The House Of The Rising Punk is a great little one-hour film chronicling the New York punk-rock scene of the late 1970s.
Since this film was originally made for television, it really only skims the surface of everything which made up that explosive, multifaceted community of assorted artists, misfits, and revolutionaries. Despite the relatively short run time, it does however do its subject the justice it warrants.
Although most of the key players are covered — from early influences like the Stooges and the Velvet Underground, to trailblazers like the Ramones, Blondie, and Talking Heads — there really isn't a lot in the way of new information here.
In fact, the real hook here for fans will be the never-before-seen live clips of artists like Patti Smith, Television, and the New York Dolls. The same fans will likely find that this footage — most of which was shot at the famed Bowery punk palace CBGB's — is also frustratingly brief, as I did.
But when The House Of The Rising Punk tells its story, it does it well. There are new interviews with Patti Smith, Dee Dee Ramone, and Television's Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine, as well as CBGB's Hilly Krystal, writer Legs McNeil, and filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, whose early punk-influenced films are also shown in snippets that are once again all too brief.
Although the focal point here is in fact CBGB's and the scene which sprang up around it, other contributing factors are also given the coverage they deserve.
There are segments on McNeil's short-lived Punk Magazine for example, which featured a bizarre mix of punk music and often-hilarious comic art complete with the sort of monsters that would later be popularized in Matt Groening's work on The Simpsons. It really is amazing just how far punk's reach would eventually become. Other landmarks like New York's infamous Chelsea Hotel are also given their due.
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