We’ve all seen our share of punk rock docs. Decline, Another State of Mind, DOA, Urgh! I thought I’d watched just about everything at this point. But, as the saying goes - “Ask a punk.”
 
Having grown up in West Los Angeles myself, I can’t help but watch The Slog Movie and feel just a little bitter. I wanted that to be my youth. None of this Bird scooter, Snapchat, Tinder, bullshit. No one even hangs out at Oki-Dog anymore (nor should they). But at least someone was around to capture this moment-in-time sliver of punk rock magic. And that someone was future filmmaker Dave Markey, of We Got Power! fanzine fame.
 

 
Filmed entirely on Super 8, the 1982 film chronicles the lifestyles of the young LA punks who frequented the slam pits of the burgeoning SoCal hardcore scene. Low budget and entirely raw, humorous, and sometimes anarchic, the video fanzine-style doc serves up a blend of segments, candid interviews and genre-defining performances by those nonchalant forefathers of the period, like Black Flag (their first show with Rollins), Circle Jerks, Fear, Wasted Youth, Red Kross, and TSOL. There is also a cameo by Pat Smear hanging at Oki-Dog, scenes from “The Punk Shack” and the fabled Cuckoo’s Nest, punks at the Santa Monica Pier, an advertisement for Black Flag skate decks, “A Day in the life of a punk,” and a little trip up North with Markey’s teenage band, Sin 34.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Here’s a snippet of Thurston Moore’s review of the doc - so you know it’s legit:
 

The Slog Movie at once captures the substrata of L.A. 1st generation hardcore by hanging out with it in the backyards and empty matinee gigs it crashes around in. As there is only so much fun in tracking the brattitude of a band like Symbol Six, Dave creates vignettes of satirical attack on the inanity of lame rock culture like Ted Nugent. And booking the confounding and completely rocking Red Cross at an outdoor show on the Santa Monica Pier is a moment where real creative punk and poser punk is separated.

 
Watch ‘The Slog Movie’ in its punk entirety below:
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘We Got Power!’: Photojournalism ‘zine of California hardcore now anthologized
‘Zines, scenes, and 80s punk: ‘We Got Power!’ co-creator David Markey talks
‘1991: The Year Punk Broke’: Classic alt-rock documentary
Where slamming in the pit began: Southern California’s notorious Cuckoo’s Nest