Bastards of Young

Rarely can one find raw, live performances, practical advice and a trove of history rolled into one tight little juggernaut of uncensored honesty; but somehow, the makers of Bastards of Young were able to do just that. This two-disc documentary covers anything you'd want to know about modern punk music, from its basement rock roots to the fallacies of signing with major labels to sticking with your fans - and all the information comes directly from the horse's mouth. Forefathers of basement rock Midtown, Thursday and Jimmy Eat World babble on as well as new kids on the block Underoath, Armor for Sleep and Emmanuel; there's also Juliana Theory, Something Corporate, the Starting Line, the Early November, and even Autumn to Ashes. Matchbook Romance, My Bloody Valentine and Taking Back Sunday round out the tell-all on the musician front, but even that's leaving out the label heads, fans, Alternative Press writers and parents who also contribute.

The DVD's first disc doles out the actual hour and 15-minute documentary, which bounces between snippets of band interviews to live performances to driving around New Brunswick, New Jersey, where Thursday and Midtown got their start. "You're not cool, no matter what you do. You're not cool if you're from here," Thursday lead singer Geoff Rickley says as he saunters through the lower-scale suburban threshold. It's those homes, those performances and even those kids that cause this doc to correlate all the pretentious stereotypes and passionate screams into true meaning. I might be looking too far into this, but we all know we have our own little prejudices against the punk kids of today. Whether you hate the whiney "emo" sound, the attitude that nothing matters (when truly you know they secretly think it all matters), or the up-and-coming 13-year-olds who are beginning to crowd into the shows you used to stake out as your own. For me, it's the younger kids. The ridiculous-looking girls who don't know exactly how to do their hair or make-up yet, or the boys who wear tight shirts and those sweater-hat things and laugh louder than normal in Wal-Mart when they walk by the women's underwear section and see a pair of panties with a sassy phrase on the crotch. Those kids, I hate. But the fact is, those are the kids for whom this music matters the most.


Bastards of Young tears down the sketchy undertones of today's genre of whatever-you-want-to-call-it punk. Straight up, these bands know they're not envisioned as the poster boys of critical acclaim. When they sing, they might be off-key, and half the time you don't know what they're trying to get across. They wear dirty jeans, don't shower as much as you'd think, and some still have braces. Sometimes their voices crack, and they have nights when no one shows up to their gigs. They're giddy over tour buses and letters from their fans. Some are "bad" bands who you see drinking hardcore before a show and some are "Christian" who say they don't smoke or drink and supposedly are all still virgins. They joke, make fun of each other and buy radio controlled cars to drive when they're at rest stops on tour. And it's all these details, all the small things - like how they sit during an interview, or how they banter with the crowd - that proves that these guys are your little brother who put everything on the line to follow a passion. They love what they do, they don't care if they suck, and they're successful because their fans can see that. Some of these bands, Thursday especially, have such a love-love relationship with anyone who attends their shows, it's actually moving.


Of course, to be specific, we hear how each band got their start, what they think of the term "emo," how they got signed to whatever label they're on, and what happened from there. Performances intertwine with the interviews, and we hear from fans about how dedicated they are. We're even there when a starry-eyed, acoustic-playing teen who's never seen a mountain before gets signed to Drive-Thru Records. Bonus features include full-length interviews with almost all of the featured bands, and the second disc houses 20 performances from eight different groups (you've got to watch Midtown, which is by far the best performance I've seen in a long time). From these performances, the comfort level - it could even be called a bond - that these bands and fans have with each other is apparent. A connection like that is something that's hard to find in any other genre at any other point in time; that's why, even if their record sales plummet and their tours don't break even, these bands will always be around, and they will always be sorely loved.

- Laura Misjak

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See Also: A punk band based on a whole other type of excitement.
See Also Also: A different punk band based on yet another type of excitement.