Kill Your Idols DVD
Palm Pictures

This is a tale of two movies. The first half of the documentary provides an overwhelming history of the pre-punk NYC movement and the post-punk No Wave scene of the late early and late ’70s. Suicide and Lydia Lunch might be legends, but hearing them babble about how great they are does not make for much eye candy.

Things pick up a bit with the early ’80s and the creation of the greatest noise rock band in the world–Sonic Youth. But as soon as they are mentioned, the film skips to 2002 and so begins a half hour long bashing of the current New York rock scene by aging No Wave veterans. There seems to be quite a bit of resentment against the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Strokes by the elder scenesters, but what is most depressing is that the movie totally ignores great No Wave bands like Mission of Burma and Beat Happening. It’s like No Wave just ended with Sonic Youth until a bunch of little kids picked up the reigns in 2002.

Not a bad movie for early history, but definitely not the end all to be all manifest of the No Wave scene. To fill in the blanks, pick up “Our Band Could Be Your Life” by Mike Azerrad.