Two Reviews: Blank Generation (1980); The Blank Generation (1976)

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2022
Film screenshots from the Internet

Blank Generation
Directed by Ulli Lommel
Dark Force Entertainment; MVD Entertainment
78 minutes, 1980
www.darkforcesuperstore.com
www.mvdb2b.com

There are lots of stories surrounding the making of this important, yet Grade C level film. One of my favorites – and I am not positing it is true or not – that the director, Ulli Lommel (d. 2017), was so envious of the love scenes between stars Richard Hell and Carole Bouquet, that he wrote himself into the plot so he could possibly have his own chance with her. This jealousy also took a simple story and flushed it down the toilet as far as plotline quality goes. Well, to be honest, I have not seen the film since around the time it came out and saw it at some art house in New York City, so this will honestly be like watching it for the first time.

After a brief prologue, we get smacked in the face with the title song, one of my all-time favorites (it’s the Voidoids version, not the original Ork release). The sound is crisp and clear, but we only get to hear the first two stanzas, and it fades out after Hell tells Bob Quine to “take it.”

 

Richard Hell

Richard Hell plays up-and-coming punk singer Billy. Musically, it’s Hell pure and simple, no matter what name they give him. He’s vying for a record contract and while in the recording studio (singing “New Pleasure”). It is there he meets French video journalist Nada (Bouquet), and sparks fly while we get to hear the complete song. Yay. This leads of a volatile, almost schizophrenically up and down relationship between the two.

Billy is quite cynical about the music biz and is trying to figure out his role either in or out of it, while his long-suffering manager with a thick NYC accent, Jack (Howard Grant), is trying to guide his career, though the question is whether it is for Billy or his own financial stake that he is there.

Carole Bouquet

At some point, German journalist Hoffritz (Lommel) enters the picture as Bouquet’s former lover who has shown up looking for Andy Warhol (d. 1987), who makes a cameo in the film. This sets up a dynamic of a “who will she choose?” scenario: the rock star who wants nothing more to do with music (with no reference on what he would do instead) or the cynical journalist who is obsessed with Warhol. While Nana is hooking up with Hoffritz, Billy is with Lizzy (Suzanna Love), another filmmaker. One minute it’s Billy and Nada, then it’s not, then it is, then it’s …

Whatever the weaknesses in the storyline and especially the dialogue, which often borders on the ridiculous (the “beach” conversation in the car is a perfect example), this film is a must-see just for the visuals of the gritty New York City of the late 1970s, including under the West Side Drive, on a rooftop with the iconic water towers, and especially the scenes in CBGB, which are both a joy and heartbreaking. [As they scanned the tables, I realized that I have sat at just about every table there; small digression that has nuthin’ to do with nuthin’: I was in the hospital having a procedure, and as the doc was getting ready to give me a huge needle, he said, “think of a happy place, like a beach or a mountain.” My mind went immediately to sitting at a table at CBGB waiting for the band to start…] It was also fun to see the backstage (a room I have been in numerous times) which highlights some graffiti of The Senders. Meanwhile, the Voidoids (Hell, bass/vox, Quine on guitar, Ivan Julian on guitar, and Mark Bell – the future Marky Ramone – on drums) get to show off live on CBGB’s stage. Warms the cockles of my heart. Amusingly, perhaps, there is a scene shot at CB’s of Nada interviewing a bunch of club denizens (I am assuming they are real rather than actors), reminiscent of the early Amos Poe film, The Blank Generation, reviewed below.

Ulli Lommel, Andy Warhol

There are lots of cameos by some who were critical and omnipresent to the scene at the time, such as violinist Walter Steding, fashion maven Natasha, and of course, Warhol.

Bouquet is quite beautiful, and Hell is in his prime (1977 Big Star magazine interview with Hell from 1977 HERE), (with his original teeth and all). What he lacks in acting talent, he makes up for in enthusiasm and making some amazing music that helped spark the whole British punk movement when Malcolm McLaren (d. 2010) infamously ripped him off from sound to fashion.

Most clips I have seen of the film over the years have been taken from VHS copies, and were highly grainy (as VHS tends to be), but this Blu-ray is crisp, as it is a 2K scan taken from the only remaining 35mm print! That only one survives is something I am both grateful for, and indignant about its lack of care of the rest of the prints. That being said, for a Blu-ray release, there are zero extras on this, but I don’t care because the main meat of the matter, the film itself, is the rightful focus.

Speaking of technology, it is fun to see the state of art mechanics of the time, such as video recorder cameras that are separate from the tape deck, dial phones, old cars, and the such.

The biggest problem with the film is that it is inconsistent to its own theme, jumping back and forth between stories with gaps in-between that make the viewer feel a bit shell shocked and while it’s not confusing, it really doesn’t make much sense. I was more interested in the Billy/Nada relationship, and the adding of Hoffritz just feels superlative. If the film could have focused on just the couple, with their ups and downs, it would have been much more interesting. Though the live music helps, even though there is excessive use of the title cut throughout, and there is obvious reuse of some shots such as Billy coming up from the CBGB bathrooms, and of the Voidoids on stage (shown at least three times). I understand why this film has a rep for being a muddled mess, because on one hand it is just that, but if you were there at the time, or if you wanted to know what it was like, this is more an important time binding document than story.

According to IMDB, Lommel still presently has projects in works, both as director and actor, 5 years after he has died; his other big success might arguably have been The Boogyman, a film he directed that came out the same year as this release. His later works seemed to rely on stories of real serial killers.

IMDB listing HERE 

 

The Blank Generation
Directed by Ivan Kral and Amos Poe
Blank Generation LLC
54 minutes, 1976
www.TheBLANKGeneration.com
www.IvanKral.net

This film documents, what it calls, the birth of punk rock in New York during the early 1974-75 CBGB (mostly here; closed 2006 and is now a clothing store) and Max’s Kansas City (closed 1981 and is now a deli), with some shots from other venues such as the Bottom Line (closed in 2004, and is now a student’s residence for New York University). But in some ways, it overlaps with its own midwife, but more on that later.

The film is jumpily shot by Patti Smith Group guitarist Ivan Kral on silent 16mm, and is then audibly superimposed by the sounds of the band’s recordings, either legitimate releases, demos, or live cassettes.

The premiere of the film was held in CBGB, when the stage was still on the left side, so needless to say in all the CBGB footage in the documentary, that is where the infamously (and hotly debated) Television-built stage was located. It is nice to see the huge photos sans stickers and band graffiti that would eventually cover them up in the 1980s and ‘90s. The band that played the night of the opening was the Heartbreakers, with Richard Hell still a member. I saw the Heartbreakers so many times on stage, but that was the only time with the Hell line-up, before Billy Rath replaced Hell on bass), and Johnny Thunders and Walter Lure moved to the front permanently out of Meyer’s shadow.

The Patti Smith Group

The film is broken up, essentially though not officially, into three chapters. The first one is the “birthers of punk,” for lack of a better term, starting with The Patti Smith Group performing in various venues (as is true with most of the bands) to the soundtrack of “Gloria (In Excelsis Deo)” off the Horses album, followed by a live version of “We’re Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together.” It would make sense to start off with her group since they were considered the first “punk” band to be recorded…though I do wonder who filmed the footage since not only was Kral in the band, but there are shots of him playing. Anyway…

The Ramones

Other major bands flow into each other visually, with the songs starting abruptly. That’s no issue at all, though I thought it would be good to have some kind of crawl that said which band was which, rather than just waiting until the end credits. But that’s punk, do what’s unexpected, right? Patti flows into Television’s “Little Johnny Jewel (Parts I and II)” (with a shot of Terry Ork for good measure, who released the single on his own Ork Records), and then to theRamones playing over only live recordings as their seminal eponymous album had not yet been released. It was interesting to hear them doing a song that would show up on their second album. Then there are the likes of Talking Heads. 

Wayne County

The second section is the next level of bands, or first-level Max’s groups, such as the trendsetting Wayne County, The Miamis, Harry Toledo, the Marbles (one of my favorites back then, doing almost a music video), the Shirts, and Tuff Darts (with Robert Gordon).

The third is an odd mix of non-venue related footage (though the music concept stays the same) of bands such as backstage. There is also the post-Thunders/Jerry Nolan New York Dolls that focuses only on David Johansen while “Funky But Chic” plays, and there is the Hell version of the Heartbreakers to end it with the title song. The Dolls were kind of the midwife to the New York punk scene, and the Hell version of the Heartbreakers almost the transition into the now more infamous version of the band.

I’m proud to say I have seen all of these bands perform live save two (Miamis and Tuff Darts, though I did interview the founder and lead guitarist, Jeff Salen). When I first saw the film at its premiere, I was a bit flustered by the dissonance between the footage and the sound, but over the years, I have come to admire it. Many of the songs are not shown all the way through (cut short or edited), but it just means more songs. The film is a treasure.

IMDB listing HERE 

 

 

Review: Punking Out (1978)

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2021
Screenshots from the film

Punking Out
Directed by Maggi Carson, Juliusz Kossakowski, and Ric Shore
Punking Out Producers
25 minutes, 1978
Full film HERE 

While undergoing a “procedure” in a hospital a few short years ago, the doctor suggested I think about a “happy place,” such as a beach or a mountain. My mind instantly went to sitting at a table at CBGB, around the time this documentary was filmed in 1977, waiting for the Ramones to come on. This was something I did a lot back then. Made me happy at the time, and during the biopsy (it was negative, for those who care).

I remember seeing this black and white documentary when it first came out, and a few times since then, be it at a revival theater (e.g., the Thalia) or online. And like my mental image before the doctoral slice and dice, the film makes me smile. And, on occasion, sneer.

There are so many familiar faces in the crowds (such as Terry Ork) and those interviewed, some whose names I have since forgotten, and others I never knew, but I was a regular at the club and have seen all the bands represented here numerous times, and can say the live shots of – in order of appearance – Richard Hell and the Voidoids (the only band not interviewed for the film), the Dead Boys, and the Ramones, capture their early fire, as all the songs represented would come from their first albums, such as “Blank Generation,” “I Need Lunch” and “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue,” respectively, among others.

Helen Wheels

From the first time I saw it, one of the moments that stuck with me is singer Helen Wheels commenting (though not identified in the film) that she is never bored, as she fidgets around. I would interview her when she opened for Iggy Pop at the Brooklyn Zoo half a decade later, but even then, in the short moment she’s onscreen, she is riveting. Also memorable for sheer obnoxiousness, as is her style, is Lydia Lunch, happily squealing that she had slept with all of the Dead Boys. It comes across as forced and full of pretentiousness (reads as “I’m cool and insufferable. Aren’t I precious?!”). When I interviewed Lydia at Max’s Kansas City with her band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks around the same time this was filmed, she was an absolute asshat full of self-importance that would eventually achieve her C-level fame.

Joey Ramone (back), DeeDee Ramone (foreground)

The interviews of the bands are fun, as DeeDee of the Ramones stumbles over his words describing a song he wrote, and Jimmy Zero of the Dead Boys scarily and amusingly runs off with the interview, invoking his mom numerous times. Hilly Kristal, owner of CBGB, comes across with dry, fatherly advice about violence and how loud music helps quash it (I never saw a fight occur in the bar).

Lydia Lunch

Other fun interviews include a couple of non-regulars in cardigans who swear they will never come back (but I bet they’re bragging they went even to this day if they are still on this plain), an over-amped bearded guy who I believe was a member of the Helen Wheels Band, and a couple of thick New York accented women who have menial office jobs and go out to see bands to blow off steam (I can relate to it).

The directors wisely don’t stay on any one person too long, just enough to get the gist of personality, which they disperse with the live footage and band interviews. It is only 25 minutes long, but it flies by quite fast and I definitely wanted to see more.

Office drones enjoying the music

This came out a couple of years after Amos Poe and Ivan Kral’s Blank Generation (1976), which focused more on the music and the bands (i.e., playing their records over unmatched footage of the bands playing live). Punking Out is more of a deeper dive into not only the music, but those who were there to experience it. It was just before punk became more codified in dress codes and styles, and is a flash of a time capsule of a Camelot-like moment of joy.

IMDB listing HERE 

A Stream of Consciousness Review of CBGBs: The Movie

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2014

Images from the Internet

 

Watching CBGB’s: The Movie (yeah, I’m just getting’ to it now, you wanna make somethin’ of it?), and here are some comments that I’m sure most of which have already been logged elsewhere before, but I’m just riffing.

 

While I believe they should have used Please Kill Me as a reference, as it is the source of information of the period. Using the Punk mag framework is interesting. The ‘zine came out, however, after the scene had already started, so… how can they posit that they originated the music revolution after the Ramones were already playing over a year?

 

Johnny Galecki does a decent Terry Ork, but I remember Ork being a lot more twitchy, quirky and effervescent. We (I and Bernie Kugel) used to stop by Cinemabilia, the film memorabilia store he worked, and buy his singles directly from him.

 

The stage is on the wrong side of the club, as it wasn’t moved to the right side until a couple of years later (the first band I saw play on the new stage was Blondie). Early on, the pool table was on the right, where the stage ended up.

 

The sound system started out as crap, until Hilly infamously bought a way-expensive and incredibly sounding one later in the ‘70s. It was top of the line for it’s time considering how the club looked so run down.

 

When we meet Television, the focus seems to be on Tom Verlaine, and they definitely undercut Richard Hell’s personality, which was equally as strong. And I remember Hell being twitchier on stage, jerking around and weaving back and fourth, rather than leaning forward aggressively.

 

The soundtrack is the best thing so far, but they’re too ambitious, just playing the opening notes of Lou Reed’s “Heroin” and the Flamin’ Groovies’ “Slow Death,” for example. As much as I love the song, the placement of the Count IV’s “Psychotic Reaction” confused me. Much of the music in the film is, of course, out of sequence chronologically, but I’ve heard that complaint before…anyway back to it.

 

Oh, and Jonathan, the dog, was way-way uglier. He was a friendly pooch who mostly left you alone, though he really did shit all over the place. I always kept away from the pinball machine near the door because underneath was a favorite place of his to release the hounds of bowels.

 

Talking Heads first show as in June 1975, opening for the Ramones (first show I saw there). Blondie opened for the Ramones a few weeks after that. There were maybe twelve people in the audience. I never saw a full house until a couple of years after that. The first time I needed to make a reservation was early ’77 when the Dead Boys were opening for the Damned. The actor who plays Debbie Harry is mangling her New Jersey (not New York) accent. When Talking Heads played, bassist Tina Weymouth was focused on Byrne with big, staring eyes, not unfocused off in the opposite direction. Byrne waved his head back and forth when he sang, though in the first show I saw he moved the front of his head instead of the back, so his voice had a Doppler effect.

 

I never ever saw Patti Smith booed for doing poetry on stage. She usually read until the band was plugged in, tuned, and ready to play. Of course, “Because the Night” wasn’t performed until much, much later, as it was co-written with Springsteen, and she would not have ad access to that large an A-list talent at the beginning. By 1975, when Patti played the Bottom Line (the first time I saw her play, but hardly the last), she rarely was at CBs anymore, though infamously – and it’s mentioned at the end of the film – she was the last to play on its stage.

 

The best part of the Punk interview with Lou Reed was when they mentioned how Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dictators called him a creep in the song "Two Tub Man," though  the line was actually written by Adny/Andy Shernoff, and they never mentioned that it was a lyric), and he became irate. I never saw Johnny Ramone rush off the stage in anger, but did see DeeDee do it a couple of times after getting electrical shocks.

 

Much as I love Wayne/Jayne County, and give her props for helping the scene in its most nascent stages, I think of her more as a Max`s person, probably because she wrote (and performed) the definitive theme song for the other club, and DJ'd there often.

 

The Dead Boys' portrayal seems pretty decent to how I remember, though it would have been cool to show how Stiv climbed inside the bass drum, as he did sometimes. However, this scene is definitely based on a 1977 film clip of the band that is available on YouTube. Ron Weasley's Cheetah Chrome is quite good, though; it was the first thing that made me smile in the film. Check out Cheetah`s version of the events in his autobiography (reviewed HERE).

 

As for song-time being accurate, it is correct that they had Blondie doing "X-Offender" in that period. While I know Debbie and Iggy had a bond through both being ex-users, and were friendly, I never heard of them playing together on stage at CBs; in fact, I don`t remember Iggy ever on stage there at all, although I could be wrong about this. I wasn`t there every night, after all.

 

Joey Ramone reading a contract? He was way smarter than most people gave him credit for, but he also had incredibly bad eyesight, and received most of his news from television (as opposed to Television).

 

I`m an Alan Rickman fan (been so especially since Kevin Smith`s Dogma in 1999, though his stance on being anti-Israel is weighing heavily on me), but even he can't help the dragging second and third acts. Hell, even Johnny Blitz getting stabbed seems…whatever. And what about the Blitz Benefits? They were amazing; went to two of the three, and saw Belushi fill in on the drums with the Dead Boys.

 

Oh, and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks were also mostly a Max`' band (though they may have played CBs, too). They were one of the worst interviews I ever did; total assholes.

 

And what about the Live at CBGB's double LPs No mention of that at all. I have a distinct memory of driving there on my way to somewhere else in the rain, just to pick up the copies directly from the club. Yes, I still have them.

 

The Police were as boring live in real life as they were in this film. Saw them play the Diplomat Hotel basement for about 100 people around the time of "Roxanne" and thought they were absolutely terrible (The Vapors, who I also saw there, were so much better). My good friend`s future ex-wife never forgave me for hating them and wanted me banned from being Best Man at their wedding. Nice.

 

It was nice to see Genya Ravan portrayed. Her rightful distaste of the Dead Boys' use of Nazi imagery is well documented, and the actor playing her, Stana Katic, did a decent job, despite the poor New York accent, but where was Castle? Check out Genya's excellent autobio, Lollipop Lounge (2004).

 

The Dictators' music is represented and there is a little Dictators sticker at the beginning, but they were the first CBGBs band singed, despite the nada physical depiction on film. Johnny Thunders and Walter Lure, while being mostly (again) related to Max`s, rarely played CBGBs in their various forms, such as the Heartbreakers, the Heroes, the Waldos, etc.

 

Thee were also many strange acts to play there, that one would not normally thing of, such as Peter Tork and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (I had some words with him about that name: HERE).

 

Overall, yes, it was important for me to watch this, but mostly, yeah, it was a bad film.

 

Postscript by Phyllis Stein:

I don`t remember Iggy ever playing with Blondie at CBGBs. Although Iggy did hang out one night in the summer of 1977 with Thunders, Sable [Starr], and me. The Blitz stabbing was fiction in the film. The rest of the Dead Boys were not even with Johnny Blitz when he was stabbed. Blitz was with his girlfriend, Michael Sticca, and Marcia Leone, Billy Rath`s girlfriend. The soundtrack is a joke. The New York Dolls never played there ever! And the Talking Heads song they included was much later from 1978. Jonathan was a Saluki. In the film, they cast Jonathan as an Afghan hound. I could go on and on, but I`m sure you get my point.

 

RBF: Please feel free to add your own corrections below in the comment section. Note that what you write will not show up until I approve it, to fight SPAM.

 

 

DVD Review: Lou Reed Tribute: The DVD Collection * 3 Disc Set

Text © Robert Barry Francos/FFanzeen, 2010-2014
Images from the Internet

 

                            

Lou Reed Tribute: The DVD Collection * 3 Disc Set
Chrome Dreams
279 minutes, 2014
www.Chromedreams.co.uk
www.MVDvisual.com

To those who are unaware, if there is anyone left, Lou Reed passed away on October 27, 2013. The good British folks who bring numerous and well-done independent documentaries about musicians and groups in the rock era, Chrome Dreams, have compiled three of their Lou Reed-related releases and put them into a three-disc box set. Cashing in? Perhaps, but the topic is important enough and of interest enough for me to say “thanks.” I had previously reviewed the final one in the set, so I am reprinting it here at the bottom.

 

The Velvet Underground: Under Review – An Independent Critical Analysis

Directed, produced and narrated by Tom Barbor-Might                       
Sexy Intellectual
85 minutes, 2006

Wow, this is definitely the Cole Notes (Classics Illustrated?) version of the story of the Velvet Underground (VU). Three minutes in Nico is being introduced to the band, as explained in an interview with Factory photographer and archivist, Billy Name, who was easily as influential on the scene as Warhol, though not as present in the public cultural zeitgeist. By seven minutes in, the first album is being recorded and drummer Maureen Tucker is describing the experience.

Mind you, I am not complaining about any of this. I mean, it’s easy enough to find a multitude of histories of every member of the VU. I probably have 5 or 6 on my bookshelf (I highly recommend Richie Unterberger’s 2009 White Light/White Heat). What makes this particular one special, to me is hearing from the people who were there, like Name and Tucker, so early on in this telling.

Besides, this isn’t a history of the Velvets, it’s a “critical analysis,” so unlike most of the amazing Chrome Dream catalog, it makes sense that a majority of those discussing the band are writers and critics who tell their opinions rather than second-hand anecdotes. The DVD starts going into depth, in fact, upon discussion of The Velvet Underground & Nico recording. The place is proper for Clinton Heyln, who wrote the book From the Velvets to the Voidoids (2005) to opinionate that “Venus in Furs” is the most important rock song since “Heartbreak Hotel.”

It gets especially interesting when they discuss the centerpiece of the album, “Heroin.” Norman Dolph, line producer of the album, discusses what the atmosphere was like being in the studio during the taping, and then Joe Harvard, who wrote the 33-1/3 Series book on the record, does a really nice analysis of not only what the song is saying lyrically, but musically. Tucker also tells a great story about her essential drumming/pounding on the song. Included is a live clip of the band playing it live.

Each song is dissected without being hypercritical and academically analytical, thankfully, placed in a context of fandom, so “Waiting for My Man” is explained in its Dylan influence, the subway sound of its rhythm (Robert Christgau here gives Mo her props), and the differences between the earlier “Ludlow Tapes” and the final product.

Sadly, the only Nico song discussed is “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” and I would have loved to have heard them discuss “European Son,” which needs to be broken down.

After the departure of Nico, there is a segment about them playing at the Boston Tea Party in, well, Boston, discussed by the manager who booked them, Steve Nelson. This makes a nice separation between discussing their first release and their White Light/White Heat.

This second LP, according to some of the critics here, is what influenced the punk scene more than the first, as they flash images of the Stooges (who were actually contemporaries of the VU, not followers), the New York Dolls, Suicide, Patti Smith, Richard Hell, the Ramones, Talking Heads, and Blondie over the title song. Personally, I don’t believe it was any one album that led to the punk movement, but it was definitely part of the brick in the CB’s/Max’s wall.

Of course, they focus mainly on “Sister Ray,” described as the “centerpiece” of the album. There is definitely not as detailed an analysis as the firs release, which is a shame, since I know the first so much better than the second. I was interested, and it wasn’t there.

To me, though, the one real flaw is the mostly unidirectional discussion of influence during the recordings. What I mean by that is that they talk a lot about how other musicians were influenced by the VU, but other than a brief mention of Reed’s Dylan fixation on “Waiting For My Man” and Cale’s non-traditional jazz origin, there is no explanation of why the second VU album is so markedly different than the first, or who they were listening to at the time. I believe that VU were made of the exact same influences as the Stooges and the MC5, but used the filter of different loci scenes. It isn’t until the third album that we see a discussion of where the foundations lay.

Little over half a year after the album’s release, Cale left (or as Mo smilingly describes him, the “lunatic”), which changed the direction, minus the drone and screech. They became “melodic,” especially with the addition of Doug Yule. It’s great that Yule is interviewed about his tenure here, which included their self-titled LP from 1969 (aka “The Grey Album”).

Discussed from it is the quality and origin of the guitar solo from “What Goes On.” I like the photo of Yue putting the bass under his chin like Cale’s violin. Another song discussed is how Doug sang “Candy Says” (the song, of course, is about Candy Darling), and how he didn’t know Candy’s back story. Mo talks about recording her vocals on “After Hours,” with Doug adding his thoughts. By this time, the discussion is more about the recording process than about the content.

They do finally get around to Sterling Morrison (d. 1995) and how underrated he was as a guitarist, after an hour in to the whole she-bang. Sadly, we don’t’ get to hear Mo talk about him much, which is strange since they were the rhythm section for the entire tenure of the VU (not counting Yules solo release using the VU name, which is summarily and rightfully dismissed here). There is some talk of the mysterious “missing” LP (eventually released decades later) and Live at Max’s Kansas City, with Doug’s brother Billy replacing a pregnant Mo on drums, but the analysis has just about disappeared and it’s become less of a critical discussion as a “what happened,” documentary, which in itself is interesting, but not what was promised.

The last real VU album was Loaded, again which Mo could not play on, and Doug goes on record saying that they should have waited for her; Mo says unwaveringly that she wishes she could have done the song “Ocean.” Rightfully noted on the DVD, however, that even although the band was in the process of falling apart, it did impact two of the band’s well known songs, “Sweet Jane” and “Rock & Roll.” Christgau here posits that they are the most important songs the VU ever recorded.

There is a brief discussion by Mo and Doug about their initial reactions at the time to Lou leaving, and little further after that, but they are right in saying that music today would not be the same without the Velvets. There is no doubt that the Velvet Underground was a turning point in music, and I certainly enjoy their output, but I must add that while they changed the face of culture, so did many others.

Extras are “The Hardest Velvet’s Quiz in the World Ever” (I stopped after No. 5, having gotten them all correct), contributor bios, and a 15-minute short called “Velvet Reflections” (aka additional interviews not used in the DVD).

While I think the box is a bit over the top with its descriptor “…it is the finest film on the band ever to emerge,” it definitely kept my interest throughout, and I would recommend it both for the fan and also those who are interested in music history.

Punk Revolution NYC: The Velvet Underground, The New York Dolls & the CBGBs Set – Part One 1966-1974

Directed by Unknown
Pride DVD
87 minutes, 2011

Of the three films, this is the one I was most looking forward to seeing, so I saw it last, of course… punk rawk! Most of the others were before my musical time (which for me began on June 20, 1975, my first time at CBGBs, seeing Talking Heads (their first show) opening for the Ramones. While I know of some of the people in the others, in this documentary, I have been in a room and shared conversations with most, and have physically seen the rest, including on stage.

The film posits that after the arrival of the Beatles, most of the new music in the US was from California, with the Byrds being the touchstone. That would change when John Cale met Lou Reed and they formed the Velvet Underground. A good point made here is that even though Reed was the central figure, without Cale’s avant-garde influence and Warhol’s push toward art, the VU probably would never have been so powerful a cultural force.

One important piece that they more dance around in the large VU history segment is that the band did not create a scene, but were part of the art collective. It was actually their legacy (i.e., recordings) that were picked up later in the cut-off bins for a buck or less after the band no longer existed that truly was influential to help create that scene half a decade later, when that was added to the likes of the Stooges, and MC5. But the New York CBGB’s scene as they’re calling it here – why was Max’s not included in the title, I wonder, as it features prominently here – was also an anti-movement, exploding as much against corporate/classic rock as for its influences. The black hole was as important as the primordial soup in this case, for the growth of punk rock. But I get ahead of myself…

However, there was a progression from Warhol to the scene, as they explain, as many of the “superstars” or near-super were from the indie theater (e.g., The Theater of the Ridiculous), including those who would foster the nascent scene, such as Jayne County, Elda Gentile (aka Elda Stiletto) – both interviewed here – Patti Smith, Cherry Vanilla, David Johansen, Debbie Harry, and Eric Emerson.

The doc veers a bit into how the Warhol crowd influenced Bowie (after all, this is a British film) before veering back to Emerson and his band the Magic Tramps being a catalyst to the opening of the Mercer Arts Center in New York to bands. This was what opened up a space for the true link between the Velvets and what was to come in 1974 with CBGBs, and the New York Dolls (who are still not in the corporatized Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum because they never made enough money for the record companies; don’t get me started). Stunningly, and rightfully so, this film also gives almost equal credit as the Dolls to the duo of Suicide (who, they point out, were arguably the first to use the term punk music in the very early ‘70s). Jayne County refers to them perfectly: “Suicide were so genius they went over everyone’s head.”

From there, of course, they jump to Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine, joining musically as well as poetic frienemies, with Richard Lloyd to form Television. The story is infamous now about how they approached Hilly Kristal to open up CBGBs to new music, as is related here by Hell and Lloyd (though not together, of course). Television brought their own opening act, the Stilettos, which would implode and, with a shake-up, become Blondie.

With the rise of CBGBs (and apparently the disappearance of Max’s since the showcase, which became even more amazing after the Warhol crowd abandoned it, is unfairly barely mentioned again), came the overshadowing of the Dolls, and thus ends Part I. No mention of the Ramones or the Heartbreakers, dammit.

It amuses me how they keep bringing Britain into the whole shebang (Warhol crowd goes to London! Bowie calls Television original!), yet they never once mention how Malcolm McLaren was hanging around and getting / borrowing ideas for his own British store and scene.

There are a couple of oversimplifications and a bit over crediting, but generally this is a nicely handled overview of the sex leading up to the birth of the New York Scene. What is really remarkable is some of the talent they get to speak up for it. Usually there’s an overabundance of writers who comment on the scene (though it’s right that Robert Christgau be represented, though he would eventually turn his back on the NY scene and focus on the British end of it in his columns), but here, the partial list of interviewees include Jayne County (who tends to be undercredited for her role), photographer Roberta Baley, the ever-great storyteller and photographer Leee Black Childers, Danny Fields, Elda Gentile, David Johansen (for a sec), Alan Vega, and Richard Lloyd.

Along with the contributor bios, the main extra is an 8-minute featurette called “Anarchy in the UK – The New Yorkers Cross the Atlantic.” There has always been the chicken-and-egg argument of who got to where first. Here, Richard Hell states that they got it from us. British author Tony Fletcher states that we got it from them when we crossed the ocean and saw what they were doing. I think Jayne County, once again, gets it closer, where she states that outside NYC, bands didn’t do well, but in much smaller and densely populated England, where there is numerous weekly music newspapers, the NY bands were treated like royalty and gained a reputation. What no one else is mentioning is that when the relatively popular British bands came here, they entered a vacuum. I remember Eddie & the Hot Rods playing Max’s to a half filled, non-dancing crowd (which upset them). Even the Troggs played Max’s in ’77 to a well received, but not packed audience. When I saw the Police and the Vapors (“Turning Japanese”) play, it was in the basement of a Hotel on 43 St, and it was hardly crowded, and this was after “Roxanne” had been out.

Now I really want to see Part II…

 

The Sacred Triangle: Bowie, Iggy & Lou, 1971-1973

Directed by Alec Lindsell
Narrated by Thomas Arnold                      
Sexy Intellectual
107 minutes, 2010
[Reprinted from the FFanzeen blog, October 31, 2010]

Let’s get right down to it:

This is a British documentary, so you know which one of the three is getting the main focus. Okay, picture two pyramids next to each other. The one on the left is Lou Reed and the one on the right is Iggy. Balancing between them is a line connecting the two (that is Marc Bolan, mentioned often but not in detail). And finally there is the third pyramid of the “sacred” triangle, David Bowie, on top of it all. That is the vision presented here. Okay, I’m done. Naw, not really, as this is still an interesting – albeit somewhat skewed – vision of the three.

Let me quickly add here that I am totally impressed by the choice of interviews that have been selected for this doc, which is so much better than the Pearl Jam one in this series. But more on the talking heads later.

There’s no doubt that Bowie was influenced by Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, but that’s nothing new. Just listen to David Jones’ singing style around the Ziggy Stardust period, and it’s easy to see the progression from his earlier works. Personally, I’d rather listen to Reed’s take, but that’s just me walkin’ on the wild side on a Sunday morning when comes the dawning.

There’s plenty of clips here of the Velvets; well, as much as there really is, which is limited, and taken by the Warhol crowd “artfully” (i.e., in fast speed) while in Exploding Plastic Inevitable mode (Gerard and his whip dance is often present). Bowie was still in folkie / cutsie mode when he first heard “Waitin’ for My Man,” and (rightfully) became a huge VU fan. An example given here is his “Toy Soldier,” which is such a – er – homage to “Venus in Furs,” it even quotes it in a few place, such as the line “bleed for me.” The video for the song has someone dancing with whips. And on “Black County Rock,” as explained in this doc, Bowie even imitates Bolan. MainMan publicist and photographer Leee Black Childers, who would later manage Iggy and then the Heartbreakers, states here that Bowie’s true talent is to know what to steal. In fact he said this and many of other the other bon mots he posits in a FFanzeen interview conducted by our own Nancy Foster (aka Nancy Neon) back in 1982. [HERE]

Andy Warhol is shown as possibly as big an influence as the VU, and to talk about the theatrics of the Factory and its influence on Bowie are the likes of the very wound up VU biographer Victor Bockris, the fabulous aforementioned Childers (who used to have one of the coolest motorcycle jackets ever, with an image of Gene Vincent painted on its back), the equally extraordinary Jayne County, smartly dressed in bright red Little Red Riding Hood mode (she even matches the couch!), 16 Magazine publisher (early on) and Ramones manager Danny Fields, and the Psychotic Frog himself, Jimi LaLumia. They paint a vivid picture of Lou and Andy’s influence on not only Bowie, but music in general. But Bowie is the main focus here, and in this case almost rightfully so, as Lee, Jayne, and Jimi were all hired by the Bow-ster to work with Tony DeFries and help run his production company, MainMan. One person seriously missing from the interview call list, though, is Cherry Vanilla, which is a serious deficit.

But the person of interest for me here, interview wise, is definitely Angela Bowie. A while back I found her kind of abrasive, but I must say that my opinion has totally changed, and I now see her as incredibly refreshing. She holds nothing back, and will tell the most intimate details at top volume. My apologies to you, for any negative thoughts I may have had in the past. But I digress…

Other interviewees include writers Paul Tryoka and Dave Thompson, and musician John Harlsen, who was a drummer on the Bowie-produced Lou Reed first popular solo effort, Transformer (as well as being Barry Womble, of the Rutles), which included his hits “Satellite of Love” and “Walk on the Wild Side.” They all paint a very detailed portrait of Bowie, and what effect Reed and Iggy had on him, and how Bowie had affected them. Also included are some short interviews (more likely called clips) with the key artists involved, such as Bowie (from 2001 and 2007), Lou Reed (1986), Iggy (1988), and just as importantly, Mick Ronson (looking extremely frail shortly before his death in 1993). There would arguably be no Bowie to the scale he achieved without Ronson as a musical driving force (rather than an influence, like Reed and Pop), I’m convinced.

Possibly one of Warhol’s biggest influences (and he really is as big as either Lou or Iggy in the David Jones pantheon) is the idea that “You’re a Star!” and if you act like it, people will come to believe and expect it. Even before the money, there was the wardrobe, the limos, the expense accounts, and all the trappings. LaLumia states it quite well when he relates that Bowie claimed that “I’m an actor. I’m not a musician. I’m portraying a rock star.” I can’t argue with that, as I’ve always found that Lou Reed was true to what he believed, as was Iggy totally committed to what he was doing, but Bowie was posing, rather than being. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never found him to be someone I’ve looked up to musically, especially in the reality of the punk days of the Ramones and the ilk.

While Iggy’s role in the Bowie history (and vice-versa) is more commonly known, there is much less about Iggy here than either Reed or especially Warhol. Bowie famously helped Pop both get off drugs and revive his career. For me, Bowie major force was in the studio as a producer, more than a vocalist, or especially as an innovator, as he was a series of influences creatively recast. Angela probably had as much to do with Bowie’s success as did David or Ronson – or even DeFries. And I won’t even detail Cherry Vanilla’s outreach program.

The added feature to the DVD is a seven-minute documentary called “The Nico Connection,” which shows how she had touched the lives of all three musicians that are the focus of the main feature. There is a bio for each of the contributors, and it put a smile on my face to see my pals the She Wolves given a shout out by Jayne County, as they’ve worked together over the past few years.

As a last note, I would like to add that after viewing this DVD, check out The Velvet Goldmine, which will then make so much more sense.

Book Review: Amphetamine Heart, by Liz Worth

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2013
Images from the Internet
Lizworth.com

Amphetamine Heart
First Poets Series 10
Written by Liz Worth
Illustrations by Amanda Flynn (diamandatattoo.com)
Guernica (Toronto / Buffalo / Lancaster, UK)
60 pages; 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55071-343-5

I usually don’t cover much in the poetry field. But we’re talking about Liz Worth, so that gets my attention. One only needs to check out her wise-beyond-her-years non-fiction tome Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond (reviewed HERE) http://ffanzeen.blogspot.ca/2010/04/book-review-treat-me-like-dirt-oral.html to know there is a lot more going on that is – er – worth the notice.

Sure, it’s a short book, in similar ways to punk poet laureate Patti Smith’s many releases, such as Wītt, but there is a lot hiding under the covers. Like Smith (I’m guessing an influence), and possibly Richard Hell, Worth digs deep and uncovers some beauty in several not very pretty places. For example, in “Second Guessing,” she posts:
From this side of the door
the sounds of dry heaves
are the same as orgasms:
There’s no room between gasps
for second guessing;
it’s all about the volatility
of involuntary reactions.



Liz Worth

The book is both directly and subtly full of – if you’ll pardon the cliché – sex and drugs and rock’n’roll. But even more so, it’s about the post-period, of awakening with both the physical and emotional aches and pains, and occasional scars that result from previous actions. In other words, the focus is not on the glamorous side of the party, but when you awake the next day.

The book title could have also been called Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart, because while the prose is not necessarily conducive to the usual stanza / stanza / chorus / stanza / chorus framework, there is a core to it that bends in relation to the harder sounds of that movement. The book jacket mentions punk and heavy metal. I may argue with the latter, as metal is generally a bit too modulated and structured, but it certainly could co-exist with the former in a jarring way, as with the punk poets I mentioned earlier.

This book can arguably be summed up in one word, actually, and that is attitude. It’s cranky, painfully self-aware, and a bit desperate in its craggy lineage. Right from the first lines of the opening poem, “Definitions,”
We shared cigarettes swapped in time with the circular motions of cats about to pounce with backs up like blades, protecting against plagiarized emotions.
we are introduced into an underworld that is soaked in a substance too stained to sustain a healthy relationship with either another or the present world. Like A Clockwork Orange, it’s a culture where emotional violence is the norm, but not accepted by the zeitgeist.

Even when she gets so personal that she’s cryptic in her pining, we familiar with the punk and rock world can associate the emotion that bursts from the chest, such as with “In No State”:
Light in the eyes
bring the head into
the minute the
body becomes fluid.
Through sugared dissonance
comes the phrase Six Two Eight
6 to 8
6 2 8.
Your detriment is imminent.
Wrists itch, sticky.

Liz Worth is a poet on the rise, and these indie books are going to be a sure collectors’ item, for good reason. While she may be too young to be considered part of the “Blank Generation,” the book does not whimper as much as scream out Punk rock!!