England and Wales company registration number 2008885. 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). 1. It showed exactly what was going on in our lives. The Decline of Western Civilization III is a 1998 documentary film, directed by Penelope Spheeris, that chronicles the gutter punk lifestyle of homeless teenagers. For a movie about the underground punk scene, the . The worst part about it was that they were making really bad copies, that my work looked like shit. And I'm like ah fuck, 'I can't do it man.'" I remember a show in Ohio, we played for free and two people came. All rights reserved. 1. In Part III, the answer is almost universally, Dead. While its predecessors focused on punk music and musicians, this latest episode concentrates on the audiences -- kids who weren't born when the original film was released. 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. Yellowstone: The Hidden Propaganda in Television and Movies, How to Cultivate a Marriage That Will Help Your Child Succeed. In this documentary, filmmaker Penelope Spheeris captures the life of Los Angeles "gutter punks": homeless teenagers who prefer anarchy and chaos to organized society. And that has kind of evolved into my current band, Spiders And Snakes, where weve really embraced our seventies roots. I played in bands in Wisconsin, but then I saw a flyer for Tuff, with pictures of them all except for one empty square in the middle, where it said: Wanted Lead Singer/Frontman. This much can be said, nevertheless. '", Spheeris says that she's working on a fourth Decline film with her daughter, Anna Fox. My hair started getting longer, I wore leather pants, bracelets, eyeliner and all that, but I liked a good nights sleep and drinking orange juice at breakfast. Spheeris talks to homeless teenagers living on the street or squatting in abandoned buildings in Los Angeles, an unstable mother, Los Angeles Police Department officer Gary Fredo, and a paralyzed youth living on disability benefits. August 19, 2020. She laughs. Factory. 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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. All we had was a bag of weed, two bottles of booze and our guitar players credit card. The second film, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988), covers the Los Angeles heavy metal movement of 19861988. After another 10 years Spheeris wrapped up her Decline trilogy and this time Spheeris shifted her attention again. I cant go on Google and look at myself. Takes on Hollywoods Bias Against Women Directors (and Women Directors Respond). The 11 most pivotal periods in western history. The music is fast, loud, smart and aggressive; the kids dress the same, albeit with a few more piercings; they still brawl with skinheads and get hassled by cops. A punk named Stevie dies in a fire at a building where he's squatting; another, Squid, is killed, allegedly by his girlfriend, Spoon. 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. Penelope Spheeris began her career in the early '80s with The Decline of Western Civilization, an aggressively political and energetic chronicle of the late '70s L.A. punk scene featuring bands like Black Flag, X, and The Circle Jerks. 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. The medieval world was forged by the big forces that still occupy us today: climate change, pandemic disease, mass . 8011 34th Ave S.Ste C-11Bloomington, MN 55425. Blackie was always threatenin me to be thrown out or this or that, and on top of it the person was jealous of me bein me. 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. he was a pretty cool dude hes doing the same exact shit he was doing back in the day but has a job. "When punk started happening, I said, 'OK, this is it for me.' Its like, youre stealing my identity. "It was pretty organic," she says. While the Los Angeles punk scene comes across gritty and raw, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, depicts a scene that is bloated, almost a caricature, and, in 1988, was only a few short years from imploding and collapsing in on itself. The Decline of Western Civilization Part III (1996) - A film detailing the furious lives and tragic deaths of a group of gutter punks living in L.A. from 96'-97'. But where are they now? If the subjects have changed, so has their documentarian. Starting out framed like the previous two films, as an exploration of a particular rock and roll subculture in Los Angeles, essentially checking in with the spiritual descendants of the original Decline of Western Civilization, it quickly eschews the musical trappings, choosing instead to focus on the homeless young kids, the gutterpunks, who dwell on the streets and squats of Southern California. Movie Info. It took shape in medieval Europe, with its Christian religion, feudal society . The films (released in 1981, 1988, and 1998) take a look at a range of . 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. Featuring concert footage of Los Angeles punk bands and interviews both with band members, the publishers of Slash fanzine, and with the punks who made up their audience, the film offers a look into a subculture that was largely ignored by the rock music press of the time. Troll was on an episode of Dog Eat Dog fairly recently, and Squid was stabbed to death by Spoon (IIRC) shortly after filming wrapped up. Here she finds the struggle of street kids and young adults in West Hollywood trying to make it day by day, fighting. "In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest politician, but of the man with the best bedside manner. Its not the moneyfuck the money. The movie is about the Los Angeles punk rock scene and was directed by Penelope Spheeris.In 1981, the LAPD Chief of Police Daryl Gates wrote a letter demanding the film not be shown again in the city.. Last night I saw The Decline of Western Civilization at Cornell Cinema (everybody, go support your campus movie theater). You want to know the truth? Nadir DPriest: In the mid-eighties a lot of other bands saw us as a threat because we had such great ideas. But it caused all kinds of problems. And then the grunge thing happened. She was held in L.A. county for awhile but was acquitted for self defense as a domestic abuse survivor. It's unique among the world's civilizations in putting the individualas opposed to the collectivein a central position. But the tables have turned. I came back from Chicago after the Pigface thing and started doing The Newlydeads with some friends here in LA. These books level their criticisms not only at the political left, but also at many of those ideas that go under the name of conservatism but are really only another form of political ideology. Every day the staff of Intellectual Takeout come to work eager to do their part to restore and improve our great nation. Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvEa_IFt9yg. . But not everybody's rock . Here are three that help explain what is happening with our culture. This Article is related to: Toolkit and tagged DVDs, Penelope Spheeris, Shout! Beginning on June 30, all three DVDs will be available in a box set from Shout! The Germs' performance was replicated in the 2007 Darby Crash biopic What We Do Is Secret. "I was always going out the clubs and seeing the punk bands," she says of how the first 1981 doc came about. I asked Anna to come work for me because I needed help with some other things with our life here and she said, I will come to work for you but only if the first thing we do is put the Decline DVDs out,' Spheeris recalled. But for now, the filmmaker is still reveling in the films she has made and how well they hold up now. Difference #1: Unlike all previous civilizations, modern industrial civilization is . Mostly, it means that after all those years, shes finally overcome her pastand restored it to cinematic perfection. But I noticed that Metal Edge was listing contact details for artists by email. The promoter said we didnt have to play, so we just hung out and played basketball. And because it was not my band, I really enjoyed being able to kick back a bit and be more carefree. 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. It is the third film of a trilogy by Spheeris depicting life in Los Angeles at various points in time. And if the books themselves seem daunting, there are always great reviews of great books, which serve to give a sense of the author's point. Also The Decline . The second consideration depicts its slow decline with the internal problems like slow economic growth, unemployment, stagnant population, government shortfall, deteriorating work ethic, crime, and . 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 it's like, 'That's it, I'm never gonna be doing another box set in my whole life so I've got to get it right.'". The Decline of Western Civilization is a 1981 American documentary filmed through 1979 and 1980. Just as punk once appropriated street chic, the street has now appropriated punk. Starting decades ago, many people, especially in the universities, lost faith in the Western civilization narrative. The original Decline contains rare footage of the Germs live and Black Flag at their squat, the second finds Ozzy Osbourne making breakfast and Aerosmith living soberly and the third focuses on smaller bands of homeless punks who somehow manage to meet up for practice. Heres how it works. 1912: The Republic of China - Fueled by western-educated revolutionary Sun Yat-Sen, the Xinhai . I see Troll at stuff all the time and would consider him a friend of mine. 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. 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. Roughly speaking, it covers parts of the world where the dominant cultural norms originated in Western Europe, including North America . We did do an Odin reunion in 2003, played a Monsters Of Rock Cruise ship, and a bunch of other gigs, but I dont think wed do that again. Guitarist Lizzie Grey (born Stephen Perry) was the bands linchpin, while Nadir DPriest, aka Nadir Munoz, was their frontman during the Decline period. The first Decline had been made for about a hundred thousand dollars with money from a couple of guys who thought I was going to make a porn movie for them, but the second one I was able to get some money from Miles Copeland [manager of The Police, owner of IRS Records]. 1998 ) take a look at myself took shape in medieval Europe, its... 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