Liz Worth is not a patient woman. After growing tired of waiting for someone else to produce the essential book or documentary on the southern Ontario punk movement, the Toronto writer and poet dug in and wrote it herself. Released last week on Bongo Beat Books, Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond (1977-1981) is an exhaustive collective memoir of the Southern Ontario punk culture and music.

A significant portion of the book details the genesis of the Hamilton punk scene -- including Teenage Head, the Forgotten Rebels and Simply Saucer – straight from the mouths of the artists, writers and revelers who lived it. “The more I started collecting the music, the more I wanted to learn about their histories,” says Worth. “I was really interested in the fact that southern Ontario had been a part of the first wave of the punk movement.”

“I found out about a lot of the bands in TMLD in a book called 1978, by Daniel Jones. It’s a book of fiction, but some of the characters are real people, like Steven Leckie or Frankie Venom, and the characters in the book listen to records by the Diodes and Teenage Head,” says Worth. “When I went looking for the bands, I hadn’t realized how obscure they’d become.”

A product of two years of solid work and nearly 200 interviews, the book features an impressive score of local music personalities. Highlights include one of the final interviews conducted with the late Teenage Head front man Frankie Venom, and recollections from author and activist (then a devoted fan) Nora Currie.

The book hits close to home. Recollections of the legendary party house on Robinson Street, Bob and Daniel Lanois’ first recording sessions in a basement in Ancaster, Star Records on James Street – but a few of the tales of underground legend that, until now, were strictly the stuff of barroom tale-telling.

Put to print, the book delivers an indispensible field guide to an embattled chapter in Canadian independent music and torrid local lore. This Ain’t Hollywood, a favoured hangout to many of the contributors to the book and later cohorts of punk enthusiasts, hosts the book’s release party on Wednesday, January 20, and includes a talk by the author.