BEFORE: What would Labor Day weekend, the unofficial close of summer, be without some kind of big all-star rock concert? I guess I've been building up to that, without even knowing it, it's just the way the schedule played out. Though sometimes I wonder if my subconscious plays some kind of role in scheduling things like this - I guess I've learned not to think too much about specifics, I mostly just follow the chain and let things play out like they seem to want to, and I'm usually rewarded by the nature of coincidence. Or maybe there are no coincidences, just the accidental ability of taking advantage of happenstance. It doesn't really matter in the end, as long as I get from the first film of the year to the last one somehow, in a manner that pleases me and satisfies my O.C.D.
Ozzy Osbourne carries over from "Lemmy", and so does at least one other person, and Ozzy will be around for two more films after this one, too.
THE PLOT: Documentary showcasing what life was like for the music artists living in L.A. metal scene during the mid and late 1980's.
AFTER: I think I first became aware of this film series back in 1998, when I was attending the Sundance Film Festival for the first (of three) times, with an animated film I produced that was in the Dramatic Competition that year, if you can believe that. Also playing at that festival that year was Vol. III of "The Decline of Western Civilization", so that first put this series on my radar. Now, Vol. I was about the punk scene of the late 1970's and early 80's, and Vol. III was about the lifestyle of homeless teens in L.A., and I don't have much interest in either of those topics. Ah, but Vol. II seems to be where it's at, with a star-studded line-up featuring everyone who was anyone in 80's metal, and back before I knew how many people appear uncredited in these rock docs, I figured that I needed this film to make my connections.
But, since Ozzy was in yesterday's film, I could have dropped this film from the line-up and the chain would still have continued, it would have just closed up neatly around the hole - now I'm sort of wishing that I had dropped this one, because it really didn't deliver all that it seemed to promise. Only a few bands perform here, and none of the really big names play any music - not Aerosmith, or Ozzy, or KISS. Those guys get interviewed about the rock lifestyle, sure, but that's hardly the same thing. The performances come from the bands Lizzie Borden, Faster Pussycat, Seduce, London, Odin and Megadeth. I've only heard of TWO of those bands before, that's not a good sign - and I can't even name one song from either of those bands.
I'm not quite sure what was gained, if anything, by giving this film series a title that makes it sound like a high-school history class. That couldn't have put many asses in the theater seats, not from the target market, anyway. And why use such a negative word like "Decline" - isn't that the stereotype that parents always believe, that their kids' music is going to somehow lead to the end of society? Don't we all realize now that the end of the world isn't going to come that way? The world didn't end when Elvis shook his hips, or the Beatles grew their hair long, or when David Bowie put on a dress. Sure, these things challenged society's preconceptions about what is proper behavior, but none of them led to civilization's downfall. I'd worry more about conservatives using their imagined morals to impart their will on everyone and slowly erode our freedoms and civil rights before I'd blame rock and roll for an imagined slide into the abyss.
Unless the title is supposed to be ironic, but who can tell? Still, when I listened to the interviews with a bunch of rock hopefuls and wannabes, most of whom are completely delusional about their own talents and chances for success, maybe the filmmakers here are on to something, after all. The chances of becoming the next KISS or Aerosmith were literally one in a million for these twenty-somethings, but they kept on keeping on, blissfully unaware that (apart from appearing in this documentary) they were never going to be anything more than a tiny blip on rock and roll's radar. How did things work out for bands like Seduce and Odin? I'm guessing not very well. And London seemed to be the training band for musicians who all left to be in Motley Crue, Guns 'N Roses and Cinderella.
Further evidence that this was the decade that marked the start of the dumbing-down of America is seen when there's a dancing (stripping) contest at an L.A. club called Gazzarri's, where the owner is over 60 and professes his love for having sex with 18-year old girls. (As if!) If that was some kind of pre-requisite for being in the contest, that was really wrong, but I bet he found a few girls back then who were willing to go along with it. What really concerned me, however, was the interview with the previous year's winner, who after giving up her title as the contest winner, hoped to devote more time to both her dancing and her "actressing". Yeah, good luck with that, honey. Don't strain your brain too much trying to remember your lines.
For the interviews, it's hard for me to take these bands seriously, when they won't even give honest answers to the questions they were asked. OK, the elder statesmen of rock do give some honest answers to questions about sex and drugs, and the younger kids are just delusional, but it's the mid-range bands like Poison and Faster Pussycat that can't even take themselves seriously for a second, and turn everything into some thinly veiled references about how great they all are in bed, and how much they're getting laid now that they're rock stars. Ugh, we get it, all you want to do is joke about how you just got into rock for the pussy. Why can't you all grow the hell up and be more like Lemmy and Ozzy, who talk very seriously about how they got just into rock for the pussy?
But then again, nothing here seems intended to be taken seriously - Gene Simmons chose to do his interview while shopping for lingerie (or perhaps for lingerie models) and Paul Stanley is filmed from above in a bed with four women. Ozzy Osbourne's interview is conducted while he's cooking breakfast (and spilling juice to overplay a case of "the shakes") and the guy from Wasp is pretending to be drunk and fake binge-drinking while floating in his pool. Two things about that - no alcoholic would waste that much vodka, and no pool owner would risk pouring vodka in the pool (after spending so much money on chlorine to get the pH level JUST right), so that's clearly water in those bottles.
So how am I supposed to take a documentary seriously, when it won't take its own subject matter seriously, when it faked SO many shots for the sake of over-dramatizing its stars? Which really leaves only Steven Tyler and Joe Perry as the unlikely voices of reason. Now THAT'S weird.
Also starring Lemmy (also carrying over from "Lemmy"), Alice Cooper (ditto), C.C. DeVille (ditto), Dave Ellefson (ditto), Steven Tyler (last seen in "Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall"), Joe Perry, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Bret Michaels, Bobby Dall, Rikki Rockett, Chris Holmes, Brent Muscat, Eric Stacy, Greg Steele, Mark Michals, Taime Downe, Randy O, Dave Mustaine, Chuck Behler, Jeff Young, Bill Gazzarri, Riki Rachtman, Nadir D'Priest, Lizzie Grey, Brian West, Gene Allen, Frankie Jones, Desi Benjamin, Janet Gardner, Jan Kuehnemund, Share Pedersen, Roxy Petrucci.
RATING: 4 out of 10 flash pots
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