We want to hear it. Yellowstone: The Hidden Propaganda in Television and Movies, How to Cultivate a Marriage That Will Help Your Child Succeed. Factory has a reputation for putting out comprehensive and well thought out packages, and this Decline of Western Civilization box set is no exception. That was just one situation. I knew it was going to be just soul-searching psychologically freaking out., Fox ultimately convinced her mom to do the soul-searching work by giving her an ultimatum. The film's title is possibly a reference to music critic Lester Bangs' 1970 two-part review of . Growing up a punk rock kid in a small or at least smallish town, Penelope Spheeris 1981 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, chronicling the early Los Angeles scene, served as a de facto history text book. It was almost like I was on my deathbed and I was watching my life flash before me, she said of watching the old footage. Then, just as Newlydeads was starting to take off, we got offered a new record deal for Faster. I wasnt sure, at the end of Chriss interview, that I even had an interview but, you know, it wasnt me that gave him the vodka. While his band, Tuff, never made it to the very top of the Sunset Strip food chain, Rachelles can-do attitude helped him weather the hard times of the 90s. Everybody always thinks its a rights issue as to why the films arent out there but it wasnt, Spheeris said. I found guys like Chris Holmes of W.A.S.P. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Black radical activist Congresswoman from Houston has introduced a bill in the House that would criminalize thought crimes, and in particular it would criminalize sites like The Occidental Observer, but also the much more mainstream Tucker Carlson. Sure, the film gave London a huge push. Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. Last night I saw The Decline of Western Civilization at Cornell Cinema (everybody, go support your campus movie theater). "I have to keep the subject matter top secret because otherwise I'm vulnerable to other people trying to do something similar," she says, adding that it will be music-themed. The arrival of "The Decline of Western Civilization Collection" as a pristine extras-filled box set from Shout Factory this week is to budding punks what a new "Star Wars" movie is to . PopMatters is wholly independent, women-owned and operated. 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The cut- and-paste editing, harsh lighting and seat-of-the-pants production that made the first film's technique a perfect reflection of its content have been replaced by MTV-era aesthetics. There is no future in mind for anyone here. Strip away the glam, theres little else. June 16, 2015 . I cant go on Google and look at myself. Her experiences on The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II would bear fruit when she went on to direct blockbuster comedy Wayne's World. Musicians interviewed include Keith Morris (Black Flag, Circle Jerks) and Flea (Fear, Red Hot Chili Peppers). They were looking for a David Lee Roth, Vince Neil type, which I was. The Decline of Western Civilization is a 1981 American documentary filmed through 1979 and 1980. The Decline of Western Civilization Part III: In the third of the Decline films, director Penelope Spheeris revisits the punk scene she illuminated in her first Decline film. But its Part II on which the series legend is built as well as that of the dying days of the Hollywood scene. And then the grunge thing happened. The medieval world was forged by the big forces that still occupy us today: climate change, pandemic disease, mass . In the late 1990s it was released on CD as well. He traces it to the denial by William of Ockham in the late Middle Ages of the existence of transcendent ideas. The Decline of Western Civilization III is a 1998 documentary film, directed by Penelope Spheeris, that chronicles the gutter punk lifestyle of homeless teenagers. Penelope Spheeris rounds out her Decline of Western Civilization trilogy with this in depth look at the lives of self-proclaimed 'gutter punks,' homeless punk rockers that squat in abandoned homes or sleep on the streets, panhandle or steal, and live lives of alcoholism and drug addiction. By K.E. Well be doing that big Cathouse Live show at Irvine Meadows that Riki is puttin together. It was supposed to be on the Sunday, but Penelope called me Saturday morning and goes: Can you film it today, Chris? I go: I been up for three days, partying since I got home from London. And she goes: Well, do you mind? And I go: No. And right when I was goin out the door, my mom pulled up. But what people remember is that our singer [Randy O] said hed kill himself if he didnt get as big as Led Zeppelin, but that was the mind-set of the time: Im gonna do this no matter what. And we were very young. We were young and stupid but, no, we didnt always hang out in a hot tub. Theres also a commentary track from Spheeris, as well as additional commentary from Foo Fighters and Nirvanas Dave Grohl. As stand-alone documents, they respectively capture the nascent aggression of California hardcore, the poofed-hair pomp of Hollywood heavy metal and the squalor of life as a gutter punk. She laughs. In a way, you can look at Decline II as the research and then Waynes World as the final product. Germs singer Darby Crash appears on the soundtrack album cover. Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox! We were the number-three video with I Hate Kissing You Goodbye in September 1991, but right around then Nirvana released Smells Like Teen Spirit. But it remained unreleased on DVD until it finally got a long-deserved reissue as part of a box set with its less boneheaded predecessor, The Decline Of Western Civilisation Part I (which dealt with LAs punk scene) and the belated third part, which addressed Americas homeless youth. And still, others question the assumption behind the question and maintain that the . I couldnt see any point in sitting round writing the same thing again. Cause alot of people here had the answers to your questions. Essaying the pop culture that matters since 1999. The promoter said we didnt have to play, so we just hung out and played basketball. She means it, man, and the saddest part is that she's . So I came up with this idea for a website called Metal Sludge, where we would make fun of the eighties, a very affectionate piss-take. READ MORE:Sorry, Ladies: Study on Women in Film and Television Confirms the Worst, Penelope Spheeris, the films director, has a less romantic way of explaining the movies thriving underground market: theft. Filmmaker Penelope Spheeris looks back as her L.A. rock trilogy readies itself for a box-set reissue. Roberts / November 7, 2016. Taime Downe: When Faster Pussycat started, Mtley and Ratt had already taken off, and newer bands like Poison were playing the Strip. She first got the idea for The Decline of Western Civilization . So then I had an amazing time hangin out with Ronnie and the boys. I want to go but my brain cant tell my body to move. Ideas Have Consequences, by Richard Weaver. The Decline of Western Civilization Part III, coming after Spheeris foray into mainstream filmmaking, directing the likes of Waynes World, Black Sheep, and The Little Rascals, is easily the heaviest of the trio. Hamburger died in 1999 or 2000, I believe. They escaped to the streets, to rampant alcohol abuse in most cases, and to punk rock as a means of survival. The Decline of Western Civilization comes across as much more authentic than many documentaries with similar aims. I now have two children, I still do twenty to thirty shows a year with Tuff, and I play with a band out of Germany called Shameless. Starting decades ago, many people, especially in the universities, lost faith in the Western civilization narrative. Stay up to date with in depth music reviews, exclusive interviews and widespread coverage of whats happening from your favourite music genre. Fox, too, is working on a documentary inspired by painful family historySpheeris dad, a carnie, was murdered while protecting a black man in the Southbut the racially-charged subject matter might be more relevant than ever. The Decline of Western Civilization: Directed by Penelope Spheeris. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. In fact, the Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates banned the film from screening in LA after its midnight premiere in 1981. The director . This was your primer, your roadmap to being an outsider. at the Frida Cinema, 305 E. Fourth St., Santa Ana; thefridacinema.org. I was never happy in W.A.S.P. Ancient Greece. Being on stage in Tuff was a licence to kill, as far as getting girls. Featuring interviews with established bands like Poison, as well as acts like Odin, Lizzy Borden, Faster Pussycat, and others struggling to break through and find mainstream success, The Metal Years is a portrait of excess. Every day the staff of Intellectual Takeout come to work eager to do their part to restore and improve our great nation. Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, All in all, this is a fantastic box set, well worth picking up if youre a devotee of the films and want to really dig into them, or if youre just a fan of left-of-center music documentaries. Many of the film . They stopped teaching it, and the great cultural transmission belt broke. Interviews with leading film and TV creators about their process and craft. Eyeball is rad and so is Troll. Filmmaker Penelope Spheeris looks back as her L.A. rock trilogy readies itself for a box-set reissue. This article about a music-related documentary film is a stub. I remember a show in Ohio, we played for free and two people came. Now on the homecoming stretch of this summers promotional tour, which included theatrical screenings across the country, Spheeris, 69, is mostly relievedshe no longer has to revisit long-forgotten footage of her goofy outfits with these funky hairdos she saidbut shes also deeply apologetic to her fans. At best, they think theyll be exactly where they are now: homeless, broke, spanging for money to buy beer, waiting to die. What happened to squid from decline of Western civilization? Spheeris: "Some people are put off by that, they don't get the joke, they don't get that it was totally tongue in cheek. Lizzie Grey: London became like a launching pad for rock stars. But where are they now? This feels legitimately dangerous a way that not many movies do, and it captures the sense of outrage and dissatisfaction that drew so many people to punk rock in the first place, looking for somewhere to belong, to be heard. There was as much going on in the street as there was inside the clubs. Eyeball is rad and so is Troll. Takes on Hollywoods Bias Against Women Directors (and Women Directors Respond). The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, "With "20,000 Leagues," the National Film Registry Reaches 700", "Complete National Film Registry Listing", The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Decline_of_Western_Civilization&oldid=1139989286, Documentary films about punk music and musicians, United States National Film Registry films, Album articles lacking alt text for covers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 17 February 2023, at 22:01. I said Id end up on Skid Row if we didnt make it. See Roger Kimballs 1986 review in the New Criterion here. . But between their notorious on-screen appearance in a hot tub and the films release, the band had broken up, with guitarist Jeff Duncan going on to join LA metal linchpins Armored Saint, of which hes still a member. I love you, Chris.. She was held in L.A. county for awhile but was acquitted for self defense as a domestic abuse survivor. Each disc has its own collection of bonus features. The movie got so much publicity that it couldnt have hurt anybodys careers. She said: Only if you do the Decline box set first. She hung around the LA music scene, she was very familiar with the clubs and the people, and so she knew there was an audience, a huge appetite, out there for those films. I know. 1999-2021 PopMatters Media, Inc. All rights reserved. '", Spheeris says that she's working on a fourth Decline film with her daughter, Anna Fox. But it caused all kinds of problems. Oshkosh, Wisconsin-born Steven Hanseter was a teenage skater who grew up on punk rock, before Mtley Cre provided his Road To Hair Metal Damascus moment and he rechristened himself Stevie Rachelle. And we faked the spilling of the orange juice. There were two follow ups: 1988s The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years and 1998s The Decline of Western Civilization Part III. At the insistence of her daughter, Anna Fox, who has stayed in touch with many of the subjects in her mothers films, Spheeris undertook an intensive two-year process of digging up and editing archival footage, restoring the movies and shopping for a distributor. [3] Decline III was also released separately via streaming video. The Decline of Western Civilization includes never-before-seen footage, new interviews, and even performances that didnt make the original cut. This is the roughest watch of the trilogy as it . Johnny is a music journalist, author and archivist of forty years experience. Four years ago I told my daughter Anna that I wanted her to come and work for me. That one cost five-hundred thousand. The film involves gutter punks who take the anti-establishment message with extreme seriousness and tune out society completely. A look into the Los Angeles punk rock scene, that was largely ignored by the rock music press of the time. For a lot of fans, the most exciting part of the Decline set is Part III, which documents homeless squatter-punks dealing with violence, addiction, and death. The collection, which has been restored using 2K technology and includes commentary from Dave Grohl, extended interviews and more, marks the first time the films have been made available officially on DVD. When 19-year- old Spoon says this a half hour into "The Decline of Western Civilization, Part III," she isn't indulging in punk posturing. 1912: The Republic of China - Fueled by western-educated revolutionary Sun Yat-Sen, the Xinhai . "Let me just say I think it's gonna be kind of jaw-dropping.". Powers and Thrones takes readers on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West, and culminates in the first European voyages to the Americas. Crash died from a heroin-induced suicide shortly before the film was released (the poster was designed before his death). Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! My vice was women. Wed had a ten-year run, but by 1995 we were playing to forty people some nights. Of all the bands to emerge from the Sunset Strip of the 80s, few had as many future superstars as London members of Guns N Roses and Cinderella passed through. Now we tour at least three months out of every year. This is a carousel. I went to school with the guys from Alice In Chains. By the time The Cathouse was up and running we were off, constantly touring. Murray added, "Sometimes, empathy isn't . 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I go: The closest person to you, theres a chance he might screw you over. They look at me like Im nuts. A lot of those guys are my friends, theyve either died or have moved on to something similar but better in life. 'OK, cool, let's go get some beer. But three decades later, Duke TV has shot a sequel pool interview (conducted by Holmes's wife, Sarah) with the now-sober, 58-year-old musician. Also The Decline . Documentary filmmaker Penelope Spheeris spoke to Goldmine magazine about the the infamous scene in her "The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years" movie in which then-W.A.S.P . I remember hanging out with Penelope at the Cat Club in New York for the release party. I was starting to hear about this stuff called the internet. It was screened at the Cannes Film Festival and the Chicago Underground Film Festival, where it received a jury award. People really remember the movie, especially Chris Holmes drinking the vodka in the pool, and the guy from Odin sitting in the hot tub saying that if he didnt get as big as Robert Plant he was gonna kill himself. I cant go on YouTube and find out whats been stolen. Theyre skeptical of the camera, of anything that resembles the society they either ran away or were forcibly ejected from. Now . But I was also determined to get people like Dave Mustaine of Megadeth into the film, because those guys were different, kinda deeper than the others. We found all the complete original interviews, additional live performances, re-edited them, cleaned up the film, added commentaries And thats whats coming out.. England and Wales company registration number 2008885. Another possibility is that the title refers to Darby Crash's reading of Oswald Spengler's Der Untergang des Abendlandes (The Decline of the West). Close. Hitting the streets in 1981, the original Decline of Western Civilization dove head first into the whirling mosh pit of the Los Angeles hardcore punk scene. It continued to dominate the cultural discussion for years after its publication. All rights reserved. The new generation of "gutter punks" -- stumbling through a haze of gut-rock alcohol -- have no interest in street poetry, and they don't want to change the world. In the original "Decline," the talented denizens of L.A.'s punk rock scene -- Black Flag, X, the Germs, the Circle Jerks -- were budding activists and politicized poets too full of spit and fervor to lapse into despair (the exception was the Germs' front man, Darby Crash, whose suicide shortly after the first film wrapped was an anomaly). Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. All three are now available in on Blu-ray in a fantastic new package from Shout! The Decline of Western Civilization III is a 1998 documentary film that follows the gutter punk lifestyle of homeless teenagers. Our bus was confiscated, all our gear, all our shit, we were left in a hotel with our rooms already due. "I'm not saying that as a selling point because that's not why we did it. And thats the part also that really upset me.. The mother-daughter duo are now working together on a fourth Decline film, which Spheeris said is still about punk, but also involves another kind of music. guitarist Chris Holmes drunk off his ass in his mothers swimming pool lamenting his life, the scene comes off as more silly and swollen and sad than anything else. In 1998, the last in the series, "The Decline Of Western Civilization Part III", hit select theaters but was never released in any home video format. The black guy in the wheelchair is somewhere in Nola area. As the singer in Faster Pussycat and co-founder of the notorious, heroically debauched Cathouse club, Seattle-born Taime Downe or Gustave Molvik to his parents was perfectly placed to witness the rise and fall of the Sunset Strip scene. The director, whose credits include Wayne's World and Black Sheep, has finally emerged from the depths of turning her celebrated three-part hardcore-punk and heavy-metal documentary series, The Decline of Western Civilization, into a comprehensive box set. And the other day I was sittin here, thinkin, because my parents were separated when I was two. For all of the hard exteriors and posturing, that protective layer is quick to melt away in front of Spheeris cameras, and youre reminded that these are just fucking kids, battered as they may be. Its cheaper to live in Vegas, and theres lots of work out here and a great club scene. youtu.be comments sorted by Best Top New Controversial Q&A Add a Comment It got your face out there and you got to be seen. Penelope was out on the Strip with her camera crew, and she walked up to us and started interviewing us and then got our contact information. Im sure that movie did enhance our career. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. When Punk Was Meant to Hurt You: Penelope Spheeris' 'The Decline of Western Civilization'. In 1918, Oswald Spengler published . I said: Mom, I gotta do this interview. Well, she didnt have anything else to do so she just came along. [1], The film's title is possibly a reference to music critic Lester Bangs' 1970 two-part review of the Stooges' album Fun House, for Creem magazine, where Bangs quotes a friend who had said the popularity of the Stooges signaled "the decline of Western civilization". Seven years later Spheers released The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years. All those years later, the films remains a rite of passagerequired viewing materialfor new generations interested in punk rock, including Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl, who was such a fan that he got in touch with Fox and volunteered to record the DVD commentary. If the subjects have changed, so has their documentarian. Eyeball is also around but I see him a lot less. Like, we had a seven-foot-high drum riser with a girl dancing underneath it. For the purposes of this article, the "West" is that civilization which grew up in western Europe after the end of the Roman Empire.. Its roots lay in the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome (which themselves built on foundations laid in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia).. In 1981, the LAPD Chief of Police Daryl Gates wrote a letter demanding the film not be shown again in the city. Spheeris got her start with filmmaking with her company, Rock N' Reel, that specialized in music videos. Through live performance . The movie is about the Los Angeles punk rock scene and was directed by Penelope Spheeris. In the Decline movie, that was what I call London 2, with Nadir DPriest as our vocalist. I went online and googled "eugene decline of western civilization". And in the letter I said: Mom, Im sure youve always wondered in the back of your mind if you brought us kids up right. Then I just wrote: After getting to fifty-five, Ive realised I had the best upbringing of anybody I know. Western civilisation is a similarly slippery concept. That shows you what studio executives know, Spheeris said. Spheeris has spent much of the past 20 years directing Hollywood fare such as "Wayne's World," and her professionalism shows in the synaptic firing of sound bites over visuals and the abrasive but seamless juxtaposition of scenes. 1. What happened in our Western world began 6,000 years ago in a gardena battle between two religions.
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