The Redd Kross Movie

https://www.reddkrossfilm.com

This is strangely interesting.

I only checked it out because Steve Poltz recommended it, and I trust him implicitly. But to be honest, I'm not a big Redd Kross fan. Actually, I'm not a fan at all. Oh, I'm aware of the band, but I couldn't pick their music out of a playlist. They were another one of many Southern California bands that meant something locally, but never blew up on the national scene.

Having said that, this is one of the few documentaries that I believe will bring attention to the band, that will burnish their image and career.

Assuming people see it. Which is the hardest thing to do today, to get the attention of an audience. You've got no idea how valuable ninety minutes is to someone today. They have so many opportunities for their time, their attention, it's hard to even get people to dive in, never mind stay in.

But I did stay in. Poltz got me to check it out, but I stayed in because...

The movie depicted a bygone era. When you formed bands, when bands were still a thing, when there was a musical culture, a musician culture, and you believed that someone from your ilk, your little scene, might break through.

So, Redd Kross start out as punks.

And the funny thing is kinda like the Ramones, not everybody knows their music, but they know Black Flag's name. And the Circle Jerks.

And there was a scene. Sure, punk may have had its epicenter in Orange County, then again it flourished at the Masque and the Hong Kong Café in Los Angeles.

So the McDonald brothers, the mainstays of Redd Kross, are from Hawthorne, California. They go back home and...

Their original homeland has been turned into a freeway, the 105.

This is bedrock California history. Somewhere in here is the essence of the Southern California mentality. Unlike the east coast, no one is worried about going to college, they're not concerned with SAT scores, they're just watching television, going to the beach, living their lives...the future may be on the horizon, but no one is really thinking about it or preparing for it.

I think it's the weather. It's never too cold and it hardly ever rains and you're never cooped up inside, you feel a sense of freedom.

Furthermore, chances are your parents immigrated here, so there's a tradition of breaking with roots, taking chances.

And then there's the nihilism of punk, which was a reaction to society...

We don't even get that backlash anymore. Maybe in the manosphere, but all those people are sad and angry and licking their wounds, whereas the punks believed that they were tuning forks, that a lot of people were on their page, that maybe they were the mainstream, not the underground.

And what I like is the inclusion of all the players, not just the musicians, but the bedrock, formative people. Not only the parents, but the kids they went to school with, the woman whose 8th grade party Redd Kross played at. They got booed, but unlike a band today, they laugh about it. They're a weird combination of straight and hip, outsider but leader. This is not New York, where you've got to dress in black and wear sunglasses at night and smoke cigarettes, no, you can wear your Chucks and some cartoon t-shirt and...

Eventually Redd Kross evolves from punk to what one might call power pop, and this is where the music gets interesting, but don't think because I'm intrigued that this film is not hagiography... Oh, you've got people from the scene waxing rhapsodic how great Redd Kross are. How they influenced Axl Rose and grunge and... Fine, but there's a reason why some acts make it and some don't. I mean the brothers aren't quite sour grapes, but the film makes Redd Kross out to be gods, and they are most certainly not.

But what is missing from this film, which I couldn't stop thinking about, was how did these guys SURVIVE! Not only them, but all the talking heads in this film...

So many are stuck in the past. Sexagenarians, septuagenarians, and still dressed in the clothes, the look, of yesteryear, their twenties. It's almost like they couldn't give up and wasted their entire lives. I'm sure they wouldn't see it this way, but I do. At what point do you bite the bullet and pivot, realize it's not going to work out for you and do something different?

Now I'm sure some do or did. And a bunch die. And some weren't going anywhere so fast to begin with.

But... There was an entire scene, a subculture, not quite the art students of your high school, but misfits, and people who wouldn't buy the b.s. of life. They all formed bands and gravitated to each other. And the funny thing is there was no hierarchy, like in regular life, where it's usually about money or education or some other delineation of status, no...they were all there together, the little engine that could, playing music, getting high.

I mean even the guy in Redd Kross gets hooked on drugs and goes to rehab. I mean that's a cliché, right?

Wouldn't happen to me. But maybe that's just the point. I grew up on the east coast and my parents prodded me to succeed from birth. We were prohibited from watching TV during the day, and my mother wasn't too thrilled about us watching it at night either. We knew we were going to college from the moment of consciousness. We didn't necessarily have to be somebody, but we had to get established, so we could pay our own bills, so our parents didn't have to worry about us.

Which is why the people I grew up with and went to college with didn't set the world on fire. We weren't programmed for it. We were programmed to play it safe, to buy insurance, whereas the McDonald brothers and the people in this film...I'd basically say they were oblivious to the structure of everyday life, the bills and the obligations.

Now deep into this movie we find out one brother is married to Charlotte Caffey, who's got a good income stream from the Go-Go's. And the other is married to Anna Waronker and...

I still don't know how they survived.

And the band has highlights. Everybody who ever tried to make it in Hollywood does. In this case, one brother is dating Sofia Coppola and the band is flown by her dad up to Napa for the weekend, private, when most people didn't know that's what was going on at the Van Nuys Airport, the rich and famous flying in and out.

But stories don't pay the bills.

So, the barrier to entry here is not low, you've got to pay to see this flick now, it's not on a streaming service. Maybe it will be eventually, since the McDonald brothers are so weird, like the Mael brothers of Sparks, if not that far off the deep end.

And there are more great twists and turns, stories of growing up, but...

I don't care if you're a fan of Redd Kross or have never heard of the band. That's irrelevant. The scene depicted in this movie, the lifestyle, the attitudes...they are completely foreign to what is happening in music today.

Today no one has a sense of humor, no one questions authority, they want to buy in, they've got no fear of selling out. But it used to be your identity and viewpoint were more important than money. You could have nothing and judge and people would agree with you. Now, if you've got no portfolio, if you don't have a big bank account, you're derided, if not completely ignored.

So, it was a time and a place. But it's also a breed of people... Who still exist, but they're not forming bands.

Today you make your music at home on your computer, oftentimes alone. A band is too hard to manage, and if you make it you have to split up all the money.

So you put your stuff up on YouTube, you spam everybody you know and then complain that you're not successful.

Redd Kross were not about complaints. I'd say they were about music, but it's more than that. They were about a sensibility, involving both emotion and intellect. They marched to the beat of a different drummer, and they were not the only ones.

In truth, this film is subversive, parents don't want their kids to see it, for fear they'll take it to heart and jump the track.

But everything worth paying attention to was made by people who jumped the track, from music to tech.

And isn't it funny how so much of it came from California.

I won't belabor the point, because today everybody thinks California is an unlivable hellhole, but what they don't know is California is a state of mind, one of freedom and possibility, where you jump before you talk yourself down from the ledge.

Like Redd Kross.


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