1991: The Year Punk Broke

This was an often watched video tape for my friends and I back in the very early nineties. I'd already seen Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and Nirvana when this came out and found it an enjoyable way to relive those memories as well as catch a glimpse of songs I hadn't seen performed yet.

The film starts with Thurston's occasionally amusing psychobabble while members of SY, Nirvana, and Don Fleming dance and twirl on the edge of what looks to be a set of train tracks. Then it breaks into an awesome version of Sonic Youth's "Schizophrenia." Note perfect and even more expansive than the album version, I would have to say this is my favorite version of this song ever!

While there is no need for me to go on a song by song breakdown of this film (mostly cause I don't think I could do it from memory anyway), I'll mention some highlights for my own amusement.

First off, this was SY right after their first major label record and before they had their arsenal of beat to s**t guitars stolen. There was something beautiful about their old, broken Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters that seemed fitting for the band. They were like something out of "The Road Warrior," survivors of the apocalypse who found a bomb blasted old guitar store and pieced together the best of what survived into the most futuristic weapons they could possibly wield and use them to decimate armies of Eric Claptons and any other ridiculous, bloated "Best Guitarists in the World" with their crisp, clean, ten-thousand dollar vintage guitars.

It's especially nice, if retrospect, to see Kurt Cobain in moments of sublime happiness as he tours with (SY) what was no doubt one of his favorite bands. Although his on-stage theatrics were edgy and masochistic, when he was present backstage, he seemed loose and happy. One particularly funny segment had one very drunken Kurt being dragged across the floor by any number of people as Christ Noveselic quips, "My man's a high roller. High roller!"

Another particularly touching moment is during a Dinosaur Jr. performance of "Freak Scene." J. Mascis is pedal hopping and firing off wild liquid mercury geysers of single note leads when he gets to the final chorus of the song. Instead of singing it, he drops the line completely and lets the enormous crowd of English Dinosaur fans finish the lyric in a community chant the word "cool" was invented to describe.

Occasionally Thurston's constant stream of conscious narration can be a little much, but it does provide some clue into the minds of all these rockers (and many, many others): these guys are dorks, music dorks, guitar dorks, record collecting dorks, and it's not about the d*mn autographs, or star obsession and idol worship, it was and is about music, and that's what punk's about.

The 'grunge' explosion of the early and mid nineties was quite possibly the single most contrived piece of marketing in the history of western civilisation, neatly packaging raw emotion and powerful self expression, diluting it into managable and meanigless chunks, and then reselling it to emotionally challanged teenagers. All the bad stuff that came with that social mini revolution often makes us forget all the fun we used to have before 1991 and Nevermind. But this documentary provides ample reminder of that time. Fusing blistering live performances from some of THE great underground bands of the 1980's - 1990's (stand up Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jnr, Gumball and Babes in Toyland), with tiny snippets of backstage larks that truly portray the excitment of the period. What is truly exceptional about this piece is its subtlety in the presentation of the major issues of the time, namely the issue of old school punk ethics versus the attitudes of the increasingly main stream fans the bands were attracting. A good example of this is the way Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth dispenses a mocking impersenation of a grumpy Irish scooter 'fan' ("I'm planning to put the front cover of 'Goo' on me scooter" Oh PLEASE!). The actual moment itself was so brief you could easily miss it, but it brilliantly sums up the attitudes of all the bands to this new audience they were attracting, and with whom they shared no common ideas or beliefs. Ao=nother joy of this film is that you get to see a pre-fame Nirvana, Shock Horror!, having FUN. Since his suicide the media has tended to paint Kurt Cobain as a tragic figure, consumed by inner - demons and constantly living under a black cloud. Yet here Kevin Kerslake shows a lighter, more human, side to this near mythological individual and also offers us what l feel to be one of the most powerful images of the century. After falling of stage and into the crowed, Kurt is pulled back onto the stage by Thurston, both with big smiles on their faces, having fun, and totally unaware of the tragedy that we, with the benfit of hindsight, know will soon befall them. Kerslake further emphasizes this moment by freezing it for just enough time to allow the full meaning of the image to sink in. A truly exceptional representation of the unifying spirit of the old, and sadly long gone, underground network.



OR maybe they were just all having a laff. You know, a bunch of really cool bands with alot to say and a big noise to make who just wanted to get out their and make some eardrums bleed. Oh well, its only rock and roll but l like it.

Forget how MTV and the media portrayed Sonic Youth & Nirvana, or typecasted all their featured friends from the northwest...this is honest a look as you could get of content veteran rockers Sonic Youth and some of the last care-free days of Nirvana. Hilarious behind-the-scenes stuff, great live performances, and hell...they even threw in the Ramones! Right up there with "The Decline of Western Civilization" as far as punk documentaries go.

A great moment in time captured for posterity, "1991: The Year Punk Broke" documents the leading lights of the American Alternative Rock scene of the time in their tour of Europe in 1991. Channeling their musical mayhem the film traces the merry noisemakers in their trek across Ireland, Britain, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr., Babes in Toyland, Gumball and the Ramones blaze a trail of sonic noise to huge and appreciative audiences.

Kicking-off with Thurston Moore's overlong cringe-inducing free-form stream of consciousness poetry and verbal sound effects the doc takes one on a fun and kick*** jam of roof-busting live performances and behind the scenes features. With Sonic Youth as the focus and Moore as the amusing and insufferable emcee the film highlights a cool and laidback Sonic Youth in their onstage noisefests, an iconic and indomitable Nirvana, a surprisingly Sonic Youth-sounding Dinosaur Jr., a wild powerhouse of female hysteric noise with Babes in Toyland and a never can go wrong performance by the veteran Ramones. The documentary is also revealing in the personalities of the individuals involved: the attention-seeking and insecure Moore, the once prudent and insular Kim Gordon, an interesting Kurt Cobain, fun Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, and an odd J Mascis. With his use of skilled quick transitions of gigs and offstage scenes and pace of constant motion Director Dave Markey shows how it's done. If there's one flaw in this rocking gig it's the major attention given to Sonic Youth and the dorky Thurston Moore at the expense of the other bands and personalities. It would have been nice to see more performances by Dinosaur Jr. And Babes in Toyland and seeing Nirvana in their pre-"Nevermind" fame already shows a band that captured the time like no other proving even by then that they were the foremost band of the age and Kurt Cobain was already an icon before the rest of the world knew it. Like Elvis Presley and The Beatles before them one can see and witness with hindsight a band about to change music forever.

And where was Gumball?

Watching this brought back a lot of great memories. This was the music, the soundtrack to my childhood and it evoked the mood, scenes, the electricity, energy and vibe of that great and fantastic time where magic was in the air and nothing but promise in the future. This brings back great memories of sitting tight-packed in the car with a bunch of friends in our plaids and Doc Martens hitting the road on to some gig, bar or friend's house to let loose and have a great time in an age when Rock was everything. People and the world have declined so much for so long now that this great era has elevated to the realm of myth and legend that it seems unreal the more one thinks about it. Together with 1956, 1964, 1967 and 1977 1991 is one of the great years in music and this film captures it well with a crash of loud distortion. One of the best music documentaries this is a must see for Rock fans and musical historians.

if you are a fan of sonic youth or nirvana this movie is for you, you have to be a fan to get into this one, lots of live tracks, behind the scenes footage, but not really a coherent or has much of a narrative, i think there is a DVD copy available now, not sure if there is an Australian region 4 version. but it is available as a region 1. looking back on this movie, it could have been a true classic as some of the live footage is spectacular and the cast are truly interesting and inspiring characters, but that side of the film is cold, and keeps the audience at a distance. as a time capsule it keeps the myth of grunge and nirvana fully intact. watch it with a fan