VIFF Review: Punk: Attitude

A funny thing happened on the way to the theatre. Well, in the theatre actually. The projector was not working and the theatre staff left us in the dark for 10 minutes. Whether they were intentionally trying to give us some attitude or just incompetent will probably never be known because the film did finally start.

Punk: Attitude [PUNKA] is a concise history of punk music. Punk was a rebellion against the prevailing trends in popular music of the 1970's. The self indulgent excesses of progressive rock galvanized a younger generation to express themselves with the minimum of musical skill and a maximum of attitude.

The film is largely made up of interviews with the surviving participants, and many of them have survived their sex, drugs, and rock and roll phase into middle age. Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders) is looking a lot older than I remember when I last saw her at the Commodore about 10 years ago. Henry Rollins (Black Flag) looks quite fit, and gets the most screen time as his rapid delivery gives him the most to say. Others punk luminaries interviewed include Siouxsie Sioux (Siouxsie and the Banshees), Mick Jones (The Clash), and David Johansen (New York Dolls).

The family tree of bands is traced out starting with the New York scene which was centred on the CBGB Club. Amusingly the club initials stand for Country, Blue Grass, Blues. The New York Dolls inspired the Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, and the Ramones. The punk movement soon crossed the Atlantic and London groups formed such as the Sex Pistols, and The Clash.

Every music has its heyday and fickle pop fans soon moved on to the New Wave of the 1980's. Even so punk never really went away and groups like Sonic Youth, and the Dead Kennedys kept its ethos alive in the 1980's. In the 1990's Nirvana and the Seattle grunge sound blasted onto the scene for a new generation of disaffected youth. Today's groups like Blink 182, and Green Day are more considered punk-lite or pop-punk.

Where has the DIY rebellion gone? The film posits that the modern day punk rocker is as likely to be found on the Internet as on stage--building websites, organizing protests, and mixing tracks with Logic Pro. The punk ethos survives.