big reason for my ignorance can be found in the book’s subtitle. Aside from Malin himself, New York is the central character in Almost Grown, and it is in New York where much of the action takes place.
For those who share my unfamiliarity with the author, a quick recap. Jesse Malin grew up in Queens, and was haunting downtown punk clubs like CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City by the time he was thirteen. His first band, Heart Attack, were hard core to the max, dedicated to trampling over melody and good taste and ripping things up instead. Take a look at this 1984 12-minute video shot in blurry VHS to get a sense of the band’s intense energy and chutzpah.
A few years later, Malin formed glam punk band D Generation (the pun is intentional), which made records for major labels, but was still bursting forth with anarchic zeal, as in this 1996 VHS-taped show at Tower Records launching their second album, No Lunch. The Sex Pistols would have been proud.
D Generation hung around for seven years before Malin decided to go solo, with his first album, The Fine Art of Self-Destruction coming out in the UK in 2002 and the US in 2003. The songs here still reverberate with urban cynicism and street wisdom, but the music is closer to that of Malin’s new pal, Ryan Adams, who produced the album.
As to the writing in Almost Grown, it’s clear, imagistic, anecdotal, and fast-paced. Sure, this isn’t exactly literature, but what rock memoir is? In fact, I rate the book successful by the only metric that really counts: Do I want to put it down or keep turning the pages? I definitely was hungry for each new short chapter in which I’d hear more about the outrageous adventures of the idiosyncratic characters who constitute Malin’s wide and funky friend group.
Interestingly, you’d think that someone who has spent a good portion of his life as a punk rocker would be trashing many of the people he’s come into contact with, but Jesse Malin has hardly a bad word to say about anybody. Even when his friends cheat him or let him down, he forgives and forgets and remembers their good qualities instead. And his portrait of Joey Ramone is absolutely endearing. If you have a rock and roll heart, that’s good enough for Malin.
It’s rare when an established artist’s catalog is almost entirely new to you. Reading this book has given me an excuse to dive into his rich body of work, with my favorite discovery so far being his song “Chemical Heart,” a catchy tune with memorable lyrics and a kick-ass video.
Watching Malin bop around on the set of “Chemical Heart,” from 2019’s Sunset Kids, is a special treat because in May 2023 the author suffered a spinal stroke, from which he is still recovering. For a while, Malin could not walk at all, but thanks in part to the stem-cell treatments he received in Buenos Aires, he can now “walk nearly a block on my own, with a walker.” Fortunately, he can still sing and play guitar, a situation he turned into a moving play, Silver Manhattan, earlier this year. There’s also a new album of duets, Silver Patron Saints, featuring artists as varied as Bruce Springsteen, Rancid and Susanna Hoffs.
The conjunction of bad news and unexpected triumphs in 2026 probably isn’t surprising to the singer. We learn in Almost Grown that good and ill fortune are never far apart. Still, this new fan is hoping for nothing but good news in the future. Jesse Malin, who takes as his model Saint Joe Strummer, is someone worth rooting for.
