320 pages, large-format color paperback, September 2020

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Now Is the Time to Invent! offers a definitive portrait of the vibrant indie-rock scene that emerged in the mid-1980s and reached its peak in the ’90s. Taken from the pages of the acclaimed independent music magazine Puncture and illustrated with many rare photographs, this extensive collection of interviews, profiles, and record reviews features more than forty of the principal contributors to an exceptionally creative period in modern music. 

Puncture’s writers and photographers documented the growth of a rich and varied body of music, often made with minimal resources—and always with maximal inventiveness—by artists who resisted the lure of the mainstream in pursuit of a sound of their own. From indie rock’s origins in the early work of such bands as Throwing Muses and Camper Van Beethoven, to the critical triumphs of Sleater-Kinney, Neutral Milk Hotel, Pavement, and Belle and Sebastian, via such pioneering artists as Sonic Youth, the Pixies, Meat Puppets, My Bloody Valentine, Nick Cave, Sebadoh, the Breeders, Jeff Buckley, Fugazi, P.J. Harvey, Guided by Voices, Beck, Cat Power, Will Oldham, Hole, the Flaming Lips, the Magnetic Fields, and many more.

"Puncture . . . demonstrated four key ingredients of great music journalism — knowledge, passion, taste and integrity — that is sorely lacking in most magazines today." Fast ’n’ Bulbous