sonic reducer

(Almost) All The Punk References In HCLೃ⁀➷

Leaving out really obvious stuff like mentions of Nirvana.

1. Look! It's Joey Ramone! Joey appears for roughly 30 seconds at the start of the movie pretending to be a fan of Hard Core Logo. I assume this was some sort of quid-pro-quo for the movie licensing a Ramones song (Touring, which plays in the film and over the closing credits). Back in the late 70s the Ramones of course starred in their own movie, Rock N'Roll High School, as fictional versions of themselves.


2. Flash Bastard, Lick The Pole, Modernettes, Art Bergmann, DOA... Buck Cherry (aka John Armstrong) from the Modernettes said in an interview that he consulted on the script for Hard Core Logo although it's not clear what ended up in the final edit. Art Bergmann seems likely to have inspired the character of Bucky Haight - he played in bands, had a stalled solo career then moved to a house out in rural Alberta - while DOA could have inspired HCL (three word/three letter acroynm name, politicised Vancouver punk band). Apparently Flash Bastard and Lick the Pole are both real bands?! I assumed they were invented for the film. Jesus....

   Both bands apparently had some history in LA. The West Coast connections jump out at me the more I read about Vancouver punkrock - bands travelling up and down from SF and LA to Vancouver, Canadian musicians going to work in LA.



3. Punk t-shirts featured in the movie: Misfits, Swamp Baby (who did the music for the movie), Hard Core Logo.


4. Seymour Stein, Sire Records.... A real guy and a real label. I mention this because I came at least one fic that seemed to think he was a fictional character...at least, I don't think it was meant to be RPF...

   Sire signed the Ramones, the Dead Boys and the Undertones. To be honest I think it's kind of weird for a punk band to be trying to get signed by Sire Records in 1989/90 but whatever, maybe there's something I don't know. And maybe Hard Core Logo weren't that punk in the 80s! Look at the picture of the band in the movie: they look treacherously new waveish. Joe is wearing a waistcoat for God's sake.

   This raises the interesting possibility that Joe has drifted more towards punk while the band has been broken up. This is a thing that happens sometimes in real life I think - members of 70s punk/new wave bands that had prospects of real mainstream success but didn't make it end up falling back on their crustier, lifestylist perpetual punk fanbase for support. Or something.



5. I'm tired of waking up tired... This is a song by a Canadian punk/new wave band: the Diodes, from Toronto.


6. Virgil Caine...is the name Joe makes up for the old guy in the diner, before imagining that he's a broke-down alcoholic farmer whose loved ones have all left him. Virgil Caine is also the name of the protagonist of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, a song that Robbie Robertson wrote for the Band in the early 70s. The song is written from the perspective of a poor white Southern farmer on the losing side of the American Civil War. Robbie Robertson was from so-called Canada (and his mother's family were Mohawk and Cayuga) as were quite a few of the musicians in the Band and their friends. The Band's final gig was documented in a concert film, The Last Waltz. Personally, I regard the Band as possibly the most unpunk band ever and it disgusted me that PBS would devote a whole evening to showing The Last Waltz when I was a teen, but I assume things are different for Canadians. In the book Hard Core Logo is based on, Joe reinvents Hard Core Logo as an acoustic punk band playing folk and country songs while he writes new songs about farm foreclosures. So this scene perhaps contains trace elements of the book.


7. Sonic Reducer... This is a song by the Dead Boys, a band from Cleveland, Ohio who upped sticks and moved to New York City in time to play at CBGBs and get signed to Sire Records. They're from the decadent wing of punk. The intro of the original is featured in the film for about 30 seconds.


8. While we're at it - basically all the Hard Core Logo songs are based on lyrics from the book, all reproduced more-or-less faithfully (with some interesting exceptions) and soundtracked by Swamp Baby. As for the music, to me the songs sound like either Stooges or Dead Boys ripoffs, depending on the song.
9. The 10 Commandments of the Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle... Joe lists off a couple of these right before the final show at the end of the movie. The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle is a semi-factual "documentary" about the Sex Pistols which explains how to get rich and famous with pop music with various "commandments". The commandments Joe lists are pretty much accurate, except for the one about the guitar player. Of course the Sex Pistols sacked their guitar player...and The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle ends with a fantasy sequence of Sid Vicious pulling out a gun onstage and firing randomly into the crowd, and then an acknowledgement that Sid died by suicide before the movie was finished.


10. Something's Going To Die Tonight: Here's an interesting coincidence. UK band Blitz had a single in the early 80s called Someone's Going To Die Tonight. The opening lyrics?

    This is where the good times went

    With his brains lying on the pavement

    With a broken bottle in his hand

    And another in his back

    Interesting, eh? The next verse goes on to mention a "football scarf" though, so we can assume the song is just another one of the many, many early UK punk songs condemning mindless violence (see also: "Concrete Jungle" by the Specials, "Violence Grows" by the Fatal Microbes, "No Fun Football" by Patrik Fitzgerald, "Mindless Violence" by the Newtown Neurotics). It seems unlikely that one of the people working on the HCL script was influenced by the song. I suppose I mention it only to show how many punk rock cliché are being utilised in this film...

    And here's another thing. The lyrics of this song are closely based on the lyrics given in the book - with one exception. Compare and contrast:

    Original Book Lyrics

    Lyrics from Movie/OST

    I've got a bullet in my pocket like a Barney Fife And I'm saving it up for the right occasion Like tonight feels pretty good alright So all's I've gotta do is get me a gun And stare down the barrel and set my sights Then squeeze the trigger 'til I feel that thud 'cause something's going to die tonight Well there ain't no use in trying to talk It's been that way since the Rock of Ages Rolled downhill and came to a stop And bogged us down with its extra baggage That comes with the church and the man on top And the daily grind for a better wage That holds us up until we drop Yah, something's gonna die tonight There'll be no peace, there'll be no fight There ain't no point in wrong or right When something's gonna die tonight Ah but what do you do when you get let down By a person or a place or some thing you trusted Well you put up a fight 'til what's lost is found And if you get beat up and your heart's all crushed in You reach for your bullet and you wait around For whatever it is that's got you busted To get in sight, to hit the ground

    I've got a bullet in my pocket like a Barney Fife I'm saving it up for the right occasion Like tonight feels pretty good alright All I gotta do is get me a gun Stare down the barrel, set my sights There'll be no peace, there'll be no fight When something's gonna die tonight There ain't no point, wrong or right Well, something's gonna die tonight Well there ain't no use in trying to talk It's been this way baby, ah since the Rock of Ages When it rolled down the hill and comes to a stop Bogged us down with this extra baggage Come from the church with the man on top There'll be no peace, there'll be no fight When something's gonna die tonight There ain't no point, wrong or right When something's gonna die tonight Do it! Do it! [spoken word section] Yeah, but what do you do man if you get beat up and your heart's crushed in and you get let down By a person or a place or something you trusted Well you put up a fight 'til what's lost is found Yeah? And you get knocked down and you get beat up And you reach for your bullet and you wait around and around and around For whatever it is man that's got you busted To get in sight, to hit the ground Well, there'll be no peace, there'll be no fight When something's gonna die tonight There ain't no point, wrong or right When something's gonna die tonight

    PS: I think the Stooges song this is ripping off is "Search and Destroy".



11. Cowboy Mouth: mortmere spotted a book of Sam Shepard plays in the HCL band van. Sam Shepard wrote a play with Patti Smith called Cowboy Mouth that features a woman who's kidnapped a man with the intention of turning him into a rock and roll star. She tells him about a rocker who killed himself playing Russian Roulette; later they persuade the Lobster Man to try playing it himself. It's difficult to make out much of what John says during his stream of consciousness rant at the end of the final gig, but the words "Cowboy Mouth" and "Lobster Man" are in there.