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CBGB Punk From The BoweryDirector: various Rating: M 67 mins MVD/Warner This release trades on the good name of the legendary New York club CBGBs, and the punk music that first found its home there in 1975. It is a collection of two songs each from fifteen fairly undistinguished latter-day rock bands of the sort who give punk a bad name. The songs are filmed and recorded without artistry, live in the club. The sound is OK but seems to be through a condenser mic, making quiet elements loud and loud passages quiet. In general, the bands are loutish, overweight, tattooed, shaven-headed American men, shouting banal (if not unintelligible) lyrics at an audience from the same demographic. Where are the women? Where are the melodies? Where is the humour? Where is the hair? Agnostic Front are hardcore blokes with tatts, built-bodies and macho posturing, including air-fist-punching. The Cro-Mags are the same but have more tatts, a woefully thin snare sound and are overshadowed by routine stage-invasion. Madball are shoutier, more frustrated and bare-chested (revealing even more tatts). H2O are skinny and have a devoted crowd and a smidgen of politics and rock'n'roll sensibility. Poison Idea restores the weight average, while Harley's War are truly grotesque. UK Subs actually look punk, with spiky white hair and they play short songs that are to the point: the point unfortunately, is they are dumb and try-hard. The Varukers are lacklustre, shouty hardcore, though Don't Want To Be A Victim would have been one of the better tracks if it didn't have a technical fault as on my copy. Chaos deserve their audience of balding yobs. Molotov Cocktail are still shaved-headed Yanks, but they do play music a la the Dead Kennedys and have a gender-integrated audience who, no doubt, enjoy looking up their baggy shorts. Kraut have a similar musical sensibility but poor drumming and a horrible guitarist. Adrenalin OD are ageing, obese and under-rehearsed, while Even Worse really are. The Vibrators were captured on their 25th anniversary tour and provide honest, old-school rock'n'roll that they dedicate to Joey Ramone, and Furious George finish it all off with an unrefined punk buzz that may have had some credibility thirty years ago. The bonus tour of CBGBs conducted by proprietor Hilly Kristal is pathetically filmed, making the whole exercise a pointless, sad misinterpretation of the genre.  |
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