Classic punk songs can be heard on commercials for cars, fast food, and Target.
Chain stores in shopping malls sell pre-ripped clothing, band t-shirts, spiked wristbands and hair gel.
But it wasnt always that way.
The kids who were punks thirty years ago would be locked up today as potential school shooters.
Punks were also walking cartoon characters and perhaps the most easily exploitable subculture of the 70s and 80s.
I was in a short-lived band called The Pain Amplifiers and somehow ended up being G.G.
Allins press secretary when he was in prison.
My attitude hasnt much improved, though.
Quite a few of those same punks then went out and made films of their own.
It really was an all-purpose scene.
That quickly became very confusing, so I thought what the fuck?
and mashed them all together into one big list.
So I chose a smaller number and lopped it off.
I wasnt able to include everything that belongs here, but you get the idea.
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She also loves Elvis and the Sex Pistols, lecturing truckers about both endlessly over the CB.
Well, on the bright side at least its a little more coherent thanThe Last Movie.
Hell plays Billy, an East Village punk in 1978 whose band bears a striking resemblance to the Voidoids.
When a beautiful French journalist begins documenting his career, they get involved.
Trouble is, she already has another boyfriend in New York.
None of that matters, and to be honest its all pretty tedious and uninteresting.
And that, much more than Hells acting ability, is what makes the film worth watching.
Easy, just look at the core of the story.
The Nazis dont really help matters.
In protest he decides to remain a child forever.
Although his mind continues to develop normally, he wills his body to stop growing at age three.
With those two weapons at his disposal he wages his own war on society.
The question isnt Whats punk aboutThe Tin Drum?
The question is What ISNT punk aboutThe Tin Drum?
When it was originally released,Liquid Skywas all the rage.
There were wacky characters everywhere you turned speaking wacky dialogue.
And oh, the fashions!
All those shoulder pads and skinny ties!
Simply watching the film was a consciousness altering experience.
Well, it wasnt long before everyone forgot about it.
It was just a little too self-conscious.
Thats another way to consider it.
Still, for what it is and when it was made, it remains significant.
Its a goofy apocalyptic musical live-action cartoon.
Theres not much use getting into the plot.
But the film is all about the visuals, which are intensely and intentionally artificial.
Its oddly captivating, strange, and funny as hell.
Given the cast, you really have to wonder what kinds of drugs were flowing around that set.
The last of these was this revenge comedy thats much lighter than a description might lead you to believe.
Coxs film was grittier and nastier and funnier, as well as a drunken, incoherent mess.
Spheeris has done better.
Great soundtrack, though.
For what it is, its very good.
Its a bit limited that way.
Worse in my book, theres nary a single mention of anything that was happening between the two coasts.
It was in the Midwest that things got weird and all the bands didnt sound the same.
But thats just a personal gripe.
Well, no its not.
But you want to consider us a threat?
The chief punk sums up their philosophy this way: Life is pain.
You will know pain (which, yeah, was pretty on the mark).
In a very early role, Michael J.
Come to think of it now, maybe that was Lesters social message.
The results have become legendary.
All you have to do is say The Cramps video and people know what youre talking about.
They lumber about, hop arrhythmically to the music, stare, and scream.
A female patient gets so worked up she tackles Lux Interior.
Thinking about it now, I guess it wasnt that different from a few real shows I attended.
My only question is, who the hell on the hospital administrative staff gave the green light to this?
Most all of them, though, were, simply put, just plain god-awful.
They were made with no budgets, no production values, sub-amateur actors, and often almost no equipment.
Yes, they used that name seriously and were able to talk about it with a straight face.
The idea was to put images onscreen that were as shocking as possible.
They were nevertheless an important side reflection of the mindset and the times.
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Cafe Flesh (1982)
Okay, so its a porn film.
Theres no getting around the fact that its a porn film.
But its apunkporn film.
Beyond that its an arty, dystopian porn film with a sci-fi storyline and a grim, seedy atmosphere.
And here, as on a couple of Sayadians other films (Night DreamsandDr.
Caligari) things are elevated considerably by a script written by screenwriter and bestselling author Jerry Stahl.
These arent the kind of typical, tedious sex scenes you find in most porn.
There are a few storylines that develop within the crowd of Negatives, but thats neither here nor there.
Its a chilly and bleak dark comedy, and how often can you say that about a porn film?
Not many, it seems.
And as The Sayer of the Law, Bela Lugosis repeated and hopeless refrain, Are we not men?
became the title of DEVOs first album.
If you think about it, it makes sense in punk terms, right?
I guess its the movies.
Cool soundtrack though, with OConner doing all her own singing.
Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Yes, well, weve seen that before.
Im awful glad this didnt happen, though, as then Idve been forced to shoot my TV.
Then it goes to hell and ends with a music video.
A year after this was released, an LA hardcore band started calling themselves The Stains.
As her crimes intensify, so does her fame and notoriety.
), then pulls out a gun and kills the audience.
Its all a hell of a lot more punk rock than most punk documentaries can claim.
Fifteen years afterFemale Troublewas released, G.G.
He even gave the exact date this would happen.
Hated: G.G.
When her boyfriend intervened, GG smashed a Jim Beam bottle and carved the guys chest open.
Yes, thats pretty much what the GG Allin experience was all about.
It was really something.
Not long after that show, someone did press charges and GG ended up in prison for a stretch.
The resulting doc is ugly, nasty, funny, sad, and…well did I mention ugly?
What made it sad for me was GGs own interview segments.
He recites his revolutionary slogans by rote, without any real conviction left.
It strikes me that after a decade of abusing himself in public hed simply grown tired of the shtick.
He took it all deadly seriously, but by this point hed become a cliche and a clown.
Philips then went on to directThe Hangoverand make a bazillion dollars pandering to the mainstream.
Even Malcolm McClaren gets off easy here.
As big a Pistols fan as I am I have no patience whatsoever for the film.
They were manipulated, cheated, robbed, then hung out to dry by their supposed impresario.
He also conducts the contemporary interviews with the four band members in shadow.
We never see their faces (which are looking pretty haggard these days, gotta say).
Its oddly touching and sad, especially considering he was once the most dangerous man on the planet.
Does this make me a bad person?
Add Roger Cormans name as producer and things just get better.
Well, at least as long as the opening credits roll.
After that things go straight down the crapper.
The squatters dont really do much.
At least one small pretentious slice of it.
What are those?).
It was all an issue of production design, costuming, and makeup.
The films overwhelming environment, both desolate and claustrophobic, becomes foreground as much as it does inSoylent Green.
It was an exercise in punks fundamental do-it-yourself philosophy.
What could be more inspirational and positive than that?
Its not long before things start going all Spinal Tap, but without the jokes.
Theres no money left for food, and everyone starts getting on everyone elses nerves.
As troubles mount, members of the road crew (and later the bands) start abandoning the tour.
At one point the filmmaker asks the idealistic Youth Brigade frontman, what about unity?
and he replies, If youre hungry there is no unity.
You cant be fed on unity.
In many ways the verite doc is not that different from countless other rock band on the road docs.
The most honest portrayal of the early 80s scene out there.
You also saw plenty ofClockwork Oranget-shirts.
I mean, what the fuck was the deal with that mime gang anyway?
What the hell were they going to do against the Baseball Furies?
I mean, my MOM liked the Ramones!
And did we really need to see that painful rap video Dee Dee released?
Okay, yes of course we did, but thats beside the point.
What other youth subcult would want to party in a graveyard?
And what other soundtrack (with The Cramps and 45 Grave) could offer so many songs about corpses?
The end result was an eternal cult film.
Scorsese madeThe Color of Moneyand Monte Hellman signed ontoSilent Night, Deadly Night 3for the same reason.
But who can guess how people think?
Sideshow freaks are of course the perfect romantic punk analogy.
I wonder if Browning wouldve taken any comfort in that, given the film destroyed his career.
Its also funny as fuck.
I mean, these kids obviously care nothing at all about human life!
Not their own or anyone elses!
Eraserhead (1978)
Eraserheadprobably sold more t-shirts than evenA Clockwork Orange.
So what was the deal?
In fact Henry was a nervous, uncomfortable schlub.
There was the hair, sure, that helped.
So did Henrys lonely, hapless schlubbiness, as thats how most of us felt at heart.
But the key toEraserheads importance, likeBlade Runners, is atmosphere.
At least I couldnt.
That was the world I wanted to wake up in every morning (and did for a while).
It was a film that out weirded and out-grossed the punks themselves, and made normal peoples brains hurt.
That was just dandy.
To my mind at the time it was a picture with absolutely everything.
For all its timeliness, for its inescapable sense of era, its a film that never gets old.
And Tracey Walter, dammit, is right about absolutely everything.
What, I ask you, could possibly be better than that?
Even if Riff Randall, rock n roller (P.J.
Soles) doesnt look much like any punk chick I ever knew, Im perfectly willing to accept it.
The first was Ronald Reagan.
There was even a specifically designated subgenre of hardcore songs known as Fuck You, Ronnie songs.
He was the perfect demon, a living symbol of everything we hated.
Without him wedve been lost.
The other was Gods Lonely Man himself, Travis Bickle.
He was everything we imagined we were, and everything we wanted to be.
And like Bickle, we wanted to kill everyone.
Instead I latched onto Elisha Cook, Jr., who seemed a more realistic role model.
