A minor obsession of mine is subculture representation in popular entertainment and mainstream media, especially as regards punk rock. That movement in particular was subjected to so many cartoonish misrepresentations that cataloguing them all would be a Sisyphean undertaking. The infamous “punk” episodes of TV’s Quincy and CHiPs set the gold standard for cluelessness, and countless hysterical local news segments ran the misconceptions into the ground. It’s more illuminating, in this scribe’s humble view, to look at the far rarer instances of anyone getting it right.

One of my favorite examples of actually nailing it is Tony Coca Cola and the Roosters, the fake band from The Driller Killer, the 1979 debut feature from Abel Ferrara, who’d go on the give the world infamous filmed provocations like Ms. 45, King of New York, and Bad Lieutenant. In the film, Ferrara himself (under the pseudonym Jimmy Laine) plays unsuccessful New York artist Reno Miller. Living off the largesse of his gallerist, Miller is unable to break through a creative block. Facing destitution and an eviction deadline, Miller approaches the art dealer for further funds, and is rejected unless he can complete a painting in a week. Complicating this challenge is his neighbor, Tony Coca Cola, whose band practices incessantly right in his apartment, depriving Miller of peace and sleep, causing his grip on reality to slip away. He snaps and embarks on an killing spree, offing derelicts with the movie’s eponymous power tool.

Ferrara, a Bronx native, was surely really plugged in to NYC’s seediness, so nothing about Tony Coca Cola and the Roosters rings particularly fake—it’s an entirely plausible band of the era. Check it out:
 

 

 
Sounds like an even more primitive Heartbreakers, with its stripped-down Chuck-Berry-via-Johnny-Thunders riffing. The band was made up of artist/author D. A. Metrov (under the pseudonym “Rhodney Montreal”) as singer/guitarist Tony Coca Cola, one Dickey Bittner on bass (in his only acting credit), and Steve Brown on drums, who’d resurface in a role in the 1988 gang/heist flick Deadbeat at Dawn. Metrov also executed the Reno Miller paintings in the film.

The above clip is from a restored version of The Driller Killer that’s being released by Arrow Video. The Blu-ray/DVD set features a new 1080p high def restoration from original film elements and an audio commentary by Ferrara, among other goodies. It’s the entire original cut, which was once banned in the UK as one of the “Video Nasties” that were suppressed in an infamous episode of official censorship in the ‘80s.

After the jump, watch another clip from ‘The Driller Killer’ as Tony Coca Cola and the Roosters audition backup singers while Miller tries to paint a buffalo…