If your any kind of fan of 80's punk rock/hardcore music this is something you need to check out for a time capsule of a couple of bands in that time period. The documentary follows the bands Social Distortion and Youth Brigade on a tour of the U.S. on a shitty old bus. Everything doesn't go as planned, people fight, the bus breaks down and loud music ensues. Things I learned from this: punk rockers in Canada are extra crazy, you can practice stage diving in a swimming pool and Goth chicks were confused with punkers back in the 80's. My favorite band in this whole thing are Minor Threat who get their microphones taken away but still go on with the show anyway just shouting the lyrics extra loudly with help from their fans. That sorta summed up the whole unity idea to me. Going to any show like this today I can't imagine too many people having as much fun as they did back in these days or even getting into it as much. It all seems like a stupid retro fashion show nowadays but what the hell do I know? Everything looks better when you throw some nostalgia on it. I've never been too much into the idea of group-thinking anyway but I suppose if you have to pick a group to belong to, one that at least espouses the ideal of individuality seems better than some. Then there's a segment with Christian punks that seemed really baffling to that whole idea and made no sense. THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION is a better made film in the same genre with much better bands overall but this one's still worth viewing for a quick snapshot of slamdancin' history.
All that stuff with the swiming pools and the church was shot later. Social Distortion and Youth Brigade were outraged when they saw this films final cut because they originally had much more depressing footage of street punks. Like the ones in Canida but the film makers were not punks and couldnt uderstand why anyone would want a depressing film. So they went out on their own and found cheesy, happy little kids in the suburbs and shot them by their pools.
ReplyDeleteJust a little background.
That makes sense since those scenes do seem pretty out of place.
ReplyDeleteI also read, in that Destroy All Movies book, that at the premiere of this the singer of The Adolescents trashed the projector and ruined the screening. So I guess this movie succeeded in pissing a few people off.
Thats awesome. Yeah I know that a lot of the interviews came later. If you listen to Mike Ness talk about the movie, he just makes fun of all the cheesy kids. He talks about the ones that were real hardcore street kids. Watching his comentary is so funny. He just calls everyone pussy, fat, wimp etc.
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