(The Rise and Fall of) The Farewell Drugs

Book excerpt: The Farewell Drugs (Reed, Chimpy, Johnny and Sloane) were the worst behaved band on the Lower East Side: heroin snorting, groupie abusing, shoplifting, drug dealing, sexist, racist misanthropes. But they had talent. When beleaguered record industry executive Hella Hecht endeavors to make them over, she finds wild success, marketing them as The Skatekeys, a boy band full of clean cut and polite young troubadours. The Drugs play along but slowly and surely, their old ways creep back in with deadly results. A rock and roll industry farce with a little too much of an edge. "Spitz exploded onto the Ludlow Street theater scene... their first production, 1998s's Retail Sluts depicted the SoHo class struggle: kids working in high-end boutiques selling overpriced hipster clothes to tourists." -Tom Murrin, Paper Magazine