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Rage: 20 Years Of Punk Rock West Coast Style (2000)
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For an entire generation, punk rock was more than just music - it was a way of life.Punk was a force that compelled young idealists to seek truth, to redefine beauty according to their own standards.It exhorted millions across the globe to eschew conformity for radical individuality and to defy tradition for anarchy.And it moved to a powerful soundtrack of chaotic, three-chord rage.
Judging from their documentary Rage: 20 Years of Punk Rock filmmakers Michael Bishop and Scott Jacoby seem to understand that sense of disenfranchisement.Through a series of in depth interviews with seminal artists in the Southern California punk scene - Jack Grisham (TSOL), Duane Peters (U.S. Bombs), Gitane Demone (Christian Death), Keith Morris (Circle Jerks), Don Bolles (Germs) and Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys) - they paint a vivid portrait of what it was like to be on the front lines of West Coast punk.Indeed, the personal accounts from each performer offer unique insight into one of the most important revolutions in music and culture.
What is perhaps most remarkable about these artists - and by extension what becomes the most interesting component of Bishop and Jacoby's film - is their steadfast dedication to punk rock idealism.For two decades, they created music on their own terms without regard to fame, fortune or MTV airplay (Biafra's refusal to sell his band's "Holday in Cambodia" for a commercial campaign only underscores that stance)."Rage" celebrates the tenacity intrinsic to punk's DIY aesthetic, however, the documentary never shies away from acknowledging the very real sacrifices the bands have made to pursue that philosophy.
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