Death Is Their Destiny (1978)

A short doc (made in the year I got into punk) with a fake "establishment" voiceover that focuses on the King's Road/Chelsea punks so expect a large fashion overload. I never really understood the whole bondage trousers and destroy shirt crap. Straight-leg jeans, bumper boots, t-shirt and plaid shirt did me fine.

Available for free on BFI Player.

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The Punk Kebab Documentary (1978)

An excellent and fun, short punk doc/fantasy with a really nice Jamie Reid style title sequence. Worth watching if only for seeing Shane MacGowan (The Nipple Erectors/The Nips) with a sheep on a lead outside Buckingham Palace. Live track by The Maniacs. Think Julien Temple crossed with Carry-On.

Available for free on BFI Player.

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Green Room (2015)

As soon as the band opened to a crowd of boneheads with Nazi Punks Fuck Off (been in that situation) I knew this was going to be fun.

Righteous!

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Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982)

The Runaways sing Kimya Dawson

People tend to focus on Diane Lane but how about some cheers for Stains guitarist Marin Kanter who went on to appear in Kathryn Bigelow's early and underrated biker flick The Loveless.

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The Fall: The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith (2005)

The egotistical, crunchy, intelligent, vindictive, contrary, petty, abrasive, sharp, grumpy, charming, stupid, nasty, repetitive and utterly brilliant world of Mark E. Smith. A wonderful arsehole and this documentary has reminded me that I really need to replace my Fall records.

"I don't know whether he's killing them or what?" -- John Peel, on the large number of past Fall members

Letterboxd Review

Records Collecting Dust (2015)

A cool little documentary that I've been waiting to be released for ages. Well they're offering it for free download this weekend (2015-09-05 to 2015-09-06).

The doc's digs through the record collections of some of the greats of punk, hardcore and metal and asks about the sounds they grew up listening to, the records that influenced them and the stores they bought them in. For just under an hour we get to listen to some musical heroes of mine including:

• Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys)
• Keith Morris (Black Flag/Circle Jerks/OFF!)
• Clifford Dinsmore (Bl'ast)
• Nick Oliveri (Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age)
• Mike Watt (Minutemen)
• Justin Pearson (The Locust)
• Greg Anderson (sunn o))))
• Matt Pike (Sleep)
• Chuck Dukowski (Black Flag/Würm)
• Mike Neider (Bl'ast)
• Kira Roessler (Black Flag)

There are a couple of issues though. The first is that, due to copyright and expense, we don't get to hear any of the records chosen. Secondly, the doc contains three promo clips of artists featured in the film. There doesn't seem to be any reason for this apart from shameless self-promotion, and leading the pack is, rather obviously, Jello Biafra with a clip of his latest band that lasts 2:35. Considering his sound-bite contributions total 3:53 in a film of just 53 minutes (excluding title and credits) I can't help come to the conclusion that Jello is still a bit of a dick. Personally I would have preferred it of they'd left him out no matter how much of a DK fan I am.

The doc is interesting, doesn't outstay its welcome and it's always a treat to listen to Keith Morris and Mike Watt - I could quite happily hear them waffle on all day.

The whole film reminded me of a store that I used to buy from when I was a kid. There was a crazy golf course beside a beach that, for some odd reason, had an attached record shop. The floor was always covered in sand, the record sleeves had a coating of sea-salt and my mate's brother (who once threw a dart into my forehead) lived out the back in a shed. Ah, those were the days.

Anyway, it's a cool documentary which should have had some cool music in it and it features a dickhead. Oh, and my god, Chuck Dukowski looks old!

To fit in with the doc, here's my first music purchases:

First music ever bought: Glen Campbell's Greatest Hits on tape, probably sometime in '77. It was the only thing I could afford locally and I'd never even heard of him before. I still love Wichita Lineman. That year my gran also bought me a David Soul cassette because I liked Starsky & Hutch! Before this I did what every kid did - taped Top of the Pops on a portable cassette recorder.

First LP: Star Wars by The Sonic All-Stars, in '78. Again, all I could afford. Bought from Woolworths.

First 7" singles: The Sex Pistols - The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle / Blondie - Union City Blue. Both with my birthday money in '79. These were the records that, for me, really started it all, even though the Sex Pistols' single is terrible and most people would never even consider it a true Pistols record.






Letterboxd Review

The Punk Singer (2013)

A terrific, honest and lively biog of Kathleen Hanna, singer of Bikini Kill, feminist activist and all round good-egg. Made with Kathleen's full cooperation and it shows; unlike so many biogs this one is choc full of current interviews with the subject about many subjects including her bands, feminism, the riot grrrl movement and, at the weepiest part, Lime disease and how Kathleen coped with not performing for many years.

Other contributors include: Joan Jett, Carrie Brownstein, Adam Horovitz, Kim Gordon, Kathi Wilcox and Jennifer Baumgardner.

I sat down and watched this with my 13 year old daughter and she loved it. I think it's important for girls to have great positive role models and who, in this age when girls look up to women like Beyonce and Rihanna, could be better than Kathleen Hanna?

Girls to the front!

Original letterboxd review