There have been so many
exegeses of punk rock—including the recent documentary American
Hardcore—that
there wouldn't seem to be much need for Susan Dynner's "people's history" Punk's
Not Dead.
But Dynner brings a broader perspective. Rather than breaking punk down into
its UK, NY, DC, and LA golden ages and leaving other scenes and eras out to dry,
Dynner treats punk as an ever-evolving, eternally relevant movement that keeps
producing great bands and vital scenes. Few would put modern million-selling
pop-punkers on the same plane as U.K. Subs or Minor Threat, but Punk's Not
Dead rightly
notes that for some kids out there now, The Offspring are old-school and The
Used changed their lives.
Punk's Not Dead starts with the first
punk explosion in the late '70s—complete with scenes from tongue-clucking
episodes of CHiPs, Donahue,
and Quincy—then
jumps ahead to Rancid and Green Day, covering the first generation of punks to
break into the mainstream. From there, Dynner structures the rest of the film
dialectically, balancing the experiences of veteran politicized punkers like
Subhumans with the "Just because we're on MTV doesn't mean we're lame"
rationalizations of Good Charlotte and Sum 41. She also contrasts the
corporate-sponsored appropriations of Hot Topic and the Warped Tour with the
underground network of punk bands who still tour America one basement at a
time.
There's a smidgen of "So
what else is new?" to Punk's Not Dead's embrace of decades-old soul-searching about
when populism shades into selling out, but Dynner smartly keeps bringing the
story back to the reason kids are still drawn to punk: It makes them feel like
they've been let into a secret club. When Henry Rollins reminisces about
buying records by mail order and getting hand-written notes from the bands, or
how he felt like his favorite acts had gone commercial if more than 300 people
came to their shows, it's easy to see how the punk scene never dies, no matter
how much its participants keep pointing fingers.
Key features: Two hours of bonus interviews, many of
them hilariously digressive.