Before we start, just a couple quick notes: Please refresh your browser ever minute or so to see new comments, questions and answers. To reply to specific comment, hit the reply button underneath it and then type away. Always after a comment or question hit “send comment.”

Please stay on topic–in this case punk rock, SST Records, Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, Quincy, punk rock movies, DYI, modern musicals, punk rock menace, Destroy All Movies!!!, if/how music can change the world, Los Angeles in the 1980s, your fave punk rock on film moments…

PLEASE STAY ON TOPIC If you want to jump in stuff that’s not about tonight’s topics please find a post elsewhere on FDL to do so. Thank you.

Please–and I can’t believe I still have to say this, but–no ad hominen remarks. And please be respectful of our guests and of each other. And yeah, I tpye badly…

Hello Jennifer, Dave, Jordan, and welcome to Firedoglake Movie Night!

Lisa will be here momentarily.

Jordan, Jennifer, Dave, Welcome to the Lake.

Back on the info superhighway, axles in place!

Holla, Holla, and just to stay on topic, Sid Vicious.

Hi and thanks for being here! Let’s start wiht Desperate Teenage Love Dolls history and maybe go from there…

if a punk slams in the pit at the silent movie theater will it make a sound?

hi lisa, do we have the schwartz’s in the house?

I’m here

And will there be some tape or film to record it?

Hi Jennifer!

Well from my perspective I met Dave Markey when we were teens, in the late 70′s in Santa Monica when I moved on to his block.

He had been making films with kids from the neighborhood and my sister and joined in.

A bit later we got into the Los Angeles hardcore punk rock scene which was blowing up in the earlier 80′s. This scene had many facets including a strong DIY “Do it yourself” ethic.

Dave made a film called the “Slog Movie” which documented that hardcore punk scene, and then we met up with Jeff and Steve from Red Cross, (now Red Cross), and started working on Desperate Teenage Lovedolls which took things to another dimension.

Had you watched a lot of late 60s and early 70s exploitation flicks? The vibe is so spot on, but through the 80s filter.

Jordan Schwartz
Apparently my name is not showing up in the title of my comments.

I think the lovedolls films were the start of a purging of the trash tv culture we grew up with.

Actually, Lisa, so much of our influence came from TV shows. 60s and 70s sitcom reruns, after-school specials, etc.

Brady Bunch to Born Innocent — we were first generation latch-key kids.

Now it is! Jordan, though I kinda figured it was you.

Desperate Teenage was inspired the classic exploitation flicks, as well as
70′s television.

We were latch key kids and T.V. damaged us.

And no gaming platforms to entertain us.

Bugliosi’s Manson book was inspirational as well.

Born Innocent was defining moment in TV, beyond Sarah T: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic and even Portrait of a Teenage Runaway.

As far as gaming was concenred there was pong, but “Price is Right” had more meaning.

not just the tv shows, but the commercials too.

Those were powerful messages to send to teens and pre-teens. Smoke, drink, be cool. That message is lost on kids today.

It was! And Manson kinda laid the groundwork for cops vs punks.

(as in) “don’t take the car, you’ll kill yourself!”

A how-to manual.

And Charter Hospital ads…

As far as films go, aside from the 70′s classics like Jaws, Exorcist, Omen, and Corvette Summer. Jeff and Steve turned us on to the explotaion films like Russ Meyers, Hershell Gordon Lewis, John Waters, that they were renting at a shop called Video Archive in Manhattan Beach where Quentin Tarantino worked behind the counter.

At least we didn’t have to live vicariously through vampires …. we had Linda Blair.

John Waters also published a Pink Flamingos book and that was our blueprint.

and the early 80′s vhs revolution!

Whoa. You just summed up Southern California so perfectly.

Damaged part I

Jaws, Exorcist, Omen, and Corvette Summer… still laughing!

Thanks for killing my mom.

No problem.

By the way I think I know where I can rip off a drum set.

Why can I picture my daughters saying that?

So you got together $250, made this and it was a hit in a world within worlds, and weirdly Blockbuster was carrying it.

It was fairly inexpensive to make the film, the bigger challenge was to screen and distribute it with any level of quality.

the film was shot on weekends over the course of a year. the film cost $10. a roll and another $2.50 to process at Sav-on

Fortunately Jean Pierre, long time friend of Brendan Mullen, allowed us to premier the film at the Lhasa Club which was on Santa Monica blvd.

Dave Screened the film in Super 8 and Redd Kross played live afterward.

How did you manage that?

and then…?

@ Lisa #45- I think I just called him up and asked. Craig Lee had written about the film in the LA Weekly in the LA DE DA column, so we had the start to a press kit.

but of course, the original title was Desperate Teenage Runaways, and that’s what it was called the night it premiered at the Lhasa, July 13, 1984.

We also filmed the Brew Springstien scene for the sequel Lovedolls Superstar there.

My question was actually “how did you manage

the bigger challenge… to screen and distribute it with any level of quality.?

Red Cross performed that night too, a reunion show for them w/ their original guitarist Greg Hetson.

I vividly remember going to the Lhasa Club screening with Redd Kross.

Re: managing quality, we didn’t, it was punk rock, the mid 1980′s and we had no money.

The movie was an instant cult classic.

Did that show recoup your entire investment?

@ Lisa #51 – well, the film was then transferred to 3 quarter inch video tape. this became the master for the vhs copies that were made, in small runs of 20 at a time. the vids were sold at screenings and were self distributed to the local record shops like rhino & vinyl fetish.

The best we could do, from a quality perspective, was find decent venues to screen the film. Aside from the Lhasa Club, the was Gallery / Video Editing facility called EZTV which was at Santa Monica Blvd. and La Cienga, near the old Tropicana hotel.

That was pretty much the only place where we could show the film without any background noise.

We also edited and premeired Lovedolls Superstar there.

Amazing. So Desperate Teenage RUNAWAYS premiers and then….?

Re: money from screenings and video sales it was all nickle and dime stuff, we put the money back into to buy more super 8 stock.

Dave, why don’t you tell us how the premiere went over with the polaroid people.

and the cost of the vhs duplications were pretty high at the time, not very many companies were doing it at the time and you had to pay their price.

Ah, great timing! I just wrote about a Sex Pistols gig my wife and I attended in ’78 in San Antonio, TX. :-)

Plus packaging…I know what it was like for people putting out their own records and VHS was way rougher then, even in L.A. film capital of the world.

@ jordan #60 – well kim fowley showed up at the premier with a heavy set black woman dressed in jungle garb, she was actually wielding a spear. he said she was his bodyguard.

fowley was putting together a new version of the runaways at the time, with all different members, apparently she was also a new runaway. lets just say the new runaways didn’t work out.

Kim just seemed to miss the curve after the Runaways.

Kim had an issue with with us referencing runaways, so we changed the title to
Desperate Teenage Lovedolls.

Perhaps more trademarks disputes these days could be easily resolved if people showed up in person with fake spears.

Kim actually called me at home — threatening to sue me … and KILL me.

I think he said he had firebombs and a pack of rabid Dobermans to bring with him to the show.

yeah, he was going to blow up the Lhasa and take us all with him.

Ah the logic of Kim! He did take me to church though. He was always very nice to me.

So sometime after the screening someone sent me a video trade publication with a list of Video distributors and mailed them all and one, a place called Hollywood Home Video that was distributing videos like “Black Devil Doll” was interested in the film.

We met with their representative, Larry Fine, (no relation), at their offices on Sunset and Highland and made a deal.

This got us a four color cover, and into Block Buster.

that’s how they should’ve settled Apple Computers vs. Apple Records dispute

I spoke to him years later. I asked him if he remembered me from the incident. He said. “Oh yes, Jennifer. Hollywood NEVER forgets.” He’s a genius.

@Johnny, That’s how Jobs should settle his “launchpad” dispute with
Ubuntu Linux geek and spaceman Mark Shuttleworth.

Gods, when he is good, he’s godhead!

So this weekend, punk rock explodes on the screen to celebrate the publication of

Destroy All Movies!!!

So this Sunday, if you are in L.A. you can see Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, and the Slog movie, and URGH!!! A Music War on the big screen.

Plus this Saturday you can see excerpts from the punk rock episodes of Quincy and CHiPs. Plus the Dickies on CPO Sharkey, which we used to show at our EZTV T.V. parties back in the day.

yeah, can’t wait actually to get my hands on a copy of that book. you know, it so reminds me of (audio) tape recording off the tv (before any of us had a vhs). I remember taping the punk episode of chips and using the inane dialog on the punk comp casette tapes I used to make.

Yes, see the TV shows that inspired a generation to kill thier moms.

recording back between two cassette machines?

Here the trailer for the Destory All Movies event including an adlib mononlouge from yours truly from the Slog Movie, that was shot outside of a Minor Threat gig in San Pedro.

http://vimeo.com/16782911

@ lisa #83 – exactly, two cassette decks and a turntable. for example a dead kennedys song would segue into dialog from sereena dank (parents of punks) on a daytime tv talk show w/ the subject matter of “punk rock is destroying my child”, or what have you.

My favorite Dave Markey punk rock mixed tape art was playing Suicidal Tenedencies “Institutionalized” in the left channel while playing this
creep “Deutchland Uber Alles” in the right channel.

It was somewhat of an inside joke but if you dealt with them back in the day it was worth a chuckle.

I also had a cassette of the slog movie dubbed from Super 8, that was hardcore.

The funny thing is kids these days can mix up some fairly gnarly stuff and post it straight up to youtube.

Thank you all fo rbeing here, and good luck at the screening and congrats on making such a seminal DIY movie.

Thanks see you at Cinefamily on Sunday!!

oh and, just a disclaimer, it won’t be silent