Search - Early Years Live on DVD

The beginning of the end

Laughing Sal | San Francisco | 08/31/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"unfortunately, though I was lucky enough to be taken to a lot of early punk shows in my hometown of San Francisco, I was really too young for first-era [1976-1979] punk. by the time I had left home and was getting a band together, the scene had changed. lots of what we called 'surf scum', the sunburnt jocks that shaved their heads and put on cycle boots and decided to be 'punks' were showing up at gigs, pushing and shoving and contributing nothing. [believe me, if I had been a young dude at these shows, I might have taken out my bottomless anger physically too. I just turned mine into music or paintings, etc. but boys seem to be naturally more inclined toward beating on each other. it's probably a genetic thing. whatever.] what used to crack me up is that there were MILLIONS of these guys, and they just finally turned into what they always were. they joined the armed forces, or went to work for their parents.

for those of us unlucky or lucky enough to be born what we were, punk rock offered a lot of choices up until the 80's. I happened to love TSOL, and saw them quite a few times in the early 80s. I was at a different Target show, [minus the slamming ape-jock types] where they were wearing these fantastic fake-fur neon colored shirts- I THINK it was their first visit to SF. they were AMAZING. incredible lyrics, they could play, they were tight, and they were cute. I dug them.
unfortunately, the time captured in this dvd was the transitional era for punk from the earlier magical era of freedom to uptight, authoritative testosterone-fueled yell-fests. and if I wanted that I could go to a football game, not go see bands.
the Flipside show is pretty bad- the sound is thin. god, how did they stand all that sunlight? I guess when you're from LA you can deal with it. the best part for me was the interview at the end. I remember my own days of listening to ideologues, washing down the rhetoric with lots of cheap beer; of righteousness wrapped in a black leather jacket. I'm not surprised that Jack Grisham is inclined towards political office. he's quite a talker. hey, why not? good for him.

regardless, these guys were a great band, and their first two albums were amazing; full of powerful emotion and optimism. this dvd contains some of this great music."