Lost Interview: The Punks are Alright

In 2007, I was assigned to write about a then-new documentary called The Punks Are Alright, produced by Douglas Crawford. The magazine that initially assigned the story never ended up doing anything with it for no other reason than space and time limitations. (I still got paid, though!) The other day I was digging through a box of DVDs, CDs, posters and other stuff I'd collected during the research of Treat Me Like Dirt and came across a DVD copy of The Punks Are Alright. It reminded me I had this story sitting around and I wanted to get it out there. This documentary makes a really important argument of the influence of Canadian punk; in this case, that example comes through the Forgotten Rebels.

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“Sometimes, I feel like it's not worth trying
There's times when I can't even bother crying
Get it into your head, rock and roll has gone dead
I'm a punk and it's me instead 'cause the punks are alright”
- “The Punks Are Alright,” Forgotten Rebels

When the Forgotten Rebels penned these lyrics for their 1980 debut full-length record In Love With the System, front man Mickey DeSadist really meant what he sang. “I’m your leader instead,” he announces in another verse. The song is a metallic roar, set to spoof the Who classic “The Kids Are Alright” as a statement to let the world know that punk was here with the new world order; whatever had come before was antiquated.
The Forgotten Rebels were then, and still are, inarguably one of Canada’s most prolific punk bands. They came out of Hamilton, Ontario in the late 1970s like a lightning rod: Their sound tight with a slight glitter infusion, their energy unhinged, their volume as thick and heavy as the Steel City air.
Their lyrics are clever, sardonic, and articulate, capable of conveying humour, intelligence, social observations, and heartfelt emotion at any given time. And although there were times when the subtle disclaimers and sarcastic commentaries were taken literally, DeSadist and his band of Rebels (the line up of which has gone through more changes than a baby goes through diapers) continued to push the proverbial envelope, never entertaining the thought of compromise.
The southern Ontario punk scene, which revolved largely around Toronto but had contingents sprouting out from several satellite cities, was strong in numbers in terms of bands and supporters. Along with the Forgotten Rebels, it was a scene that had produced other seminal acts like Teenage Head, the Diodes, and the Viletones. By the early `80s, DeSadist believed that what had been created within this underground was poised to explode into something huge. DeSadist expected that his band would eventually be propelled to new heights.
It didn’t exactly happen that way. Like their UK and New York counterparts, many of whom reached cult status but never broke into true commercial success, the punk bands that came out of punk’s earliest waves in southern Ontario didn’t fare much better. Many of them didn’t even leave behind more than a 7” single as their legacy, although the Rebels are one of the few exceptions and are able to boast an impressive discography, and their earliest albums stand up today.
There’s no question that some of Canada’s best punk bands came out of southern Ontario in the 1970s. There’s also no question that of the ones that should have made it, the Forgotten Rebels would have to be near the top of that list.
DeSadist never got the opportunity to quit his day job, but that, he explains in Douglas Crawford’s documentary The Punks Are Alright, is just a matter of living in a country that doesn’t support its cultural icons the way it should. Canada, DeSadist says to the camera, is a country where its national heroes have to wake up for work everyday.
While there is an argument that Canada failed, it doesn’t mean that the Rebels have at all. Monetary gains aren’t the only measure of success, and Crawford’s film captures just how far reaching the music of this die-hard Hamilton punk band really is.
“I wasn’t never doing an ode to them or any kind of tribute or anything like that, but it’s pretty substantial to me that these guys have been together, well, Mickey anyways, other people have come and gone, for 30 years,” Crawford says. “I mean, that’s pretty amazing for any kind of a band. And in 30 years, their music has gone around the world even though they haven’t. They are one of those unsung heroes. They have their legion of fans that are there that know them, but it’s one of those unknown stories that should be reaching the masses because they’re pretty cool. They have really interesting songs and lyrics and ideas and the fact that they’ve been going all this time and have this diehard following, it’s actually quite incredible.”
So how does it come about that an infamous punk band from Hamilton who has always operated within the underground realm of indie releases have such an impact that it can influence punks from Brazil to Bali, as Crawford’s film uncovers?
This documentary explores the sociological circumstances that link three bands: The Forgotten Rebels, Bali’s Superman Is Dead, and Brazil’s Blind Pigs. Originally intended to be a short film on the Rebels, The Punks Are Alright turned into a full-length film, and a life-changing experience for its maker. Of course, given the subject matter – punk always treads between the political and intellectual, as well as the violent and subversive – not all of Crawford’s experiences were profound.
“I went to in a venue in Montreal that was unbelievably scary and the guys were scared, the Rebels were scared – everybody was petrified,” Crawford says. “A girl got stabbed with a screwdriver a week before. There were underage kids there completely on, I can’t remember the name of that horrible drug, it’s some chemical. (The venue’s) closed down now.
“There were some people there that came just because they hated the Rebels and came to scream at them and throw things. There’s always that element. It’s fun, but if that person’s stoned and has a screwdriver, it’s not so fun. Especially when there’s one security guy who’s a good time Charlie and is into the scene and not even doing anything security wise.”
When Crawford began picking up on international threads that were spinning out of the Rebels storyline, he didn’t hesitate to pursue the narrative he saw developing. He went from venturing into Montreal dives to facing potential riots in Indonesia’s punk scene: “Way more people showed up than what they cops thought so there were like ten cops were half asleep and there was forty thousand angry kids,” Crawford recalls when thinking back to following Bali’s Superman Is Dead. “The band took forever to get to the stage because of all the traffic and then people were just getting out of hand waiting, impatient. If it took another twenty minutes for them to get on the stage it would have been just demolished because they were looking to burn something down.”
Just like the Rebels gig in Montreal, the crowd wasn’t necessarily teeming with devout followers, either.
“Actually, a lot of people came to that show because they hated the band,” Crawford continues. “There’s a certain amount of that. You go to scream obscenities or throw things at the band and they’ve actually been attacked before, so it wasn’t a new thing. They’ve nearly been killed before and I knew that and I was sitting there and I was like the only white guy in this area with a camera, so…
“They’re a target because they’re not Muslim, for one thing, which puts them in a very small minority. It’s got nothing to do with them, but some people are just like you’re not Muslim so you’re assholes or whatever. Some people think this way, not everybody. “They’re from Bali, and it’s very small and kind of different than the rest. Then the last thing, which is the worst thing in the punk world, is they’ve signed to Sony records so they’re seen as massive sellouts. And for them, if they didn’t sign to Sony records they wouldn’t have any money to eat or to continue playing. It was a necessity. And it’s hard because Sony there is very small and they still have to have jobs on the side, so signing to a major label there is not like here. But in the punk world, that’s absolutely hated.”
Despite potential dangers, difficult subjects, and the ever-dwindling financial resources that go along with independent films, in the end Crawford had captured a provocative and insightful look at some of the punk scene's more compelling characters.
When asked what drove him to pursue this storyline in the first place, Crawford responds with a question of his own: “Some kind of mental imbalance?” Though he jokes about it, it’s the best answer he can give: Like a case of a book writing an author, Crawford can’t really say for sure what pushed him to do this, just that he continued following the leads as they came up.
And good thing he did, because The Punks Are Alright not only offers a glimpse into other punk scenes in other parts of the world, but it’s straight ahead look into the lives and stories of its subjects. It’s a film that’s impossible not to learn from, and its making was an experience that Crawford says has left him a different person.
“Meeting the people in the film obviously was the biggest thing, and there are a lot more people I’d met that never made it into the film,” he says. “But the things that one learns in the film I also learned, so it was a huge awakening discovery and finding out about how people live, going into their homes, having dinner with them. Walking a mile in their shoes really, really changes you. I can’t articulate in which ways. (I’m) massively changed in how I look at the world and myself.”
The subjects learned something from the film, too. DeSadist’s observations about Canada’s unsung heroes collecting paycheques instead of royalties was a significant awakening. Crawford compares the Rebels to the Ramones in the sense that even though they were established in history, record sales weren’t enough to earn them a living.
“The guys in Brazil and just everybody I met in general, they don’t get the opportunity to travel in these countries,” says Crawford. “So they can only assume what Canada’s like from the television, or what the West is like and they think life is much easier for everybody. The guys in the band, when they saw the film, they were shocked at how small the venues are the Forgotten Rebels play and that they have day jobs and all these kinds of things. Because they just thought they’ve been around for a long time, they’ve sold all these records and they’ve made it from their music. They don’t realize it’s the same here as it is here: That you’ve got to gig for your money and you can’t give up your day job. Not at all.”
But again, Crawford inadvertently concludes with another measurement of success that goes beyond dollar value. It’s a theme that stretches throughout The Punks Are Alright, and one that is firmly rooted right back to the earliest days when DeSadist first entered into the punk realm. In a subculture that is based on the idea of cultural, personal, and political revolution, optimism runs high despite the flaws all around us.
“I do absolutely believe that punk can change the world,” Crawford says. “It’s not the only thing, of course, but I’m idealistic and I think we need some more idealistic people. And the people who are punk and think that there are no rules, that they can just go out and be a journalist tomorrow, that they don’t have to go to school, that they don’t have to do what the teachers tell them, that they can just go out and do these things, we need more of that.”