Johnny Green, at twenty-seven a footloose slacker who loved punk rock, stumbled into being a roadie for the Sex Pistols, then tripped again into a job pushing around sound equipment for the Clash and driving their beat-up van to performances in the mean, industrial towns of England. The disaffected youth from these towns and cities anointed the Clash as their spokesmen and made the group famous in the late 1970s.

The band had more fans than it had sense or money, was always at the mercy of managers and agents, and always looking for "shag" (women), booze, and "spliff" (drugs). That is where Johnny Green comes in, good at getting all three for them, good at getting them psyched to go on stage, good at getting them bailed out of jail, and good at sneaking out of wrecked hotel rooms without paying. When the Clash conquered America, bringing with them their bad habits and great music, Green and the band burned out after their third too-long tour of the USA.

Written in a tell-it-as-it-was style and accompanied by contemporaneous drawings by Ray Lowry, who tagged along with the Clash on their last American tour as official "war artist", A Riot of Our Own pierces the heart of the culture and music of punk rock and the people who lived it.