Decline of Western Civilization, Parts 1 - 3

Someone has finally put Penelope Spheeris' 1981 documentary on LA punk, The Decline of Western Civilization, online in one piece, no more wading through 18 different Youtube videos to see it all. This is cool cos it captures the time that punk was turning into hardcore, the art crowd were getting out and the raw adolescent aggression was taking over. It kind of gives me a boner.





The sequel, The Decline of Western Civilization II - The Metal Years, is well worth a viewing too,
it's absolutely fucking hilarious, the groupies are amazing and remind me of some London indie girls I used to know.





People always talk about the first two, but no one ever mentions The Decline of Western Civilization III, which is a pity, as it's about a scene that some of us who were in the middle of our teens and into bad music in the late nineties should remember. It's about LA street punks and is cool cos it's about kids who take everything to the logical extreme and hate society so much they basically drop off the face of it.


It's not on google video in one piece yet but this gnarly guy has put it up in parts on Youtube. Do it.

I went to LA once, Venice Beach was like Camden on Sea.

Disappointing

This is kind of late, but in March I went on a tour round America with my housemate's band. I had a whale of a time but it only hammered home how English, pale and awkward people involved in guitar music often are. We tried to shotgun beers in our hotel room in LA, it was so, so lame. This is my housemate's manager's boyfriend giving it the old college try.



Weak huh? We got fucking sunburnt too, me and him did merch at the Roxy for this showcase of English bands and this hot girl approached us and we thought we were in but all she did was offer us some aftersun lotion.