Another State of Mind (1984)

Probably the best documentary on punk rock that I have personally seen. "The Decline of Western Civilization" is more entertaining and has better music in it, but this feels more authenticate and deals with some interesting realities that that film does not confront. The setup is a North American tour set up by Youth Brigade for themselves and Social Distortion. It's a real D.I.Y. effort with Youth Brigade buying an old school bus and putting up the money and making the arrangements. A lot of the youthful idealism of punk rock is faithfully captured ... the shows are all "all ages" shows, the bands stay in communal houses in cities they visit, and nobody is in it for the money ... or at least they don't think they are. The movie also captures what happens when youthful idealism runs full steam into real life. The bus breaks down, they don't get paid for shows, and pretty soon nobody is getting paid anything, and band members and roadies start deserting the tour. The tour is essentially called off in DC where the bus fails completely and Social Distortion jump ship. Fascinating stuff from an "early days of punk rock" perspective (especially for Canadians since the tour goes through Canada first ... Calgary, Winnipeg and Montreal are highlighted), but interesting even for those not interested in punk per se.

they use to play this movie in the mid to late 80s on night flights on USA network. living in a small rural community in western pennsylvania seeing this film and renting suburbia is what taught the local scene how to be punks. for so reason i don't remember any of us actually having access to decline at the timewe had no access to live bands until we made our own venues(briefly) in the early 90s, we had no connections to scenes in the near by towns and cities until we knew there was something our there to connect to. this movie more than anything else got us started, showed us what was possible(or maybe impossible), its a ten for that alone. it was eye opening, we watched this film and suddenly the world was full of possibilities that hadn't existed before(as well as hairstyles).

Some of the concert scenes took me back to my late-70s/early 80s SoCal childhood in an intense way. There is way too little concert footage though, and way too much talking heads (not the band, the blabbermouths). With 22 years hindsight it sounds like so much spoiled suburban brats and less like rebels. If I hear the phrase "just getting out aggression" one more time as an excuse for thuggy slamdancing i would have stopped the movie right there. Kids practicing there stagediving in their swimming pool - hmm, a swimming pool, eh?One problem is that the punk look adopted by these kids is ubiquitous throughout mainstream media and suburban life nowadays - you get no sense of how radical a kid shaving his head was back then.About ten percent of this film is brilliant, especially watching the creative process of Social Distortion (primarily Mike Ness) slowly compose the song ANOTHER STATE OF MIND (one of the band's best early classics). But these scenes are almost lost in a sea of the pompous Sean Stern pontificating (although he does get blamed for being an egomaniac by mutinous crew members). The film is downright boring whenever Sean has to talk on and on about punks being apart from society. ZZZzzz. Stern seems to have calculated that his band needs a great headliner for the ill-fated tour ahead - sort of like a lousy Presidential candidate, Stern finds his charismatic VP in Social D and uses them to further the name of his lousy Yoth Brigade.There was no movie I was more prepared to love than this and I am thoroughly disappointed with the results. One day the Decline of Western Civilization (the original) will be released and trip like this flick will pale in comparison to that masterpiece.One last thought - comparing the cross-country bus commune of ASM to Tom Wolfe's Hippie Opus ELECTRIC KOOLAID ACID TEST might tell you all you need to know about the very early Southern California punkers.

Any fan of Social Distortion or Youth Brigade must see this. Documents the tour and lives of the band members and roadies. Great live footage and commentary.