FTVMS 218/323 Popular Music on Screen 2013: October 2013

Monday, October 14, 2013

Punk Rock Films

In New York City throughout the 1970s, CBGB's became the main nightclub for the acts that would become called punk. Here are the Ramones playing 'Now I wanna sniff some glue' in 1974. A lot of early punk film and video is mostly designed just to capture the live event.

Here are Talking Heads at CBGBs in December 1975 playing 'Psycho Killer

Don Letts shot a lot of film and DJ-ed reggae and dub tracks at punk gigs. He went on to become a member of Big Audio Dynamite. He shot this film in 1977-78.

He later made this retrospective documentary

In the US, on the west coast, Penelope Spheeris' film is considered the classic documentary on the scene.

I'm almost feeling nostalgic for VHS videotape. Here are San Francisco's finest, Dead Kennedys playing what would become their first single "California über Alles"

Derek Jarman's 'Jubilee' is considered one of the first punk influenced feature films from London. It isn't a documentary.

Maybe the most (in)famous punk group were immortalized in Julien Temple's film The Great Rock n Roll Swindle which was really the version of them that their manager Malcolm McLaren wanted to peddle to the public. It was a mix of documentary and thin fiction storyline.

Temple would revisit the myth in his documentary The Filth and the Fury, and interview the band members

The Clash made a docudrama in 1980 based on a roadie who works for the band.

OK that's a start...