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During the 1980s and 90s, a small, well-known collection of California punk rockers played hard, partied harder, and lived for the moment. Then before they knew it, and beyond even their own expectations, these guys actually lived past age 30 and continued to make a living playing music, decades after they started. With not much punk precedent for such a situation, and no irony intended, many of them then ended up sharing another trait: They all became dads. This evolution of some of our most devolved artists is at the bare-knuckled crux of Andrea Blaugrund Nevins's irresistible backstage documentary, a film that transcends the rock doc genre to become something very special, a broader commentary on the importance of parenting.
If you know the music, you can already get a sense of the severe contradiction. From The Vandals and Black Flag to blink-182 and The Red Hot Chili Peppers, the vibe could be dangerous, frantic, anarchic -- certainly not the basis for a stable home. Or a stable family for that matter. But once Nevins sets the table with a competent history of the music and its players, we learn that every one of these guys had a crappy childhood. At best, they were misunderstood by their parents. At worst, completely ignored or despised.
Nevins's endlessly colorful subjects view their dive into parenthood as the ultimate F-you in a lifetime of punk rock F-yous. Concentrating on being great parents is like full-throttle revenge, meant to show their very first authority figures that they can do this daddy thing a hell of a lot better.At the center of Nevins's story is the film's most literate and revealing musician, longtime Pennywise singer Jim Lindberg. He gets comfortable enough -- with Nevins, we assume -- to carry on long conversations on and off camera that show he's like a lot of us. In his mid-40s, Lindberg is vain enough to color his hair, clearheaded enough to know he's too old for some of the shenanigans. But he also plays for a beloved band, a fairly lucrative career role that keeps him on the road for 200+ days a year, away from his suburban home, wife, three girls, and all the school and community events that come with that.
As Nevins focuses sharply on Lindberg's dilemma, the good-looking lead man becomes the unwitting representative of his generation, one foot in the punk rock past, the other in his familial future. He's like the embodiment of an entire era of anger come to its mature finish line. Some of the old Hermosa Beach gang is right there with him, acknowledging that they occasionally feel like clowns. And some still wanna power drink and bang the bass 10 months a year.
Some of the moments with these guys are priceless and it's easy to remember that, in their hearts, they're artists. Ron Reyes visits a record shop with his teenagers, showing off his old Black Flag albums while his daughter admits her friends looked up dad on wikipedia. NOFX's Fat Mike sprays butter substitute on his little girl's toast (a surefire reminder of Ozzy Osbourne making breakfast in Penelope Spheeris's Decline of Western Civilization Part II, an influence here). Flea from the Chili Peppers plays a piano duet with his daughter, and loses his composure when recalling his desire to change his life upon her birth. Whoa, what's this? A punk rock documentary tearjerker? F*ck yeah.
