This Article is related to: Toolkit and tagged DVDs, Penelope Spheeris, Shout! Weve done three albums and were doing another one at the end of the year. She was lookin for bands that were staples on the LA music scene, and Odin certainly was that. The Decline of Western Civilization III is a 1998 documentary film, directed by Penelope Spheeris, that chronicles the gutter punk lifestyle of homeless teenagers. I keep myself active.. Suddenly there were grunge bands, like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, on the MTV Countdown, in the magazines, on the radio. 1. So, about this time, I was roommates with a DJ, Riki Rachtman, and we started up our own little rock club, The Cathouse, mainly because we wanted to have a party every night but we didnt want to clean up afterwards. 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. 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. Eyeball is also around but I see him a lot less. Recent films like What Happened, . It also exposes the homeless gutterpunks that claim. I want to go but my brain cant tell my body to move. The first "Decline," which focused on the early L.A. punk scene, was made in 1979 before most of the punks in "Part III" were even born, and Spheeris uses interviews with some of the old . The couple spoon and squid they had got into an argument because dude was cutting another girls hair she got jealous and stabbed squid with the scissors. See David Wrights 2015 review at Memoria Press here. Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvEa_IFt9yg. He has interviewed three of the four Beatles, all of Abba and been nursed through a bad attack of food poisoning on a tour bus in South America by Robert Smith of The Cure. Fuck Police Brutality Seven years later Spheers released The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years. The promoter said we didnt have to play, so we just hung out and played basketball. It came out in the late 1980s and took the country by storm. With Myke Chambers, Stephen Chambers, Eyeball, Flea. It was such a passion project for Spheeris, and she was, by all accounts, so moved by the plight and situation of these kids that it would be fascinating to hear her take on the film now, as it approaches the 20-year mark. Read the New York Times review of this book here. I get dizziness, I get the shakes in my hands. 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. 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. [2] In We Got the Neutron Bomb, an oral history of the L.A. punk rock scene collected by Marc Spitz, Claude Bessy aka: Kickboy, claims that he came up with the title.[3]. This has caused an intellectual crisis, and some Muslims saw new ideas from the West as a direct threat to Islamic identity. Eyeball is rad and so is Troll. Hamburger died in 1999 or 2000, I believe. And still, others question the assumption behind the question and maintain that the . Under that chair in the movie, there was blow and weed and all that shit, and wed been partyin it up and havin a great time. If we told you wed have to kill you, Spheeris joked. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. 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 . I remember lookin out and thinking: Who the fuck is this dude dancin in the middle of the floor? Of course, it was fuckin Axl. Chris Holmes: When Penelope asked me to be in the Decline movie, I went: Why dont you ask Blackie [Lawless, W.A.S.P. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. For Spheeris, it's also a testament to how she grew up. Now we tour at least three months out of every year. 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]. She knew we had something, so she interviewed us for the movie. You know that feeling you get in your stomach thats like this fluttery kind of fear? she told Indiewire recently, describing the sensation that would wash over her when shed stumble across a bootleg copy of The Decline of Western Civilization, including the 1988 and 1998 sequels of the same name. Spheeris later credited the 1998 film with having a profound effect on her. For decades, there were only two ways to watch "The Decline of Western Civilization": buy a bootleg or download it online. Close. The Decline of Western Civilization is a 1981 American documentary filmed through 1979 and 1980. 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 Decline of Western Civilization's third installment features the LA hardcore punk scene of the 1990s. 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. The documentary was equally entertaining, even if the focus was less on the music and more on musicians' lust for sex, drugs and stardom. There are extended interviews with some of the players, panels on the chapters in the trilogy, and various other features that explore the cultural impact of the Decline saga. Johnny is a music journalist, author and archivist of forty years experience. The Decline of Western Civilization comes across as much more authentic than many documentaries with similar aims. 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. Cause alot of people here had the answers to your questions. Filmmaker Penelope Spheeris looks back as her L.A. rock trilogy readies itself for a box-set reissue. Additionally we host events, provide commentary for traditional media shows, and give speeches to groups of all sizes. And then she was similarly inspired for 1998's The Decline of Western Civilization III when she saw packs of kids walking down sidewalks in L.A. "I looked at them and said, 'Jeez, that looks like a whole other punk movement going on,' so I stopped them and said, 'What's up with you? They offer definitive looks at turning points in underground music while showing both the upsides and downsides of fame often with a sense of humor. I cant play guitar any more, so now Im the singer. Penelope Spheeris and her boyfriend, Eyeball Penelope Spheeris, creator of The Decline of Western Civilization series, is a veteran Hollywood filmmaker, a "den mother" and most importantly, a cheerleader for punk rock. As much as you can see their affection for Spheeris, theres always a distance; she is always the other. But Greer's assumption is built on shaky ground because industrial civilization differs from all past civilizations in four crucial ways. It was a terrible burden to have, to have everybody asking for all these years. For a while his band even challenged Guns N Roses for the crown of Kings Of Hollywood. Western civilisation is a similarly slippery concept. Thats when I became enveloped by the idea of becoming a rock singer. Wed had a ten-year run, but by 1995 we were playing to forty people some nights. With punk all the girls had looked like boys, but with metal the boys all looked like girls. The film involves gutter punks who take the anti-establishment message with extreme seriousness and tune out society completely. Getty / The Atlantic. Nadir DPriest: In the mid-eighties a lot of other bands saw us as a threat because we had such great ideas. BA1 1UA. 2023 IndieWire Media, LLC. And we faked the spilling of the orange juice. It was just me not wanting to do it and preferring to do other things and then Anna coming to me and saying, Mom, youve gotta do it.'. We were pretty massive when we appeared in the Decline movie. Chris Holmes, the towering guitarist with W.A.S.P., was central to the films most memorable scene, in which he mugged, hammed, drank and swore his way through an interview while perched precariously on a lilo in a swimming pool, watched by his evidently bemused mother. Louder is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. I knew it would be drudgery. Whether you have a nostalgic connection to the subjects, or just want to glimpse into a couple of under-examined subcultures, this is a set well worth adding to your collection. Most classicists believe that a combination of factors including Christianity, decadence, the metal lead in the water supply, monetary trouble, and military problems caused the Fall of Rome. In the late 90s, she turned down a distribution deal to release it because it would have required her to give up the rights to Parts I and II (which initially had very limited theatrical releases). The black guy in the wheelchair is somewhere in Nola area. 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. The Decline of Western Civilization Parts I + III plus Penelope Spheeris in Person! But eventually, as the Sunset Strip's version of metal ascended, she realized she had the makings of a sequel 1988's The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. A couple of years ago I moved out to Las Vegas. 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. Share this: Best of Chicago voting is live now. The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: the Metal Years is a tragicomic look at the late-80s 'hair metal' scene. The worst part about it was that they were making really bad copies, that my work looked like shit. Brought up in her fathers travelling carnival, Penelope Spheeris was the ideal person to turn the camera on the three-ring circus that was the 80s/90s Sunset Strip scene. So whenever I would rent the record equipment for the record companies, I'd go moonlighting out the clubs and shoot the bands that I wanted to shoot. The film premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Freedom of Expression Award. The Tragic Decline of Music Literacy (and Quality). Movie Info. It ought to be. The director . Mostly still in their teens, these subjects, with names like Squid and Spoon and Troll, tell harrowing stories of abuse and neglect and homes so broken most viewers cant even imagine. He died shortly before the film was released, though the promotional images for the film and album release had been designed before his death. The second film, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988), covers the Los Angeles heavy metal movement of 19861988. In 2016, The Decline of Western Civilization was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5]. Toggle navigation. The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988). "You can't equivocate on the stuation.". In 1918, Oswald Spengler published . Its not the taste that turns me off, its what it does to you. All Rights Reserved. Its still active today. 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 first film, The Decline of Western Civilization (1981), dealt with the punk rock scene during 19801981. But I noticed that Metal Edge was listing contact details for artists by email. 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. A lot of those guys are my friends, theyve either died or have moved on to something similar but better in life. A couple of the Brat Pack actor kids were also friends, and that brought in other elements. I said Id end up on Skid Row if we didnt make it. It . 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. "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 Director: Penelope Spheeris. Featuring a notorious moment with W.A.S.P. God instructed Adam to obey his Word . And if the books themselves seem daunting, there are always great reviews of great books, which serve to give a sense of the authors point. I actually met that one asian dude "Troll" about a year ago..me and my friend were looking for a ghetto ass backyard show in L.A because they posted the wrong directions on facebook..the troll dude came up to my car and asked if we knew where the show was at but we didn't at the time..about 10min later we found out where it was and started driving. Here are three that help explain what is happening with our culture. Bands included are Black Flag, Germs, X, Alice Bag Band, the Circle Jerks, Catholic Discipline, and Fear. Being a skateboarder, I was into punk and new wave, like 999, The Specials, Devo. But Ozzys one of the funniest people alive. 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. 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. The Metal Years, and Decline of Western Civilization Part III, a soul-crushing documentation of the gutter punk lifestyle of homeless teenagers in the 90s. We stopped London/DPriest in 1992 after our manager deserted us. Id never written my mom a letter. That was difficult, because Nadir was hungry to have one of those heavy metal record deals, but chasing deals by trying to prove how metal you are wasnt where I wanted to be at. Screw the corps, right? They stopped teaching it, and the great cultural transmission belt broke. She was held in L.A. county for awhile but was acquitted for self defense as a domestic abuse survivor. Spheeris resolved to ignore it. "It was pretty organic," she says. The promotional poster for The Decline (and the record cover of the soundtrack album) featured a close-up frame of Germs singer Darby Crash supine on stage with his eyes closed. The movie is about the Los Angeles punk rock scene and was d. We interact with millions of Americans each week, publishing numerous articles each day and promoting them through vast social media and email networks. Six weeks later we opened up for Warrant at The Roxy. 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. Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. 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