I finally saw the first Decline of Western Civilization.
Dir. Penelope Spheeris spoke and did a q&a afterwards.
Notes from the movie:
- How much does it take for lyrics to lose their meaning (to the audience and to the singer)? Watching the footage of some of these singers (the Germs, Black Flag) completely drunk and mumbling/stumbling through songs, the lyrics don’t seem important (or intelligible). Are the protest notes that supposedly define punk lost when the words can’t be understood or communicated?
- Bob Biggs (formed Slash Records in 1978 and worked on the fanzine Slash) saying something like “Punk is the last revolution” or the “only revolution for the ’80s.” As a “revolution” what did punk accomplish? Or was it, literally, “a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing”?
- Kickboy Face (worked at Slash and was in the band Catholic Discipline) saying something about how it feels like “everyone’s groovin on different planes.”
- why the homophobia and racism?… and is it class-ist too? is punk really the music for the lost, broke white kid? or was it/is it for the middle class white kid who just wants out of suburbia? (on that note, see Suburbia to see what else Spheeris has to say)
- I like the kid who talks about why people go to punk shows and get in fights—all that pent-up anger. He’s apparently a folk singer now. [Oh, and the singer for Fear is a lounge singer now. Spheeris says, stay tuned for the DVD for more where-are-they-now tidbits.]
Q&A
- The interviewer, probably in his late 50s, mentioned going to these shows in ’79/’80 and looking for the protest because he’d heard this was protest music and he thought he could relate because he came from a generation of protest. He couldn’t find it. (he realized later the problem: he was looking for a different kind of protest.)
- Apparently one of the first times the movie screened, someone in the audience stood up during q&a and asked, “How dare you glorify these kids?” and Spheeris said she actually stood there and thought, “Did I do something wrong?”
- Decline III is mostly about survival, so not so much political protest
- I like the meta-moment when she stopped the man leading the q&a and said, “you’re such a good interviewer…asking the right questions”
- she talked about feelings of selling out (not in so many words, but that’s what it was) and how “Wayne’s World killed my career” because it brought success, but mainstream success and the things she wanted to do got lost/left behind.
- Q: “Now when you look at bands like Green Day and other ‘punk’ bands that have done so well. Was there any implication or allusion by the musicians then to an expectation or desire of future success?” A: No. they didn’t want to be part of the rest of the world.
etc.
- my brother recently wrote a paper on Dada and Punk rock. to summarize and simplify his thesis: They both failed in their attempts of revolution.
- Need to be defined: revolution & failure
- Revolution—what are they trying to revolutionize, society as a whole. just their parts of it? art and art only?
- Failure—did nothing change? Did they accomplish something just not what they wanted? when and why did punk fail? can we always find a “where it all went wrong” moment? (see also: Los Angeles Plays Itself)
- special note (quote from his paper): Members of punk culture spread news and ideas (musical or otherwise) through pervasive and sometimes anonymous fanzines. These “fanzines served as a forum for the exchange of philosophical ideas within the punk community.” They were filled with articles about the “punk aesthetic and its relationship to society as a whole” as well as punk humor, which served to foster cohesion to the punk counterculture. (Tricia Henry. Break All Rules! Punk Rock and the Making of a Style. London: UMI Research Press, 1989, p. 111) tell me more about this “punk humor”
and future reading (his bibliography in part):
- Anscombe, Isabelle and Blair, Dike. Punk. New York: Urizen Books, 1978.
- Hamelman, Steven L. But is it Garbage? On Rock and Trash. London: The University of Georgia Press, 2004.
- Laing, Dave. One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1985.
- Marcus, Greil. Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.
- O’Hara, Craig. The Philosophy of Punk: More than Noise!. San Francisco: AK Press, 1999.
- Pegrum, Mark A. Challenging Modernity: Dada between Modern and Postmodern. New York: Berghahn Books, 2000.
- Richter, Hans. Dada: Art and Anti-Art. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2001.
- Sabin, Roger. Punk Rock: So What? The Cultural Legacy of Punk. New York: Routledge, 1999
[event details]_________________
Thursday, March 15, 7:30pm
FREE
Making It: The First Feature Series @
James Bridges Theater/Melnitz Hall [directions]
on the UCLA campus
* Q & A with Director Penelope Spheeris to follow screening
A documentary focusing on the American Punk movement of the 1970s and ’80s. This film features interviews with punk bands and offers unintentionally funny commentary on the underground movement. Accompanied by music, this quirky piece offers a glance at the roots of American punk. With Alice Bag Band, Black Flag, Catholic Discipline, Circle Jerks, Fear, Germs, and X.
“Intercuts remarkably candid and interesting interviews with concert footage of various Los Angeles punk bands. The material has been assembled with skill, wit and detachment, as it aims to depict the punk scene as even-handedly as possible…fresh and telling.” – Janet Maslin, New York Times
March 20th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
I wish I still had the books and i’d look more into the punk humor (i don’t remember which books talked about the humor, to be honest) but ya. I was meaning to look more in detail at the whole thing. And that wasnt exactly my thesis, i guess it wasn’t clear. I was more getting at the irony of a movement so opposed to culture and so defined against “normal” actually re-presenting and reinforcing that culture, ultimately becoming a part of it. Essentially (from my perspective) you can’t escape culture, and even though you can change and affect it, sub or countercultures still constitute the common culture. And on another note, it’s very hard to classify any cultural system because it’s all so related (even though some might try to deny it). cases in point: people who think punk is/isn’t dead. rock is/isn’t dead. rock is different and/or the same as rock ‘n’ roll. And that’s where finding a “where it all went wrong” moment or even clear revolutionary aims becomes difficult… Every group and statement has it’s own context and meaning, goals, and aims. And elitist attempts to pigeonhole groups categories and movements largely miss their true value and influence.
And as for the loss of communication if the words cannot be understood. I’d hafta go with no on the grounds that the meaning is largely fixed in the setting, people, dress, opinions, thoughts, and actions largely free from the actual auditory channel. There’s so much other protest-signifing symbols. I’d assume those presents still see the events as rebellious in nature. Beyond that (and perhaps more importantly) the drunken slurring might itself be an even more rebellious (punk, as it were) act in nature than saying the actual world.