danebecky they use to play this movie in the mid to late 80s on night flights on USA network. living in a small rural community in western pennsylvania seeing this film and renting suburbia is what taught the local scene how to be punks. for so reason i don't remember any of us actually having access to decline at the timewe had no access to live bands until we made our own venues(briefly) in the early 90s, we had no connections to scenes in the near by towns and cities until we knew there was something our there to connect to. this movie more than anything else got us started, showed us what was possible(or maybe impossible), its a ten for that alone. it was eye opening, we watched this film and suddenly the world was full of possibilities that hadn't existed before(as well as hairstyles).

phuckyourfashion If you have any love for punk rock you need to see this movie. If you call yourself straight-edge you need to see this movie. Watch how life on the road cab destroy friendships and how good intentions go away when people are faced with harsh realities of life in a bus on the road. My favorite part is actually seeing the creation process of the social distortion song "another state of mind". At one point during a minor threat show ians mike goes out and the crowd doesn't seem to care and sings in unison for him. Very powerful show scenes. If you can track down a copy of this kick ass picture buy it, hold on to it and share it.

coagula Some of the concert scenes took me back to my late-70s/early 80s SoCal childhood in an intense way. There is way too little concert footage though, and way too much talking heads (not the band, the blabbermouths). With 22 years hindsight it sounds like so much spoiled suburban brats and less like rebels. If I hear the phrase "just getting out aggression" one more time as an excuse for thuggy slamdancing i would have stopped the movie right there. Kids practicing there stagediving in their swimming pool - hmm, a swimming pool, eh?One problem is that the punk look adopted by these kids is ubiquitous throughout mainstream media and suburban life nowadays - you get no sense of how radical a kid shaving his head was back then.About ten percent of this film is brilliant, especially watching the creative process of Social Distortion (primarily Mike Ness) slowly compose the song ANOTHER STATE OF MIND (one of the band's best early classics). But these scenes are almost lost in a sea of the pompous Sean Stern pontificating (although he does get blamed for being an egomaniac by mutinous crew members). The film is downright boring whenever Sean has to talk on and on about punks being apart from society. ZZZzzz. Stern seems to have calculated that his band needs a great headliner for the ill-fated tour ahead - sort of like a lousy Presidential candidate, Stern finds his charismatic VP in Social D and uses them to further the name of his lousy Yoth Brigade.There was no movie I was more prepared to love than this and I am thoroughly disappointed with the results. One day the Decline of Western Civilization (the original) will be released and trip like this flick will pale in comparison to that masterpiece.One last thought - comparing the cross-country bus commune of ASM to Tom Wolfe's Hippie Opus ELECTRIC KOOLAID ACID TEST might tell you all you need to know about the very early Southern California punkers.

zwolf This documentary follows members of the bands Social Distortion and Youth Brigade on an ill-fated tour across the U.S. and Canada. They fix up an old school bus that has seen better days, pack up all the band members and roadies, and set out on a tight budget. The farther they go, the more strained things get - Social Distorion almost breaks up because the going got to rough for 'em ('cept for Mike Ness, bless 'im) and the bus breaks down and they just can't go on, so they stay with Minor Threat for a couple of days and then pack it in. Lots of interviews with real punks, lots of concert footage with some *excellent* music (all three bands are great) and shows that even though the tour was a failure overall, people can still do things on their own with limited funds if their hearts are really in it and they can maintain unity. Some scenes are funny, some are kind of scary (those Canadian punks were kinda feral), and a sense of desperation builds... but it's always real and always true. Don't miss a chance to see this one - I've watched it probably a hundred times and don't mind if I see it a hundred more.