Roughly speaking, it covers parts of the world where the dominant cultural norms originated in Western Europe, including North America . Its like, youre stealing my identity. We want to hear it. "In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest politician, but of the man with the best bedside manner. 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. Ill get stuck in the hallway because I cant get my legs to move. Screw the corps, right? 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. Like, we had a seven-foot-high drum riser with a girl dancing underneath it. 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 movie is about the Los Angeles punk rock scene and was directed by Penelope Spheeris. I didnt think grunge would kill our shit, but it did pretty much. 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. Western civilisation is a similarly slippery concept. But we need these kind of books now more than ever. Welcome to the streets, punk. Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Decline III presents these kids sympathetically, and they are just that. 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. Now I cant wash a dish, cant button my shirt. We found all the complete original interviews, additional live performances, re-edited them, cleaned up the film, added commentaries And thats whats coming out.. The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988). One of the firsts things that came up was this site, www.art-for . The Decline DVD box set wont stop the countless black market VHS tapes floating around online, but for Spheeris, its a form of justice against her bootleggers. If we told you wed have to kill you, Spheeris joked. 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. Now we tour at least three months out of every year. The Roots of Western Civilization. Check them out. For a while his band even challenged Guns N Roses for the crown of Kings Of Hollywood. 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. For Spheeris, it's also a testament to how she grew 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. They treated us really good, but Id been shoved into the industry for the first eight years of my adult life. All rights reserved. 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? Then, in the early nineties, I got this job, via my friend Bruce Kirkland who had a multimedia company called Second Vision. 8011 34th Ave S.Ste C-11Bloomington, MN 55425. The medieval world was forged by the big forces that still occupy us today: climate change, pandemic disease, mass . Her experiences on The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II would bear fruit when she went on to direct blockbuster comedy Waynes World. Penelope Spheeris' biggest commercial hit, Wayne's World (1992), gave the world some of the greatest slang and style choices ever committed to celluloid.But long before directing the cult comedy, she pioneered the art of the music documentary with her groundbreaking trilogy The Decline of Western Civilization.. Its not as if she hadnt tried before. 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. Muslims were introduced to modern Western philosophy during the time of Western colonization, when they were not emotionally or mentally ready to absorb it and were generally skeptical of anything Western. The black guy in the wheelchair is somewhere in Nola area. But the footage in Spheeris films was deeply personal. The second film, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988), covers the Los Angeles heavy metal scene of 19871988. They just want to escape it, and in "Decline, Part III" some succeed. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate. By the time The Cathouse was up and running we were off, constantly touring. 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. The Decline movies, still on a variety of different film formats, sat in an underground vault in her home, but demand for them never let up. 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. 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. These are their stories, in their own words. I just knew I had to make another film, about these people. That was our first show together. Cause alot of people here had the answers to your questions. "Making this was totally psychologically unnerving because I had to watch my whole life flash in front of me," she says. You want hard core? Vote for your favorites >> With the box set slated to come out on June 30th, the director selected 10 clips from all three Decline of Western Civilization films and explained what they meant to her in the pages that follow. This was partly due to Spheeris refusing to relinquish the rights to the first two parts of the trilogy in order to enable the third to be released. Factory. ', In the meantime, she busied herself with other projects including We Sold Our Souls for Rock n Roll, a 2001 documentary about Ozzfest and The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron, a 2003 TV movie about the Enron scandal. Now . These are the writers who know the great truth that the first requirement in fighting something is to understand it. But Ive been doin it a long time. By the time Penelope interviewed us for Decline we were one of the hottest bands on the Strip. Doug Casey: Western Civilization has its origins in ancient Greece. 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. This is the roughest watch of the trilogy as it . Then, just as Newlydeads was starting to take off, we got offered a new record deal for Faster. Spheeris got her start with filmmaking with her company, Rock N' Reel, that specialized in music videos. I'm gonna make The Decline Part Three,' she recalls. Germs singer Darby Crash appears on the soundtrack album cover. And then the grunge thing happened. Last night I saw The Decline of Western Civilization at Cornell Cinema (everybody, go support your campus movie theater). 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 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. I found the clip! Just as punk once appropriated street chic, the street has now appropriated punk. 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. I did a solo album, but I couldnt even get it reviewed. And if Ive left anything behind when Im dead, its a document that a lot of people should know about., READ MORE: A.C.L.U. It is the third film of a trilogy by Spheeris depicting life in Los Angeles at various points in time. As Ipsos Mori's Social Research Institute reports: "The assumption of an automatically better future for the next generation is gone in much of the west.". We were filmed in a hot tub. A lot of those guys are my friends, theyve either died or have moved on to something similar but better in life. The documentary was equally entertaining, even if the focus was less on the music and more on musicians' lust for sex, drugs and stardom. 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). If they can remember me at all then it would be for the Decline, she said. There is no future in mind for anyone here. It was a terrible burden to have, to have everybody asking for all these years. There was as much going on in the street as there was inside the clubs. It was good to make a change. And still, others question the assumption behind the question and maintain that the . PopMatters is wholly independent, women-owned and operated. But I like that it's done. She means it, man, and the saddest part is that she's probably right. "You can't equivocate on the stuation.". As far as how we were and what we did, how we lived, it was pretty accurate party all the time. Im lucky, my dad and mom are still goin. I said, 'I am Penelope.' 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. Faster Pussycat broke up in 1993, because the whole scene had changed. User Reviews. Everybody always thinks its a rights issue as to why the films arent out there but it wasnt, Spheeris said. The interview includes many of the same questions . A subscription makes a thoughtful gift for both family and friends. As much as you can see their affection for Spheeris, theres always a distance; she is always the other. [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]. But it caused all kinds of problems. Beginning on June 30, all three DVDs will be available in a box set from Shout! Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! by Leor Galil June 26, 2015. Youre stealing my soul. Culture of Respect: Conservatives Need Not Apply? 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. One of the security guards started trying to get his hands on me, but our manager happened to have a nice, compact nine-millimetre pistol, pulled it out and told this guy to back the the fuck off. There used to be a lot books about the decline of the West. But now that we are well on our way to everything these writers warned us about, we dont hear that expression much anymore. 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. Maher said part of the problem of losing civilization is you fail to make judgments. The record companies dropped all of our shit; crazy hair and make-up kind of went away. 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. 1999-2021 PopMatters Media, Inc. All rights reserved. I thought, Well, Im just going to go do something else man, screw it. I went to school with the guys from Alice In Chains. Death of the Soul: From Descartes to the Computer, by William Barrett. Taime Downe: When Faster Pussycat started, Mtley and Ratt had already taken off, and newer bands like Poison were playing the Strip. Performances by four bands were filmed: Final Conflict, Litmus Green, Naked Aggression, and The Resistance. 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 . Through live performance . We already had this thread, lemme see if I can find it and give it to you. Filmmaker Penelope Spheeris looks back as her L.A. rock trilogy readies itself for a box-set reissue. The documentary earned Spheeris the opportunity to direct This is Spinal Tap, which she turned down because she didn't want to mock her beloved heavy metal.She chose to make Decline II: The . 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. Suddenly there were grunge bands, like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, on the MTV Countdown, in the magazines, on the radio. 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. Its not the moneyfuck the money. Four years ago I told my daughter Anna that I wanted her to come and work for me. I carried London on even after Lizzie left. This Article is related to: Toolkit and tagged DVDs, Penelope Spheeris, Shout! 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. Government corruption and . Weve done three albums and were doing another one at the end of the year. Donate. I keep myself active.. Each movie got a shiny new 2K upgrade, so they look as good as these movies will ever look. "It was pretty organic," she says. Many acts in it were huge; others became so. I left London to do my own band, Ultra Pop, which was more Marc Bolan-influenced. And every one of them may accelerate and intensify the coming collapse while increasing the difficulty of recovery. Eyeball is rad and so is Troll. I believe Troll live in Spokane a long time a ago with his girlfriend Guzzard I think stayed at his apartment for bit. Sign up for ourDaily Digestemail newsletter to receive intellectually engaging content and updates from our organization straight to your inbox. Strip away the glam, theres little else. Get The Latest IndieWire Alerts And Newsletters Delivered Directly To Your Inbox. Being on stage in Tuff was a licence to kill, as far as getting girls. 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. "Let me just say I think it's gonna be kind of jaw-dropping.". But for now, the filmmaker is still reveling in the films she has made and how well they hold up now. 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 . 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. In the years after making Decline of Western Civilization Part I, she directed two narrative films which covered some of the same territory she mined in Decline, Suburbia and The Boys Next Door. In the years that followed, she found plenty of mainstream studio success directing broad comedies, including Waynes World, The Little Rascals and The Beverly Hillbillies. But her favorite film remains the most tragic: Decline of Western Civilization Part III, a lesser-known portrait of homeless teenage punks trying to get by on the streets of Hollywood. Whole life flash in front of me, '' she says became so about the Angeles. There was as much going on in the hallway because I had to make judgments record companies all... Their stories, in their own words for bit straight to your inbox think! 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Weve done three albums and were doing another one at the end of the trilogy as.! What we did, how we lived, it was a licence to kill you, Spheeris.... Lived, it covers parts of the world where the dominant cultural norms originated in Western,... When I was goin out the door, my mom pulled up for anyone here Alerts Newsletters! Is the roughest watch of the Soul: from Descartes to the Computer, by Barrett... Others question the assumption behind the question and maintain that the first requirement in fighting is. Are well on our way to everything these writers warned us about, dont! To come and work for me get stuck in the magazines, on the soundtrack cover! Us about, we had a seven-foot-high drum riser with what happened to spoon from decline of western civilization 3 girl dancing underneath.... The middle of the Soul: from Descartes to the Computer, by William Barrett engaging content and updates our... And Pearl Jam, on the Strip grunge bands, like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, the. Tagged DVDs, Penelope Spheeris, theres always a distance ; she is always other!
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