1991: The Year Punk Broke - Dave Markey

Yeah but I usually deal with the screenings directly so I’m used to dealing with festivals and stuff. I think it’s different with the American Cinematheque because it’s a hallowed nod to my work. It’s a big deal I guess.

Well yeah. Documentaries now, thanks to Michael Moore, are becoming legitimate so mass audiences are paying attention to them.

I missed that one because I’m waiting for the DVD. I don’t get a lot of time to see movies.

I was going to do a documentary about the making of Sonic Youth’s first major label album, Goo. I was going to do this Sympathy for the Devil Godard thing with the band. Just a couple of weeks before that tour started I got a call from Thurston [Moore] and he asked me if I wanted to go to Europe with them and Nirvana on a festival tour. So we just did it.

Yeah I sort of completed it this year. I went back to all the rough footage which I haven’t seen since 1992. I only filmed for two weeks during that short tour so I only had nine hours of footage to make a 99 minute film. In my mind I would go through the rough footage to put on the DVD as extras but I found all these amazing scenes that I should have put in the film in the first place. So I edited it all together and was blown away by how it came together. It was a 42 minute piece that I thought was as strong as or even stronger than the movie itself. It’s just a case of looking at something in hindsight especially the Kurt Cobain footage because there is some very eerie and creepy foreboding signs of Cobain’s demise. I hope to release the DVD next year.

Yeah I’ve always maintained a professional and personal relationship with Sonic Youth. This year I directed a video for their song I Love You Golden Blue off their latest record. Once in a while I run into [Krist] Novoselic and I was riding my bike not too long ago and [Dave] Grohl pulled up in his SUV calling my name.

I know Kurt loved the movie. The film caught them at an innocent moment before they became really popular. There are inklings in the film of what happened with Nirvana’s success. But mostly everyone on the tour was having a good time and I think that comes across in the film.

Some but I’ve mostly done short films. I’ve been making those since I was 13 years old. I am completely self taught with films and it’s something that I’ve always been into. In the 90’s I did a lot of music videos for major labels. That was when things were booming but now I’ve gone back to my humble beginnings of self producing and directing films. I’ve also been doing a lot of work on the DVDs of my movies Lovedolls Superstar, Desperate Teenage Lovedolls and my short film collection.

Yeah I started shooting that in June of 1981. That was when Los Angeles had an amazing boom happening with bands like Fear, Black Flag and the Circle Jerks. I was also in the band, Sin 34, at the same time so I was hanging out with a lot of bands and shooting home movie like footage. I would only show the footage at parties and things like that. The Slog Movie only first came out on DVD last year but it’s an amazing historic piece on LA and all the bands at the time.

It was a piece of cake. Lance Bangs came over to my place and recorded it.

There are very few bands from the LA scene, other than Social Distortion and Bad Religion, that are actually still around. Those times defined what that music is. Obviously life happens and it moves on. I think everyone is punk where it counts, the heart and mind. For me punk rock is an aesthetic. It wasn’t fashion. It was empowering and gave you the ability to put out records or make films or do anything I want. That’s pretty invaluable stuff especially for kids. Now we have the internet so you can make films or do a fanzine and people can get to it and see it. Obviously punk is a template now that I don’t think will ever go away unlike heavy metal. I think punk rock as an ideal will still be around long after we are gone. I don’t think things are the same then as they are now. Corporate control is stronger than ever. It may be more difficult now even though there is more potential for people seeing your stuff.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

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