Old Punks Bicker At Documentary Panel
This weekend, the first episode of a four-part docuseries called Punk is airing on Epix. The show was executive produced by Iggy Pop and fashion designer John Varvatos.
Earlier this week, to promote the show, a group of notables got together for a panel discussion that basically turned into a bunch of old punks bickering. As Rolling Stone reports, Johnny Rotten, Marky Ramone, Henry Rollins, Duff McKagan, Donita Sparks, and Varvatos were in attendance. Rotten got into little spats with both Rollins and Ramone, dredging up decades-old grievances because why not.
Here are some sparks between Rotten and Rollins:
ROTTEN: Henry, we ain’t never met before, have we? You’ve said silly things but excellently good things, too.
ROLLINS: And you called Black Flag a bunch of suburban rich kids and we wanted to tear your ears off.
ROTTEN: Yes, I did, but I didn’t like the fucking music. It was boring.
There was a little more of a back-and-forth between Rotten and Ramone, whom Rotten noted is “not even an original Ramone.” Marky’s reply to that: “But I did the Blank Generation album with Richard Hell, and you took his image. All you guys took Richard Hell’s image. That’s all you did.” They continued:
RAMONE: And Sid Vicious was the star.
ROTTEN: That’s right, he was. He was the star for asshole fake idiots like you. Enjoy your drugs and fuckin’ have a happy death. Punk music for me was positive, proof positive, that we could change our lives by music, meaning what we said, attack the political systems. This daft cunt is into fucking drugs.
RAMONE: You talk the talk, but you didn’t do the walk, just like the MC5.
Of course, after all this petty shit, L7’s Donita Sparks had the only moment of lucidity and cool:
“This is fucking punk rock right here. Unpolished, unrehearsed, off the fucking rails,” she said. “I just want to say that I knew about the Ramones and the Sex Pistols before I knew about Iggy and the MC5. As a teenager, those were the two bands that were my youthquake, earthquake.”
She continued, after a brief interruption by Rotten who just had to say, “Just so you know I’m a married man” (gross):
What was cool when I discovered these bands was there was such horrible, horrible music on the radio. It was god awful. It was the mid to late Seventies and it was boring, over-30s music. It was just terrible. And then when I heard the Ramones, I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is, like, for teenagers. Oh, it’s speaking to me. It’s teenage, it’s fun, I want to dance to it.’ And then when I heard the Sex Pistols, I was like, ‘I am fucking terrified of this band, and I love it.
Watch videos of the panel below via Rolling Stone.
Anyway, L7 is putting out their first album in 20 years in a few months. Go listen to that!