Just read John Doe’s latest writing, Under the Big Black Sun, a history of sorts related to the LA punk scene of the late 70s/early 80s.

We saw him at The Tractor a few weeks ago – great show and they were promoting the book at the show, so got it from the library.

This is an interesting read for a number of reasons – it definitely brings back memories of that time, when those of us not living in LA (nor old enough to be punks in a band anyway) could only observe things from afar through local record stores and mags like The Rocket. It’s also definitely a window into a crazy mishmash of misfits and aspiring musicians, poets and outcasts seeking their own kind of community, with vignettes written by many others in the scene besides Doe (Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Gos, Henry Rollins of Black Flag, Mike Watt from The Minutemen (whom we saw at the Tractor last year, too) – the list goes on. Finally, to me it was a bit eye-opening to all the drug and alcohol abuse that seemed to accompany the scene, at least according to the book. It’s obvious that sort of thing goes with the territory – but does it have to? Being on the outside I guess makes that a bit hard to relate to.

In any event, X has always been a fave band since that time, and they were one of, if not the first, band I saw play live. This book only serves to continue their legacy for both LA punks then and since – and is a love letter to all longtime fans. Thanks, John Doe.

So watched the second Decline of Western Civilization movie – Part II, ‘the metal years’ Sat. afternoon.  Fairly mixed-to-negative reactions, however.

Unlike the first (punk) one, this one is about metal.  But also unlike the first one – most of it is completely LAME BANDS!  The saving grace of of this movie is Ozzy and arguably, Megadeth (last band you see perform, at the very end).  Ozzy is quite funny, pretty much the same type of interview as seen with the Germs guy in the first one – he’s at his house, making breakfast – not sure if it was staged or not but he can’t hit a glass with the orange juice to save his life – but he’s a complete realist about his lifestyle, and says it’s pretty hard work, in addition to thanking his wife (was Sharon his wife even back then?) for handling all the business stuff.

Most of the bands in this movie I (thankfully then or since) have never heard of, save for Poison, who were pretty much a flash in the pan – but far more than the rest of these lameass bands.   First, WHY did they devote at least half an hour to a stupid faux-striptease contest from some lame ‘rock club‘ on the hollywood strip?  That was even stupider than the lame bands?

Second, i’ve heard more than enough (to last several thousand lifetimes) of how much Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons get laid.  WFC?  I sure don’t.  I can’t *completely* slam them, based on Geddy Lee’s commentary from the Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage DVD I watched some months ago – but still – KISS are the cheesiest, most cynical and best-marketed band of all time – too bad about the music.

It’s interesting because by the end of the movie, on the one hand you’ve seen plenty of lame stuff (which hasn’t aged well at all, given the 30 years in between) but on the other hand, when they are asking all these different people what they want to do, whether they’ll make it, etc. – they all answer the same thing – this is what I want to do, I’m ‘going’ to make it, etc. – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing – maybe their motivations for doing so (chicks, money, etc.) you can slam, but the naive belief in their own abilities isn’t up for criticism – this is something to admire in its own way.  When they concentrated on that aspect, it was quite cool.

But to me, the movie implies that Megadeth are essentially the ‘purists’ (and to some degree, Lemmy from Motorhead, although his interview bits are extremely short clips and you wouldn’t really know who the heck he was if you didn’t know of him from outside the movie) – Megadeth seem to disavow all the stupid motivations of the earlier bands, and while they certainly have demons of their own, they seem to be the ‘purest’ type of band shown here.  Maybe the filmmakers were trying to show that not ALL metal bands are lame, cynical and complete cheese – not sure.

Finally – not sure whether it was a factor of other, bigger metal bands not actually living in Los Angeles or not, but where were some of the OTHER real bands of the era?  E.g. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest – heck even Van Halen (who *do* still live in L.A. to this day)?  Even the sequences with Ozzy were too short by comparison.  They could have done more with him and Lemmy and left out half the other crap – why they didn’t show performances from either of them?  Dunno.

In the end, this movie is *far* too much about ‘the 3 b’s‘ and not near enough about the music.  The punk one was much more about the music and far more real to me than this one.  On balance – watch the punk one, don’t bother with this.

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So in continuing to regularly patronize ‘mecca’ (Scarecrow Video) here in Seattle, one of the coolest things about this place is that they have some of the rarest movies out there you can find. Meaning if you still have a VCR laying around, you’re in biz – that’s me.

Back in the formative years (los ochentas) I liked some punk bands like X, but never got the chance to see the defining punk ‘documentary’ – The Decline of Western Civilization. This is a hard movie to find, and has yet to make it to DVD – but Scarecrow has a well-used copy.

I mainly wanted to see it for the bands X and Fear, but the Black Flag, Germs and Circle Jerks segments were interesting too. The other bands in it – meh, I ff’d past much of them. Between the various stage performances, they talked to most of the bands in person, or at their apartment, or what they called living space (Black Flag was living in a burned-out Baptist church, which also doubled for practice space – the singer said his closet (literally) was $16 a month).

It’s weird to see X so young – we saw them a year or two ago at The Showbox and with the exception of Fishbone shows in the past – I have never seen a tighter band. They pretty much play everything exactly like when I saw them about 25 years ago at Portland’s Starry Night.

Fear’s set (they don’t talk to them directly) begins with Lee Ving taunting the crowd quite intensely – kind of weird given that most punk bands *play* out of control, but didn’t seem to put on the a-hole act like Fear does here. Most of the crowd is either yelling expletives at them or spitting on them – pretty wild. And one woman practially gets beat up as they provoke her so much it takes about 5-6 bouncers to keep her off the stage and from attacking Lee Ving, the main instigator. But then they rip out several signature songs, and the movie’s over.

There are other random short interviews at the start and near the end with random punks (boys and girls – these aren’t men and women yet) whose outlook seems pretty bleak, although self-confident. But that’s the Reagan years in L.A. for you – every man for himself.

I guess this movie isn’t so much a documentary as it is a series of shows and interviews – more a sampling of the L.A. punk scene at the very start of the 80s (because punk, and many of these bands, got going in the late 70s, it had already been around a while by the time of this movie). I liked the show, and the wild abandon of the shows – I remember a few of those mosh pits, although I tried to stay out of them, that’s for sure! And this movie is WAY, way better than the steaming piece of crap known as ‘1991:The Year Punk Broke’ THAT movie is about the steaming piece of crap (band) known as Sonic Youth, even though the poster billed the movie as about Nirvana when I saw it – that’s 2 hours of my life i’ll never get back….blecch!

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We were lucky enough to see a small screening of the new Fishbone biographical movie, Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone last night. The Central Cinema was hosting movies as part of the currently-running Langston Hughes African American Film Festival.

Having been a *huge* Fishbone fan most of the time I’ve lived in Seattle, I was stoked to hear about this movie several months ago – it came out in a Los Angeles film festival last June, but then only sporadically appeared in very limited showings since. It is now about to debut on DVD, Scarecrow is ordering it, etc. so I’m sure far more people will get to see it as is deserved.

It is a bittersweet tale, and several things are very apparent. Fishbone has been (and remains) a band that really cannot be defined by many/any musical categories. Not only do they combine elements of ska, metal, funk, reggae and other ridiculously diverse influences – but they simply do not compromise in this vision – in many ways to their own detriment. Naturally this works against them as far as Big Money Record Companies go – and there is notable discussion of this throughout the movie as you might expect – but it has also served to limit their audience longer term, unfortunately. As they note several times (directly and indirectly) – it is very weird to be a black band, singing pretty direct lyrics about the black and minority experience in America (beginning in Reagan’s America of the late 80’s when they were all just getting out of high school) and then gaining a predominantly white following? Just another example of the fairly unique (for better or for worse) Fishbone history.

I don’t want to spoil the movie, so I won’t give any more details – even if you don’t know anything about the band or may only vaguely remember them from their earlier approach to (real) stardom – the movie is definitely worth watching and I hope it really serves them to gain more fans because if there’s one band that has paid its dues many hundreds of times over, it’s Fishbone. Not only are they probably THE best band I’ve ever seen live – and I’m not the only one who says that by any means (the concert footage in the movie should help prove THAT – check out YouTube in the meantime) – but they have more talent they’ve forgotten about than most bands will ever understand, let alone come close to having!

There were some minor disappointments in the movie – Laurence Fishburne’s narration is way overbilled – he really doesn’t talk very much on balance and never appears in person – Tim Robbins only says about 2 mins of stuff if that (and John Cusack – WTF?) It was nice to see Flea and the various members of No Doubt pay their respects (because they DO owe Fishbone, big time) but all those bands have made a LOT more money and are predominantly white, pop-heavy bands that really took a lot less risks (and simply had a lot less to risk in the first place)?

I am really glad this movie came out and as noted before, I hope it helps their career, even if Norwood and Angelo are the only two originals left (shout to John Steward – drummer since 1999 – you rule man!) – this is one of the few bands that never compromised and has stayed true through thick and thin. Dr. Madd Vibe – we love ya – keep that Theremin rolling.

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