No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving, No Spikes ― An Oral History of New Jersey's Legendary City Gardens

How did a lifeless, concrete bunker inthe inner city come to be a cornerstone of theunderground music scene? How did a club stuckbetween nowhere foster an atmosphere of creativity and promote a vibrant music scene readyto explode? Simply: with dedication, drive andpassion. The story of City Gardens is a multifaceted tale of community, history and, tradition.While one man, the inimitable Randy Now,is credited (and rightly so) with growing andcultivating the scene at the Gardens, it took acommunity of freaks, weirdoes, and misfits totruly make it a home. No Slam Dancing, No StageDiving, No Spikes is the story of how that bunkerbecame an oasis for wayward iconoclasts and cultural outcasts while witnessing some of the most compelling performances in music history.Told through the memories of bands, bouncers,stage management, bartenders, and fans—aswell as the man who oversaw it all—No SlamDancing is part history, part sociological study,and part legend. It is a document of times andevents that occurred during the last great musicage before technology changed everything.Over the course of hundreds of interviews,the authors pull together the narrative City Gardens during its nearly-20-year run. Whetherthey were the New Wave-crazed dancers whopopulated 90 Cent Dance Nights, or the punksand skins who caused mayhem during the hardcore shows, they were the ones who made every event a happening and every show something to behold. The individual memories merge to tell the story of a city, of a scene, and of the indomitable force of creativity.