The Billy Idol Movie

"Billy Idol Should Be Dead": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eByNViJ8388 1 You reach a point where you no longer believe. I was doing an interview and I was asked who my heroes were. Stunningly, I've never been asked this before. Normally you put a dime in my jukebox and you get endless spiel, these stories are embedded in my DNA. But I was stumped, I was speechless, I was having trouble coming up with an answer. So then I started thinking about my go-tos, from the past... I mentioned Tom Wolfe, exemplar of the New Journalism. But the more I know about the man, his distance from his subjects, his contempt for so many of his subjects, his right wing viewpoints, his meticulous management of his image... I still love "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," I love his writing style, but the man... And then I thought of rock stars. I used to be able to list a score. Some were famous for throwing a spanner in the works, shocking us to attention, some wrote the words that embodied my life, still others took me away with their sounds and... I still have respect for the music, but the people who make it? Let me be clear, they didn't change, I did. You see I met a lot of these people, and not only were they just as f*cked up as I was, they were mortal. They could do this one thing exceptionally well, and it still means so much to me, their work, but the image... Oh, it gets worse. Those who dye their hair, get plastic surgery, try to have you believe they're the same age as they were when you discovered them, even though you're decades older now. It's like they're locked in amber, they refuse to grow up. And it's not only them, it's so many of the fans, with their long hair and leather jackets, their sunglasses at night. If it makes them happy, that's cool, but on the inside I'm laughing when I'm not wincing. They don't want to grow up, and the thing about life is it's inevitable, assuming you continue to live. 2 Now it used to be different. It started with the Beatles. And then there was the San Francisco sound and underground FM radio and then Led Zeppelin and punk and new wave and it all ended up with MTV. If you wanted to know which way the wind blew, you listened to a record. One thing is for sure, so many of these people were wise beyond their years. Jackson Browne wrote "These Days" when he was 16...how did he know all this stuff, I certainly did not. And then there are people in this business who are doing the same damn thing they've been doing for the past fifty years. How do they stay interested? Their identity is so wrapped up in their job, how is it satisfying? They may be making money, still be connected, in the business, but do they really care? Do they want access that much? Like the "Hits" guys... You're deep into your seventies and you're promoting the record du jour and talking about the young employees, do you really care? And then there's Irving, who has pivoted, to buildings and their penumbra, management, services, ticketing... You've got to keep it interesting to yourself. 3 So you may be connected enough to go to Coachella, but do you really want to attend? You saw Led Zeppelin during their week-long residency at the Forum in '77, do you really need to see Sabrina Carpenter or Justin Bieber? As for festivals... You didn't care that the food sucked, that you were all crowded in together, the music was paramount and...no one in the audience rose above another, you were brethren, who loved each other. As for Woodstock, it wasn't until years later that the festival went into the black, after the movie had played. The festival itself? A financial disaster. Now the festivals are all about the money. So where does that leave me? 4 Now let me be clear, the songs haven't changed, not an iota, they still contain the magic. I don't pull those up and wince, rather when I listen they not only make me feel good, they take me back to the era when they were hits. Which I know is gone, but... That's the best part of this Billy Idol documentary. The formative years. Especially if you grew up in America. They make sense of the punk years over there better than "Rolling Stone" ever did over here. How it was not only a reaction, but a lark. And when the Sex Pistols were on TV...the entire scene broke open. And then there was Marc Bolan's TV show... Bolan only had one hit in the U.S., but he was as big as they come in the U.K., as big as David Bowie at the time. And Generation X were on his TV show and... I bought the Generation X debut, because not only had I read about it, I heard "Ready Steady Go" on the radio. On KROQ, when it was still a free-format station, I can still recite the names of the deejays, it was a club and I was a member and there weren't that many of us. But... You could find us at the club shows... You'd actually see the same people, you'd recognize those you'd never spoken with, there was a shared sensibility. And, of course, there was the Masque and other clubs that featured unsigned acts, most of which remained that way. They wrote about them in the "L.A. Weekly," which was the cultural Bible, it told you where all the shows were, who was playing. And even the L.A. "Times" and its Sunday Calendar section, never mind the daily paper. It was all happening in the city, but you could very easily ignore it. And L.A. punk was different from New York punk, after all it's sunny here and people don't live vampire hours, but we got into the Talking Heads and Blondie and...almost nobody bought the first two Ramones albums, sales were anemic, barely five figures, you didn't hear them on the radio until the third LP, "Rocket to Russia," with the Beach Boys influenced "Rockaway Beach," a hit if I've ever heard one. 5 So you see the scene develop, you see Billy Idol develop. First and foremost he was middle class in a scene that had contempt for those of that status, it was truly a problem. But Billy built his character and hopscotched from opportunity to opportunity. He was good-looking, he even acknowledges this here, he's not false-humble. And some good records were made, that the public embraced. But on one level, he was no different from my friends and I. He grew up in the suburbs, his father was a successful salesman, Billy even went to college for a minute or two. But then he jumped the track. That's not how it happens today. If you come from a good family with a solid middle class income, you want to maintain that income and lifestyle. You don't want to get off track, and if you do...in the back of your mind, you can always go back to graduate school. So it's those without a future who are making music. We've lost the middle class sensibility, of questioning, of refusing to do anything and everything for a buck. But back then... Everything was a lark, who cares about tomorrow, we'll deal with that when we get to it. But most of us just couldn't take this risk. We jumped through traditional hoops, went to college, even graduate school, while people like Billy Idol lived our fantasy, we lived through him. To be that popular, that good-looking, to have that confidence and charisma. Whew! Give me more, more, MORE! You want to find the most passionate music fans? They're doctors, other professionals, they did what their parents told them to do, they couldn't take a risk, think for themselves, but Billy Idol did... 6 And he was YOUNG! Not that young, Billy Idol was born in 1955, he's only two years younger than me. But at that age at that time you didn't need much money to get by, and you could be part of the free-floating party, getting high, getting laid, with somewhere to go every night... This documentary gets that all right. And you get the story of Billy's beginnings, his home life, his first band... Not all of this has been public in this way previously, or you couldn't literally see it, as you do here. Stunningly, other than Bill Aucoin, everybody's alive. This was a different generation, it's those who were born in the forties who died of misadventure. But Billy gets into heroin, he says everybody is doing it. I mean really? But when he does really make it, with Steve Stevenes by his side, you hear how hard it is to calm down after a show, after playing to nearly twenty thousand screaming people in an arena. Those who don't do this do not know... There's a hit you get from being on stage that you can't get anywhere else. You're God for two hours. And people will throw themselves at you for willing sex, drugs are free...everybody wants to get closer, you feel like the most powerful person on earth! As for the money... As long as there is enough. And there certainly was enough, especially as MTV came along and made you a worldwide household name and CDs hit the market and... 7 MTV. It was a mania. At first it was a secret. I mean not if you were in the business or close to it, you knew it was coming, but when it launched in 1981 you couldn't even get it in Manhattan, you couldn't get it almost anywhere. And then legendary rock stars said they wanted their MTV and people you knew had access and when you went to their house, you stared at the screen for hours. And you saw stuff you'd never seen before. Culture Club. Duran Duran. They were a clear break from the classic rock ethos. And they knew without a hit, you were nowhere in the world of MTV. So the entire business changed, you absolutely had to have a single or you were dead in the water. The video could be lousy, but the song had to be great. And if you had charisma... Billy felt comfortable in front of the camera, his attitude came through. The sneer... No one thought Billy Idol was dangerous, just that he'd beaten the system. He didn't have to get a day job, it was a life of hedonism 24/7... And that's another thing that changes as you get older. When people tell me they live to party... I want nothing to do with them. Because I find it so unfulfilling. Believe me, I can tell you stories of the inebriated lifestyle, but after getting stopped for drunk driving... Don't call me if you want to sit at the bar and have a drink or two, but if you want to have no limits, in pursuit of the night of your life...I WAS YOUR MAN! But it catches up with you. Some get caught up in the whirlwind and go down the drain. Some truly don't get out alive. But just like people envied, had their hopes and dreams in rock stars, they wanted to live the lifestyle. The worst offenders are the techies and financiers. Money is not enough, it's who you are. And our heroes existed outside the system, that's what we loved about them. They weren't brands, sponsorship was taboo...selling t-shirts was about the limit. But what they and their music represented... Hair bands came along and burned out the power ballad. But then Kurt Cobain and Nirvana came along and flipped the table. And then rappers realized the true power of video and they carried the mantle of rock and roll, the limit-testing, the danger, and the HONESTY! Once the rock acts were wearing spandex, you knew it was over. 8 And then came the internet and the twenty first century. At first it just poured gasoline on what already existed. Coldplay and Dave Matthews Band would be nowhere near as big today if they hadn't broken through before the whole system fell apart. And at first MySpace was about professing your love for your favorites, and then it was about professing your love for yourself. And then Facebook and Instagram came along and it became about creating a monument to yourself...we were no longer all in it together, every day you were trying to prove to your brethren that your life was better than theirs. And then you got the Kardashians who were famous, AND RICH!, with no discernible artistic talent. And then TikTok came along and... Suddenly, if you had a hankering to be famous, if you wanted to have impact, if you wanted to make money, you had an outlet! Let's be clear, the big influencers make a ton more money than almost all musicians, and many of them are very creative too and parents hate them just like the boomers' parents hated the Beatles. There's a gigantic generational gap, a cultural gap, but since they're on GLP-1's and have the latest smartphone, elders think they have their finger on the pulse, when nothing could be further from the truth. As for the old acts... David Bowie continued to push the envelope until his death. If it wasn't interesting to him, he didn't do it. Ditto Bob Dylan, who is still confounding us. He's on Patreon? But the rest of the classic acts...most have given up making new music completely. Because it can never be as big as their original hits, the market has changed that much, and their fans who come to see them on the road don't want to hear anything but the hits. But those old records, they still remain. 9 Now this Billy Idol documentary is great, I totally recommend it, until somewhere in the eighties when you get to woulda shoulda coulda, when they go down the rabbit hole of hagiography. Yes, if it weren't for Bill Aucoin and Billy's motorcycle accident, he'd be a movie star. Is that even a paradigm anymore? Why in the hell would you want to be in a movie, you're already famous, there are easier ways to make money and films have never had less of a hold on the culture. And since everybody's available all the time, no one can emulate Billy Idol. The people you grew up with will out your true self. You'll be beaten up online. So, rather than focus purely on the content, acts are all about expanding their empire with brand extensions, they're mini-corporations, they ARE the man! The entire landscape has changed, but the business has not. The industry and the media trumpet hit acts and records that most people have never heard of. You might know the name, but not the music, of even the supposedly biggest acts. So the biggest acts are the older acts, who made it before the internet blew up the world, Green Day can play stadiums, never mind Paul McCartney. As for Sir Paul... It's a mind trick. Everybody knows that despite still appearing boyish, his voice is nearly shot, his band does a good job of covering it up, but it's nostalgia personified, as he continues to put out mediocre records that are hyped but no longer deserve your attention. But when Wings toured America in 1976? And how about the Stones in '72... They rampaged across the U.S., they didn't compromise, if you could just go to the show... But now they still sing about adolescent tropes... Keith Richards has owned his aging, he's the real deal, but on some level...it's hysterical. You're not like the old blues guys of yore, who after writing those great songs ended up getting day jobs, they couldn't pay the bills with their music until the folk/blues revival in the sixties. 10 Perspective. No one wants to have it, everybody wants to believe. Look at politics. Forget the public, how about the elected officials in D.C? Or the wannabe judges who refuse to admit that Trump lost in 2020! Then again, Trump is perfect for the internet, where the truth is oftentimes hard to discern, everybody spewing their b .s. all the time. As far as believing... Sure, there are some who still believe in those who make music, but being a member of the BTS Army is like being a member of a cult. You believe and adore, but outsiders hear these tunes and go...WTF? And it's not that I'm too old to get it, but I am too old to buy into it. Been there, done that, give me something new. But what we've got is people trying to recreate a past that has never returned. Begging for attention online 24/7. Attention being the hardest thing to garner. But back in the eighties, when they put Billy Idol on MTV... 11 My favorite was always "Flesh for Fantasy," although "Eyes Without a Face" was pretty good too. And even at this late date, when I hear "Rebel Yell" I smile, it still makes you want to suspend disbelief and thrust your arm in the air. But there ain't no rebellion involved. That's deep in the rearview mirror. As for Billy Idol himself, he survived, he's a grandfather... Good for him, but that's not really what these acts were selling back then. Then again, two of the kids were born out of wedlock, one was only discovered via 23andMe. I mean it would be fun to hang with Billy Idol, but it would be impossible to put him on a pedestal. Then again, there are some who still do. They want to believe in these acts, in the past. They can't handle that they got old, gained weight and lost their hair. When they hear these songs, they're young again. But if you've lived long enough to get old... What are you gonna do with that? Especially if you were a dyed-in-the-wool rocker. You can just put on blinders and say it's the same as it ever was, but even David Byrne reinvented himself...no one wanted to hear his new music so he made it all about dancing, a stage production, and it WORKED! Because people are looking for the new and different. And this doesn't end just because you get old. You can be like Billy Idol, play granddad, go on the road singing your decades-old hits to pay the bills or... You also no longer envy these people. Is this the life I wanted to have? I'm not saying I'm perfect, but you get to the point where you believe in yourself, or at least admit who you are. Start there and march forward because the old days are never coming back. Billy Idol does a good job of reminding you of them... But at some points in this film he's like that guy who says he coulda played for the Yankees, you know, glory days. You don't have to give up your past, but how do you march forward? That's the question, that's the conundrum. -- Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ -- Listen to the podcast: -iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj -Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp -- http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25