Punk: Attitude

Punk: Attitude was preceded at yesterday's Raindance festival by Fuck the Police, a short film about The Libertines. Gerald is quite a fan and, to annoy him, I have been known to comment that Pete Doherty's other band, Babyshambles, would be more aptly entitled Fucking Shambles. The film did nothing to dispel this belief.

What happens is, The Libertines decide to hold a gig for their mates at a flat in east London. Halfway though, the neighbours complain and the boo-hiss nasty policemen come along and spoil all their fun. Given Doherty's "bad boy" image I was expecting at a right old kerfuffle. S'yeah, right.

In reality, it's 18 minutes of badly shot footage of two blokes singing dreary pop songs. A neighbour comes and has a shout, they all stand and giggle like school kids. Then the police turn up. Doherty stands grinning and leaves his friend to take the rap, some fat bloke shouts "clever" remarks at the camera, then they all pick up their coats and bugger off.

Not so much punk rock as a bunch of posh kids showing off and being badly behaved. They should have been packed off home for their parents to deal with...

By stark contrast, Don Letts Punk: Attitude is a fantastic compilation, probably the best punk documentary I've seen.

The film opens with brief clips of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry - they were demonstrating punk sensibilities long before they'd even been invented.

Then we move quickly to the Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith and the birth of the CBGB and Max's Kansas City generation in New York city.

There are superb clips of New York Dolls - and vox pops with David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain and Arthur Killer Kane - alongside powerful contributions from The Ramones.

The undisputed star of the show is Henry Rollins, a documentary makers dream - always smart, funny, concise and very much to the point. "All you need is one guy or girl to stand up and say "fuck this" and everybody goes: Voice of a Generation".

Opening with the Sex Pistols and clips from Vivienne Westwood's Kings Road store, the UK is represented by Siouxsie (unfortunate camera angle!), Mick Jones, Howard Devoto and Poly Styrene. Soundtrack highlights include The Clash, Buzzcocks, X Ray Spex and The Slits.

If you didn't go yesterday, you can't see it at the pictures now - you're too late. You can buy the DVD, though. It has loads of extra features totalling about 4 hours of footage. Yay!

Before I forget, on the way out I saw a bit of a crowd had formed ... I looked closer and realised they were gathered around Howard Devoto! Eek! I didn't have anything to say to him, but I enjoyed gawping and grinning like a loon as I headed off to the escalator!