Wish You Were Here: An Essential Guide to Your Favorite Music Scenes-from Punk to Indie and Everything in Between

The American underground music scene is exploding everywhere—not just in New York City & L.A. (although we've got those cities covered too!):

In Washington, D.C. . . . Ian MacKaye & Fugazi inspired the straightedge culture, which had kids everywhere drawing black X's on their hands in magic marker. In Omaha, Nebraska . . . A young Conor Oberst, aka Bright Eyes, started writing & performing gut-wrenching love songs at the tender age of thirteen. On Long Island, New York . . . Taking Back Sunday & Brand New battled for emo supremacy & the fragile hearts of a million teenage girls. 

From the coauthor of the cult-worthy Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture comes Wish You Were Here—a combination travel guide & tortured history covering everything from what constitutes proper rock critic etiquette in Minneapolis to why pop-punk bands in Chicago have so much suburban angst, to how freegans in the Bay Area can feed themselves on a budget that would make frugal Rachael Ray's face blush.

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Leslie Simon is the managing editor at Alternative Press. In addition to making appearances on Fuse and MTV, her work has appeared in Stuff, E! Online, and Teen People. In her spare time, she crafts Conor Oberst paper dolls. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio.