I *Do* Care About History
Three Punk Rock DVD's
By Chris Hyde
December 28, 2004
BoxOfficeProphets.com
With some of its legendary songs appearing regularly today as the backdrop for car commercials and sports highlight reels, it’s almost hard to imagine that punk was once a fairly uncommodified movement that partially originated as a rejection of much of what it helps sell today. But as with all revolutions in style that occur inside our consumerist culture, the trappings of this music have long ago been co-opted by Hollywood and Madison Avenue - so modern audiences might feel that the songs are little different than your average advertising jingles. Those of a slightly older vintage, however (hellllllooooo self!) may recall when punk was instead a real and vital movement, as well as perhaps the last flowering of a musical subgrouping that got some time to itself before it was absorbed into the wider monoculture. Happily, then, a new trio of nice DVD offerings allows a brief glimpse at the heyday of punk rock for both elderly stage divers and clueless whippersnappers alike.
The Screamers: Live in San Francisco September 2, 1978
Lost in the arcane mists surrounding the dawn of punk are many bands that arose, played, and died without ever leaving behind much recorded music to mark their time on earth. Most of these likely survive nowhere but in the minds of a few aging rockers who still remember seeing shows that somehow stand out in their synapses — but there are times when some other document still exists for posterity. That’s the case with the legendary art-punk outfit The Screamers, who never really managed to get much more than a few demos recorded but who continue to live on because someone sagely committed their act to video.
That someone was often Target Video, a West Coast company that was sharp enough in the early days of tape technology to record all kinds of material that today stands out as archivally important. A case in point is their just recently released to DVD of a late 1970s show by The Screamers, an out-of-the-ordinary punk outfit whose instrumentation included neither guitar nor bass. Instead, the quartet supplemented their drums and lead vocals with a Fender Rhodes electric piano and an Arp Odyssey synthesizer, giving them a unique sound that sets them apart from most other early Calpunk outfits.
This interesting arrangement is given full play on this new disk, as the body of the DVD consists of a full Bay Area show that the band gave in 1978. It’s a punk concert, of course, so the set isn’t really all that long — but its brevity is certainly made up for with vigor. Given that The Screamers vanished without ever making an album, this footage is also a great picture of a band that might otherwise be completely forgotten but for punk rock historians; that the onstage music of this group was captured at all is a great benefit for fans of the movement. Surprisingly enough, the video here is of fairly good quality, although it possesses that smeary look that all early videotape evinces. Even better is the sound mix, however, for with legend Geza X as the original audio engineer and a new Dolby track for the digital version, the band’s throbbing brand of synthpunk comes through loud and clear. Rounding out the disk is a selection of five early videos that The Screamers recorded in the studio, a nice bonus addition that only adds to the importance of this release in preserving the memory of an important band that may have otherwise been neglected due to their lack of vinyl output.
Ramones Raw
While the other two DVDs covered here are more of the straight-up concert variety, this one takes a looser biographical approach that covers both the music and the backstage antics of its seminal subject. Partially built out of footage shot in Hi8 over the course of eight years by bandmember Marky, Ramones Raw collects footage of the punk rock forefathers from throughout their career. Sprinkled throughout this documentary are some hilarious highlights from the Ramones’ past, and since we’ve now lost Johnny, Joey and DeeDee to the wages of time, much of this footage is historically important — even if its subject matter is pretty trivial at times. Videographer Marky shot some 200 tapes that were used to help create this documentary, so the material commonly has a bit of a grab-bag feel that is more hodgepodge than definitive portrait; but given the wealth of moments and insight offered here this is but a minor quibble.
Of all the footage used to create the Ramones Raw doc by filmmaker John Cafiero, the most valuable is surely that taken from an Italian TV show filmed during their 1980 tour of Europe. While most of this concert shows up in pieces during the main documentary event, the DVD’s bonus section contains the entire half hour or so of the band’s performance in the shadow of the Vatican. This segment alone is worth the price of admission, as the show depicts the legendary punk rockers at the very height of their form, 1-2-3-4ing their way through their most famous songs. It’s a brilliant performance by the band and the piece manages to capture the true essence of their bubblegum punk spirit; and as it was shot on film and has pretty good sound, this is an archival piece of untold worth.
There is much other bonus material here as well that makes the Ramones Raw disk warrant a look, from the bits via New Jersey’s Uncle Floyd cable tv show to the almost unbearable skits with the notoriously unfunny Gilbert Gottfried. Also helpful is the feature length commentary with Johnny and Marky, wherein they flesh out what’s happening onscreen during the documentary. Given the general incoherence of the mélange that is the primary feature here, this audio track really helps to delineate the details from the band’s wayward life in rock. These two are often hilarious and have some great anecdotal tales from over the years, and it’s especially interesting to hear them talk over the segments of the film that show the band’s encounters with Beatle-esque fan adulation in South America. Overall, this DVD is an excellent — though occasionally scattershot — portrait of one of punk rock’s greatest bands, and in tandem with Gramaglia and Fields’ recent End of the Century helps close out a great 2004 for biographical looks at these true punk pioneers.
Dead Boys — Live at CBGB’s 1977
Though all of the disks being covered here are excellent packages and are a fair bargain at their purchase prices, if your wallet can only handle one of ‘em then this is the real pick of the litter. The Dead Boys’ were one of the best bands in the entire early New York scene, and unlike many in the movement, this originally-from-Cleveland bunch really had some chops. Piled on top of the quality instrumentation was the classic feral rat look and angry vocals of lead singer Stiv Bators, and so the end result was ultimately one of the quintessential punk rock acts. The Dead Boys’ reputation has always been a pretty good one amongst the leatherclad and safety-pinned set, as their first album — appropriately titled Young, Loud and Snotty — has always been one of the vinyl touchstones of American punk rock.
But as guitarist Cheetah Chrome baldly states in an interview included here, it was as a live band that the Dead Boys really flourished. That notion is quite clearly underlined by this vintage video, a three-camera affair that was shot at one of the most famous of all punk clubs, CBGB’s. This footage shows the band at their peak, hammering out their Stooges-inspired brand of raw and over-the-top rock 'n' roll in front of a crowd of adoring fans; the set is a non-stop package of high energy songs pounded out one right after the other. During the show the band comports itself incredibly well in the background, as lithe lead singer Bators screams anthemically over the squall and engages in the requisite gross-out punk behavior. It’s an amazing slice of authentic punk from the beginnings of the style, and it’s sort of amusing to see that the movement at this point is so ill-defined that the audience looks manifestly un-punk. (I mean c'mon, there’s a white guy there with an Afro!)
While the show itself is a rough and tumble affair whose release alone would be quite a wonderful thing, there are some extras here that make this disc a treasure of a reissue. There are some great (though brief) interviews with the band that were apparently shot at around the same time as the show, as well as more contemporary chats with Cheetah Chrome and CBGB’s owner Hilly Crystal. These segments really help give some background on the band, and though Hilly isn’t exactly the world’s most dynamic speaker, the history that he had with the Dead Boys allows him to fill in some important detail. There’s also an early promo for the band included here and a bit of extra material from the main event shot from behind the drum kit. Basically, this whole disk is one of the most important music DVD’s to be released in Region 1 during 2004, for it not only showcases a truly great band at the apex of their career, but it preserves their brash stage show for generations to come. So while most punks in their time didn’t care much ‘bout history, let’s just be glad that there were others around then who felt quite differently — because today, we get to reap the benefits of their prescient recording.