Rodger Grossman: What We Do Is Secret (2008)

[Chris Knipp]

Rodger Grossman: What We Do Is Secret (2008)

Punk stardom: nasty, brutish, and short

Review by Chris Knipp

Last year there was an accomplished little film called Control by Anton Corbijn starring Samantha Morton, Sam Riley, Alexandra Maria Lara, et al., with beautiful black and white images of England evoking the short life of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, an English rock group of the 80's. This is the same thing, only the singer and the group, "legendary" and "seminal" though they may be among followers of punk, are less remembered among music fans, and the extent of the legend hardly becomes clear in this version. The focus is a lead singer who runs a group called The Germs. The film-making, which mixes dramatized sequences with fake documentary interviews, seeks to evoke the LA punk scene of the late 70's and early 80's. The scene and the film are sloppier, the concert sequences are more violent and less musical, the characters are less defined, and the ending is sudden. Yet in the opinion of some fans, it's not violent or sloppy enough, and one can see their point.

The lead singer in question, played by the successful TV actor Shane West, is a professed Fascist, though anarchy seems more his style, who takes on the name Darby Crash. He has been expelled from a special high school whose teachers proclaim him ungovernable but brilliant. He gives other band members names like Lorna Doom (Bijou Phillips) and Pat Smear (Rick Gonzalez). Gonzales has wonderful cheekbones, but never seems like a punker. Darby tells a French interviewer that he has a five-year plan--indication of his ambition but also a hint that his days are intentionally numbered. He's giving himself that long to make it big; perhaps also that long to live? So it went, anyway. At some point he seems to have said to the band they'd be as big as the Beatles. Ironically, he offed himself the night John Lennon was shot. In a late sequence Darby's cohorts mourn Lennon as they watch reports on TV of his death, while the scene cuts back and forth to their lead singer, alone with a girl groupie pledged to go out with him, deliberately overdosing.

This movie may awaken nostalgia or longing in those who wish life were crazier than it is now. The LA punk scene was a time of true mayhem, which is conveyed here even if the styles and interactions don't always quite fit the period. The group is assembled haphazardly including two girls recruited on the basis that they should have no talent and not be able to play an instrument. The Germs began to play without knowledge of the rudiments of music or their axes and their energy grew out of the outrage of the audience, which itself seemed more in search of violence and anger than art from the stage. This was a time of "joke bands," set up with some gimmick, like a male lead singer wearing a dress, and wailing laments that were not taken seriously by the band. The Germs were more serious, insofar as their leader cut himself and bled in public. The aim was to risk everything, and The Germs got banned from one music venue after another. At one point they stage a comeback by changing their name to "GI," for "Germs Incognito." They have trouble finding a drummer and run through nine. The one who sticks is a guy from Arizona who calls himself Don Bolles (Noah Segan). Segan has a wide-eyed eagerness and energy that, faute de mieux, has to pass for Bolles' personality. A homosexual relationship seems to develop between a certain Robby Henley (Ashton Holmes), who hero-worships Darby, but maybe he just wants to be in the band. Later he replaces Bolles as drummer through a violent misunderstanding. A woman called Amber (Missy Doty) becomes manager, over someone else, by virtue of paying for Darby's and the others' drinks and drugs.

Breifly Penelope Spheeris becomes a character, shown working with a big movie camera on her film, The Decline of Western Civilization--a reminder that this is a scene that has been well documented. This is a fictionalized recreation, with documentary touches. In that respect more than Control[ it resembles Fulton and Pepe's 2005 Brothers of the Head, which cunningly presents multiple forms of fake footage for an invented Siamese twin punk band. But both of those deserve higher ratings than What We Do Is Secret, though some may value the raw crudity of the concert sequences here, rarely recreated with such ferocity.

The movie is less successful, indeed makes little effort, at showing how The Germs interacted with and influenced, or were influenced by, other punk bands of the time; and in detailing the personalities involved; or specific songs. Datelines indicate times and venues of main Germs concerts, and the making of an album is briefly sketched in. But concerts are represented by one partial, ill-defined song each. Contrast Control where some concerts get extended sequences, and songs come through to even an uninformed viewer. Here, the atmosphere outside of violent clashes between people, boasting by Darby, and the in-your-face nosh pit concert scenes, is not really that punk. The clothes and manners could be any beatnik hippie depressed young folk of the last fifty years, and director Rodger Grossman's effort to define a moment through a key group and voice is a failure.

[Johann]

I`m familiar with The Germs but I`ve never bought a record.
Or even seen one!
Darby Crash has his cult following, and I`m sure that this film will have many of those fans going to see it.

The L.A. punk scene in the early 80`s was indeed a time of true mayhem (thanks Chris).
My admiration of Black Flag and Circle Jerks and X and pretty much every L.A. punk band is sky-high. All of that music is more relevant than ever. We`re living in a worse time than when Reagan was Prez. I got a Black Flag tattoo this summer, and those albums are so powerful to me. So awesome I can`t even explain it. Their whole message, their whole stance before the world is so inspiring and righteous.
The fact that nobody takes them seriously makes it even more important to me.

A Black Flag is almost an anti-Flag. It`s a symbol of anarchy, yes, but anarchy in the sense of rejection of representation- by anyone or anything. A white flag means surrender.
A black flag means Never Surrender.
Who invented the idea of flags or nations?
Pretty idea, pretty colors on some of those flags, but it is a flat-out expression of conformity to me. Communism if you wanna push it to an extreme...

I only toe the line in society because it benefits me culturally.
I don`t care about money at all. It`s a means to an end, and I agree 1000% with Werner Herzog that it only has two qualities:
STUPID and COWARDLY. More evil evil shit has occured on this planet due to money than any other thing. Power is the other side of the coin. Throw in ten trillion tons of fear and you got human history.

Punks and bands like the Germs had their own internal flames that for better or worse, they hovered around, damn the torpedoes.
I read an article about superior intelligent beings that might visit us from space and how they would take one look around at our WAY of living and declare us mentally retarded.
Think about it: If a higher intelligence came to earth wouldn`t they be so appalled with our actions that they would assume we`re insane? Would they even bother to take even a passing interest in what we`re doing, based on our seemingly unlimited capacity for counter-productivity?
I sure as hell would.
Wouldn`t it be nice to beam off this fucking rock? Forever?
Wouldn`t it be awesome to ditch this cesspool of depravity and beam to some wonderful oasis 8 trillion miles from Jupiter?
Where the women are Amazons and the wine and food is the finest in the galaxy? It`s gotta be out there somewhere...

But no, I gotta hang back here on Earth, be bombarded with bullshit and look for solace in punk and heavy metal music...

[Chris Knipp]

Your works show you to be a true punker in spirit and I appreciate your entry here since I am no expert on this school of music. The only thing I can say is that I knew a young guy in San Francisco in 1978 who kept saying punk was dead. Maybe he was looking to England, and comments on the influence of the Sex Pistols and The Clash as well as the Ramones might be in order here. Somehow insofar as American has musical heartlands, I'm not sure LA is one of them, except for this (and a host of good classical musicians who hover around partly due to rich employment opportunities in film). Now Seattle.....grunge....

P.s. Is grunge a corruption of "garage"? Just kidding.

[Johann]

The spirit of punk is not dead.
The fashions are, in my opinion.

I feel a little bit sorry for those kids who put safety pins on every piece of clothing they own and have the dyed spiky hair and Doc Marten boots.
That cliche is so nauseating to me.
That was a classic punk look from 1977, and unless it`s Halloween, you look utterly goofy in that kind of get-up. That "look" belongs to the early early punk days, when it was REAL and not some latter-day emulation.
Plus it`s expensive to buy all that crap!
These guys have gotta realize that you`re not really being punk by spending all of your money on bullet belts and spike wristbands.
They think they`re being rebellious but in actuality they`re a bad, bad cliche. And a consumer to boot- hardly punk.
Make your own clothes, make your own style- that would be more in line with the D.I.Y. ethic of hardcore punks.
But I am down with t-shirts and patches and tattoos.
Nothing wrong with those items- especially in support of your fave bands.
Have a little more upstairs than candy-striped socks and a chip on your shoulder...

On your mentioning of those other bands, first The Sex-Pistols were awesome for several reasons: they really stuck it to the man (or Queen). They brought a political fire with them. They got noticed big time by everybody, and they were ahead of the curve:
the named their album NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS- pre-empting the reaction to their offensive brand of punk.
Check out some lyrics to `God Save the Queen`:
God Save the Queen
We mean it, Man!
God Save the Queen
She ain`t no human being
Our Figurehead- she`s not what she seems
Tourists are money- God saves!

Love it.
British punks were borne out of sense of frustration with the rigid Monarchy of the day in the late 70`s. I saw the wonderful time-capsule 1980 documentary D.O.A., and in it a young punk said something to the effect of: You can`t win to a parent in England today, `cuz we won the war. That`s it. Just "we won the war". Now shut up and go to your pitiful job...We say Bollocks to that!


The Clash were better musically than the Pistols and even more political, more socially conscious. But where the Pistols just raged, the Clash actually proposed what to do about it.
They rocked pretty damn hard.
As Oscar said once: they rocked harder and SMARTER than just about every other punk band.

I`ll post more later, but yeah...that`s my take

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for all this.

I never thought of it, but all the punk paraphinalia is indeed expensive. I guess some young people like having a very distinctive adopted style, I don't entirely despise them for that, and even a received style can be adopted in an individual personal manner, but nonetheless I take your point and indeed it is a bit silly, even a bit pathetic, seen from a distance at least. If it was my kid I'd try to be indulgent I suppose.

NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS: I had that album when I was really playing vinyl at home, but it may have disappeared now.

[oscar jubis]

I don't know of any music writer who had anything good to say about The Germs. The three who covered the scene most enthusiastically: Robert Christgau, Ira Robbins, and Lester Bangs, either ignored them or hated them. Forget writers, none of my friends like them. All I remember is that theirs was the worst song in The Decline of Western Civilization. We all loved X, The Angry Samoans and Black Flag, and respected The Circle Jerks and a couple other bands. The "scene" was small. Most of my contemporaries were listening to more melodic mainstream rock. One would hope that those who watch What We Do in Secret don't get a general opinion about punk rock, or the L.A. scene, or Hardcore based on the music of The Germs. Their value is strictly limited to provinding a bunch of kids with an outlet for the expression of anarchic energy, although too often what was expressed was despairing nihilism.

[Johann]

I also haven`t heard anyone praising the Germs either.
Lester Bangs wouldn`t give them the time of day, and I understand his position.
Lester annoyed me when I first read his stuff.
He dissed Jim Morrison, calling him Bozo Dionysus.
But then he redeemed himself with a piece he wrote in the early 80`s, changing his tune, celebrating the live album the Doors put out called Absolutely Live.

But his hero-worship of Lou Reed is a bit much.
I will always consider Lou a First-Class Asshole.
Why?
For his treatment of his drummer Mo Tucker (He said she`d never amount to anything if she wasn`t in the Velvet Underground)
AND upon his hearing of Jim Morrison`s death he said He died in a bathtub? That`s grrreeeaaat...I don`t feel sorry for him at all

For the record Lou, Jim died after clutching his chest after snorting what he thought was cocaine. It wasn`t. It was Pam`s heroin stash. He dropped to the floor of the apartment like a rock.
Pam panicked and called her dealer, saying Jim OD`d. He came over with Marianne Faithfull and they helped put him into the tub to try to wake him up. When he wasn`t responding, they bolted and told Pam to call the police- they wanted nothing to do with it. they flew to another country immediately. Marianne denies she ever met Jim. But I`ve read every single book there is on Jim Morrison, plus I`ve listened to the Doors themselves and read Danny Sugerman`s books. That is what really happened.
He did not die in the bathtub. He was put in there to try to revive him, but it was too late. I know this to be true without any doubt in my mind. I`ve done massive research on it. That is the conclusion you come to if you`ve read every single bit of info you can find. It was heart failure alright. Due to a massive snort of heroin, a drug which Jim never took- he even warned Danny about it, saying Stay away from Smack! It will kill you!


Anyway, re: the Germs

I guess the quote unquote legend of Darby Crash would be enough to make this film but what are the filmmakers trying to say with this? Is this film really needed, other than to further mythologize his *very brief* life?

[Chris Knipp]

I didn't know about the relative merits of the Germs but they certainly sound terrible in the movie. But then all such music sort of sounds terrible--to me anyway, so I had to reserve judgement on the relative merits of it. I'm glad you've set that straight. I think the filmmakers were attracted by the story of Daarby Crash, with its arc toward quick fame and almost equally rapid doom. In that it parallels Control but with the difference I alluded to in my review, that the Joy Division songs are more listenable and Ian Curtis is a more interesting person. On the other hand, What We Do Is Secret does succeed in recreating the very different LA punk milieu and the uncontrollable chaos of the concerts of that era--unlike the relatively orderly performances of Joy Division. Anyone interested in the LA punk era would still want to see this movie.

[Chris Knipp]

P.s. There is an interesting film on Lou Reed in Berlin, (actuallly the title is Lou Reed's Berlin) but I haven't been able to see it. In view of the fact that it's the work of Julian Schnabel, it is definitely worth looking for. Besides I lilke Lou Reed's songs, or at least some of them, the few I know. His album "Rock and Roll Animal" contains songs that deeply impressed me and that I listened to a lot at one time. And then "Walk on the Wild Side" on "Transformer"--classic. I once went to a concert where he sang a zillion of his songs though, and most of them I didn't recognize.

[Johann]

the Germs got a boost in notices when Nirvana added Pat Smear to their line-up for the album In Utero.

(Kurt Cobain also got people into the Raincoats and Black Flag- I loved hearing about him selling his record collection so he could see Black Flag in Washington). I always thought Cobain was a whiney snot but I`ve since become a fan. When he died I was at a friend`s house and his sister came into the livingroom to tell us. We didn`t even blink. So what? We were tired of Smells Like Teen Spirit, we were into the Doors and other 60`s groups and felt that Nirvana was a ridiculous fad.

Time has proven that Cobain was something of a musical genius.
the Germs?
I honestly haven`t heard anything by them that resonates.
They were mentioned in a couple punk docs I`ve seen but there ain`t a whole lot to go on with them , musically.
Can you buy a Germs record?
I`ve been in many indie record shops and I`ve never seen any for sale, on CD or vinyl.

This film definitely sounds like it`s for those who`re into the L.A. punk scene and I`ll be seeing it whenever I can.
Thanks for the review and comments.
How did you happen to decide to go see this?

[Johann]

As much as Lou Reed is an asshole, no one can deny his songwriting skills and legendary status.

Walk on the Wild Side is a masterpiece of a song for sure.
Even Hunter Thompson wrote to Lou, thanking him for that one.

Personally, I love the song Heroin and that one from the album Loaded (which Lou wrote but did not perform) where he sings about Marilyn Monroe:

Can I have your autograph?
He said, to the fat blonde actress
I seen all the movies you been in
Even the one with Robert Mitchum
Couldn`t catch him
I`ll come running to you
Honey if you want me
Honey if you want me
You`re over the hill right now
Looking for love


something like that..
(I`m going on memory- long time since I`ve had that LP)