Joe Keithley, aka Joey Shithead, founded legendary punk pioneers D.O.A. in 1978. Punk kings who spread counterculture around the world, they've been cited as influences by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Rancid, and The Offspring, and have toured with The Clash, The Ramones, The Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Nirvana, PiL, Minor Threat, and others, and are the subject of two tribute albums.

But punk is more than a style of music: it's a political act, and D.O.A. have always had a social conscience, having performed in support of Greenpeace, women's rape/crisis centres, prisoner rights, and anti-nuke and anti-globalization organizations. Twenty-five years later D.O.A. can claim sales of more than 500,000 copies of their eleven albums and tours in thirty different countries, and they are still going strong.

I, Shithead is Joe's recollections of a life in punk, starting with a bunch of kids in Burnaby transfixed with the burgeoning punk movement, and traversing a generation disillusioned with the status quo: stories of riots, drinking, travelling, playing, and conquering all manner of obstacles through sheer determination. And through it all, Joe reveals that the famous D.O.A. slogan, talk - action = 0 is, for him, more than a soundbyte.

With an introduction by music producer Jack Rabid, publisher of seminal New York music magazine Big Takeover.

D.O.A.
25 years
3000 shows
500,000 records sold
10 vans
331 tires
30 countries
938,000 miles travelled
28 punch-ups
212,000 beers consumed
9 riots
13 CDs
33 releases
9 lives (not used up yet)
27 busts
15 roadies
12 deaf soundmen

* Voted one of the Top 25 Non-Fiction Books of the Year on Amazon.ca
* National Bestseller
* BC Bestseller

German-language rights sold to IP Verlag; French-language rights sold to Rytrut.

Joe Keithley, lead singer of the seminal punk rock band DOA, is featured prominently in the 2006 feature-length documentary American Hardcore.

Now in its third printing

Joe Keithley, Canada's godfather of punk, is the founder and lead guitarist of the seminal Vancouver punk band D.O.A. He has long been an activist, including as a candidate for the Green Party, and is the founder of Sudden Death Records. He is the author of the autobiography I, Shithead: A Life in Punk and Talk - Action = 0: An Illustrated History of D.O.A. He lives in Vancouver with his wife and their three children.

Joe Keithley's profile page

Jack Rabid's profile page

• Winner, Amazon.ca Best Book of the Year

Joe Keithley, lead singer of the seminal punk rock band DOA, is featured prominently in the new feature-length documentary American Hardcore, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is now in limited release across North America.
-American Hardcore

There are countless other stories told in I,Shithead that will hold any DOA fan's attention for hours on end.
-Reflector

Good stuff about an under-appreciated anarchistic act.
-Booklist