[kj] 1000 SUNS Outside Gate and PHANTASMAGORIA

[B. Oliver Sheppard]

Hmm, I'll have to get it, then.

Ironically, I do own a copy of _Decline of Western Civilization: Part 3_ 
(on VHS) which seems to be an attempt to return-to-form -- back to punk, 
that is, focusing on gutter punks and street ragamuffins in L.A. in 
early 90s and such. I won it at a raffle at a Naked Aggression show 
weirdly enough, since that band is featured in the documentary. It's not 
as good as Decline Pt. One; Pt. 3 seems more like "Hollywood street punk 
A&E documentary" than anything else.

-Oliver




Leigh Newton wrote:

> If you haven't seen Decline part II then you are missing out on what can only be described as the very definition of CO-ME-DY. The Chris Holmes (of W.A.S.P.) floating around in his pool, piss-drunk, while his MOM looks on are pure gold. 

>

> Leigh

>

>

>

>   


Oliver wrote:


> I got into punk in '88 or '89, and by this time, yeah, a lot of the punk 

> bands had made the leap to hair metal or at least to some type of metal 

> from the punk roots (roots they'd proudly brandish again any years later 

> when they realized that was why folks liked them after all).

>

> Have you compared SSD (SS Decontrol) circa 1982 to their last hair metal 

> album? Good lord! Or, of course, Danzig going from '77-era East Coast 

> punk in The Misfits, to being basically a hair metal dude by 1988, 

> naming his band after his own (fake) last name in the fashion of metal 

> bands naming themselves after themselves, like Van Halen, Winger, and 

> others?

>

> On the _American Hardcore_ documentary -- not a perfect documentary by 

> any means (where are the Dead Kennedys and Misfits in it?? HUGE gap in 

> history of 80s punk by not including them) -- it even shows early Boston 

> HC band DYS on stage announcing publicly, circa 1985, "We used to be a 

> hardcore punk rock band, but now we're just a hard rock 'n roll 

> band...." Then it showed DYS playeing what sounded like some crappy 

> mid-tempo RATT-inspired rock music with the singer using that bad 

> falsetto that was so omnipresent in the 80s. And wasn't _Decline of 

> Western Civilization 2_ a documentary about hair metal bands? I've never 

> seen it, but I always wondered -- what were the hair guys rebelling 

> against? Not enough Aquanet available in L.A. at the time, or what?

>

> Back on topic to Killing Joke, though, I always saw their, uh, 

> "crossover" into pure new wave in the late 80s to be another version of 

> this change a lot of bands went through, in a sense. I just cannot 

> listen to anything KJ made after Nighttime until Extremities came along.

>

> -Oliver

>