The Sex Pistols played their final gig at San Francisco¡¯s Winterland in January 1978. About a year later, Sid Vicious died from an overdose, and so did punk rock ¡ª according to the music magazines. The Pistols¡¯ chaotic tour of America, however, had dropped like a stone in a still pond, and the ripples were still spreading.
In 1979, Penelope Spheeris¡¯ day job was directing music videos for bands such as The Doobie Brothers and Fleetwood Mac, but her own tastes ran toward the fast and the hard. After work, she¡¯d hold on to her cameras and crew and sneak off into seedy Los Angeles clubs to film the city¡¯s nascent hardcore punk scene.
The documentary that resulted in 1981, ¡°The Decline of Western Civilization,¡± was a jaw-dropper, especially coming in an era defined by Ronald Reagan, the ¡°moral majority¡± and vapid MTV pop. Spheeris dove headfirst into a Bukowskian underworld of squalid clubs and squats, random violence and self-mutilation, where every interviewee boasted a taunting ¡°screw you¡± attitude. ¡°I really want them to hate me!¡± sneers Catholic Discipline singer Claude Bessy,?¡°It makes me feel good.¡±
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