In Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, McNeil said that the magazine was inspired by two chief influences: cartoonist and editor Harvey Kurtzman, and The Dictators' debut album The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!, indicating that the magazine was started strictly so that its creators could "hang out with the Dictators".
In addition to his work with Blue Öyster Cult, he also contributed to music by Patti Smith, Jim Carroll, The Dictators and The Clash, among others.
They are perhaps most notable for consisting, in part, of members of the New York punk band The Dictators and for being one of the very few musical groups Sandy Pearlman ever signed to his short-lived record label, Popular Metaphysics.
The venue was owned by Hilly Kristal and was known as a forum which introduced artists such as The Ramones, Misfits, Television, the Patti Smith Group, Mink DeVille, The Dead Boys, The Dictators, The Fleshtones, The Voidoids, The Cramps, Blondie, The Shirts, and Talking Heads.
In late 1986, former members of The Dictators, vocalist Richard Manitoba, bassist and songwriter Andy Shernoff, and guitarist Daniel Rey (Rabinowitz), producer for The Ramones, organized to form the band Wild Kingdom.
They signed with Sandy Pearlman (best known for his work with Blue Öyster Cult), who had also produced albums for The Dictators, on his Pearlman's new label, Popular Metaphysics, which was formerly the San Francisco punk label, 415 Records.
The invasion of predominantly Catholic Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939 ignited the conflict and was followed soon after by a Soviet invasion of the Eastern half of Poland, in accordance with an agreement reached between the dictators Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.
Richard Manitoba (Richard Blum, born 1954), American musician with the MC5 and The Dictators