Desolation Center - with Q&A

back in the eighties we put on parties in the desert and we called ourselves desolation Sanders is the punk movement

part of the Nazi movement no it's the police why couldn't we put this kind of

really cool music into this desert environment but how many things could go wrong you know danger and the element of

being thought of feeling alive Archy connected everything that I've done exciting at the time here in this remote spot

awesome desolation Center was one of the

inspirations when we started doing burning out

it's made real

those shows reflected that spirit of I can make it happen there was definitely one of those doors that opens and you're kind of different on the other side

good evening everyone my name is Scott Crawford thanks for joining us tonight we are going to be talking about a film phenomenal documentary film called desolation Center I'm joined by some of the filmmakers as well as some esteemed

other artists we'll introduce themselves in a second but I think it should be a really entertaining talk tonight the film if you're not familiar chronicles this sort of legendary series of events that took place starting in downtown Los Angeles's in the early 80s and then kind of migrated out to the desert and bands like Sonic Youth Minutemen meat puppets swan savage Republic Red Cross I mean who's who of you know of anyone that was you know making original music and

redefining what was lillith going on at the time and it's really become this

sort of template in a way the series of events became sort of a template for Coachella and Lollapalooza and Burning

Man and you'll see that we can see the film but enough of me let's introduce the the panel here if maybe you guys could all just introduce yourselves sure I'm Stewart and thanks Scott and then Steven Bob and Mariska for doing this with us and I directed the film and I'm also one of the people that organize these events back back in the day so um you know it's been really cool to be able to share all this and have everyone you know participating uh Mariska I was to come to co-producer I was also on the buses and Sonic Youth was changed my life my name is Bob Bert

I was an early drummer of Sonic Youth and I was the one who played it the desolation center show out in the desert and 35 years later I don't think I've played a show that's even come close to that experience I'm Steve Shelly and I'm

also a drummer Sonic Youth and I've been working with Stewart on a soundtrack album of from from his movie desolation Center tell us about the soundtrack yeah

because the soundtrack is phenomenal and I was gonna ask you about that we'll get to that in a minute so let's kind of I guess start from the beginning and this is really - I guess - the whole panel but you know this is a film that takes place in LA in the early 80s 82 83

through about 85 if I remember correctly and I'm just trying to get a sense for folks that weren't there of the kind of landscape cultural landscape of not just

LA I think Stewart and riska you can speak to that but also you know the country so maybe we could start with you know kind of the west coast and then go to Bob and then Steve was you know pretty infamous Midwestern hardcore band called the crucifix and he can speak to maybe them the Midwest and and and and just kind of give us a sense of how all this stuff was able to come together in this perfect kind of storm so I mean I guess I can start often and from our perspective you know I I think

I first discovered punk rock on Rodney on the rock which was a legendary radio show here that that you know I always felt like the cool stuff was going on somewhere else you know in LA back then and so over time you know we started to you know have the germs and acts and all these great bands and so that was like the first wave and and then I feel like the Minuteman and people like that Black Flag being kind of like their mentors in terms of the whole indie music thing just got us all you know moving forward in terms of like how music could change and not just be this static thing and so for me it was like I

loved the whole live music thing but then we had the cops that were really you know kind of head-to-head against particularly Black Flag so anyway you know I wanted to kind of capture some of that in the film that it wasn't just suburban white kids it was Latinos blacks gays straight you know and I think that was something we took for granted because we were all kind of like misfits and you know in our high schools or whatever but you know punk rock was the thing that kind of brought everybody together so that was the beginning and then the whole desert thing sort of evolved at a a certain amount of necessity and a certain amount of just trying to like question all the assumptions because it was independent music and appendant labels all that stuff maryska what was your experience

living in you were in LA at the time yeah I grew up in LA I actually lived in Highland Park which is a little different now hipster ville but um I met Stu actually

met Stuart in front of in front of the ante Club cuz back then everybody was in bands and we make fanzines and I think I sold him fanzine for a quarter you gotta tell him the name of the fanzine sorry topical oh it is to contagion so you know my one

hood okay or not it was great little

community it's you know we all everyone knew each other and those music every night week Bob you were in New York at

that time yeah I grew up right outside of New York so you know i was when i was

like 29 i guess when i played a desolation center so i grew up you know i when i was in high school i was like the early 70s and that's just like we know when ziggy stardust came out new reads transformer and roxy music and we were discovering all this stuff and i you know i always they started going to rock concerts when i was like 14 and started to going to clubs right around them because i was I went to see the New York Dolls at Max's Kansas City in 1973 and started following Wayne County and the Backstreet Boys around and then in 1975 my friends like let's go check out the CBGB place so I wandered in there it was a double bill of Patti Smith and television and there weren't that many people there but I fit on this world that I discovered and and then you know New York went through lots of phases I got to that it kind of evolved into the no wave scene and at this point in time I had no interest at all on even being a musician I took drama lessons you know when I was 12 and then I moved to Hoboken New Jersey right across the river in 1981 and that's when I accidentally fell into a band and started playing and then a few months you know something months later I was in Sonic Youth and now was like 1982 and so

as far as the scene in New York goes it kind of went for the pad the CBGB's max is seeing of all those amazing bands that were starting up and then had kind of quiet kind of quick and all of a sudden there was a no way seeing with teenage Jesus and the jerks and Mars and proportions and then from there in the early 80s it was you know Sonic Youth swans live still rat rat are an apple seed and then you know in afterlife Sonic Youth I joined just band [ __ ] Galore that was a whole other scene with like white zombie the unsane top sheet op so yeah so that's this

might be my deal and then you know one 1985 you know we went out to what Sonic Youth we went out in LA and Kim Anderson Kim grew up there so Kimmy Thurston had been going out there making a lot of connections already and we hooked up with that guy iridescent records my agent Michael Shepherd yeah and so we went out there for at least a week and a half I guess we stayed at Kim's parents house and we played the desert show which was phenomenal we also played it pals bar which st. vitus and then we played at the lingerie Club with Red Cross it I think and then you know we made sure about the west coast and from this show in Seattle with Green River and the u-men that you know didn't think much of at the time but you know now I'm hearing bus from The Melvins was there and all these people were there so it was a cool time and that's great and Steve what about you and specifically you know I think one of the things that the film mentions is the and Stewart you alluded to this already is the amount of attention that the local authorities kind of paid to anyone well especially

LA was notorious correct me if I'm wrong was notorious for this sort of

relationship with anyone that was another you know it's a age old story but judging by some of the one of the

songs that the crucifix did I'm guessing that you might have had some of the same problems in the Midwest Steve with so uh

well at least one of our members do yeah um we're located Lansing Michigan and I guess there was sort of a persecution going on by the local police and we found it hard to find a place to play and and I think we we made it hard

on ourselves at the same time you know we didn't make it easy to live and let

live but I'm sure I can relate to what

was going on in LA a small degree I

think you know what I've seen in the movie clip that's pretty extreme you know from its it's a lot different from what we went through in Michigan Michigan was a smaller scene I guess oh

yeah there's the sting yeah seems

breaking up over here yeah yeah should we pick up the bomb yeah sure sorry guys know those words so okay I'm just trying to create a sense of this kind of you

had a target on your back back then in other words if you look different you had a target on your back so when it came to the authorities and everyone's you know this is not a new story it's something that anyone that was listening to punk rock they're going to punk rock shows in the 80s knows but specifically when you Stewart started working on your your the beginnings of what would become the you know the the shows in downtown LA I don't think it took I think one of the reasons that you chose downtown LA was because of the amount of focus and the sort of microscope that the punk rock scene was under in some of these other clubs am I am I correct yeah it seemed like like back then I think not to the degree maybe of you know the East Village when when bob was in that scene but he was kind of a wasteland up certainly for LA standards it wasn't a lot a lot of cop oversight over anything really there was a lot a lot of homeless you know people a lot of crack stuff on the street and you know they weren't really interested in do anything about it so that was good in the sense that we were able to you know kind of just use warehouse spaces and stuff I didn't do a lot of those kind of shows because even so eventually they would get shut down and you know but we didn't get

really any brutal situations in the shows that I promoted but definitely everybody that from our scene that was interviewed in the film I mean everybody was in situations where they would come out with with you know batons and riot gear and and whack the [ __ ] out of you know young kids I mean you know I think I think Linda kite puts it the best but there was definitely some famous episodes and so after a while you know it just started to feel like we need to figure out another way to do this or we're not going to be able to have a live scene you know and and so that's kind of where we started looking at other options because by the time downtown was not working out as like well where else can we go but you know in addition it was also I think la has this desert next to it you know and and that's something you couldn't do in other places so I think it was also kind of like trying to embrace what was special about our situation you know again I guess I was part of the spirit of the time you know you it was very DIY and no one was going to find it for you so you had to kind of make up your own spaces and you kind of took it to a whole new level but but I

think pretty brilliant you know I I never would have imagined it you know to take something out into the Tees three hours out into the desert but but I think there's some great

footage in the film where there's some sort of famous photos that been fooling around for years I think I said Culver I think took that famous shot of I think it was Black Flag the Ramones and maybe Circle Jerks I can't remember he's a mean man opening at the it was actually just for the record it was Gary Leonard go head cover is brilliant and he's taken a lot of iconic images but because I had to get it from the LA library I happen to know and it's a yeah that so I

was there that night and you know I think a lot of people in the scene were and yeah it was it was really is really messed up I mean pretty much just provoked by the by the police and because like was a grudge match between them and Black Flag they hadn't actually played in LA City in a year and a half or maybe more and so they really wanted to make a point and that was this situation right right well there's a let's list even let's go to that scene in the film if we can where we can kind of illustrate just the sense of chaos and bullying that went on with

the the LAPD LAPD was you had this

really rotten man called chief Daryl gates he's like the PERT like he was the Grand

Wizard in supporting the enemy the

casual drug user he was creepy and he is definitely racist and he didn't like women and he just didn't like anybody of color at all she didn't like young people he didn't like young people having fun the police would show up in mass and you just there was like you didn't know why what was going on we're out of Punk show like seeing the band and then there's like a bunch of police coming in the door the whiskey thank bad is the punk movement part of the Nazi movement no that's from the police that's the Nazi movement the police is the Nazi movement yeah well the effect of the news media was that the LAPD freaked out about punk rock like it was the second coming of the Black Panthers and they were just like they were gonna squash that stuff you know it wasn't gonna get a foothold in their town sometimes they would come in and run everybody out of here like with their sticks and stuff and they just seemed like they were going through the newspaper and finding band names and sounded punk rock and trying to make sure they didn't happen for some reason great so as you saw in that clip it was

a pretty stressful time to be promoting

shows of any kind let alone playing them so in LA at that point so Stewart that's

kind of where we were just talking about you know it was essentially this you know was kind of like what's going on you could compare to Detroit and with the white Panthers where you had you know the local FBI was just surveilling them and and and and giving them a hard time I think there were some of that going on probably less surveillance but more just harassment i I like the way Don Bolles I don't know if that was exactly in the clip but he said you know the LAPD's second coming of Black Panthers is funny

when you look at what happened later with with NWA and [ __ ] the police and the 92 riots what's going on this year but so we had a little taste of that you know but but uh you know it definitely I

think is close enough to the late sixties radicalism that they were they were freaked out did you saw these anarchist symbols and they're like you know we must stop this you know so that was enough for you to kind of start to think outside the box but but let's back up a second before we get out to the Mojave Desert and talk a little bit about he did have a few shows you had one on a boat with the Minutemen correct right what we did we did a couple you know we did the downtown stuff and then the first show that we did that was sort of outside of the regular environment was actually out in the desert right near where where Sonic Youth played you know later in 85 so it was really just a small version of that idea we had three school buses and we had a sound guy you know who brought his generator out and you know you can actually hear his voice in the decline of Western civilization it's very you know because he also did a lot of those Cuckoo's Nest shows and it was savage Republic in the Minutemen and and so it was like double headliners and you know about a hundred and some people and so then later on I did a show on a

boat in San Pedro but that was actually the third kind of desolation Center show that you its featured in the film got it okay so Mike yeah and I think we should also take a second to to describe for folks like desolation desolation center was not as cific place it was uh you know it was your creation that you came up with I even love the fact that you actually sort of had your own manifesto of sorts that you wrote for any yeah but we would

kind of that's even before we started going out to the desert but we I don't know we felt like we needed to make this this statement of principles and you know couple friends of mine and I were just sitting around drinking beers and wrote this whole manifesto up and you know put it on the back of the flyer but look back on it and it really did not like I went back and referenced it all the time but it did sort of force out the spirit of what we were doing and I think you know back at that point in time it was one of those moments in LA where the recognition story had kind of discovered that go-go's you know and there was MTV kind of been in the works and stuff like that so I think we were trying to kind of distance ourselves from the places where those people would go which was like the Sunset Strip and do something different you know doctor I mean I'd love to go those my first used to go see them but I think by that time we felt like we you know the the scene needed to be a little bit off the radar you know right so without giving too much away I mean I'd love to just could quickly let folks know how I mean I think about this now it's just it astounds me but getting a getting the word out about this show in the Mojave Desert with the mint and Savage Republic and then be actually getting people from point A to point B getting them from downtown LA on school buses correct yeah

so I mean pretty slice it was really important in it and in in the sense that he was the founder of savage public and and I think I heard something in their music that was kind of Arabic or spaghetti western vibe even though it was really noisy and and had similarities to what Sonic Youth was doing in terms of their a tone illness and so I came back from visiting a

friend of mine family in Mexico and so we were driving through desert a lot Arizona and then cross the border and snore and we're listening to all this kind of music that was related public image limited or you know a wire other things that that I felt like had this quality of being a little bit more like almost like otherworldly it wasn't space rock like old school space rock and so the desert kind of fit with that so when I came back I was like I didn't really know briefs at that time I mean but I said hey would you be interested in playing a show out in the middle of the desert and he's like yeah and I also know a good dry lakebed that I could take you to so that that was the first part of it and then I drove out there with him so I was like a big desert rat or anything it was more just a concept and then we just

started trying to figure out how to do it and the school buses was like how do you charge tickets how do you get people there I didn't really trust like local scenesters to actually get themselves out to the middle of the desert necessarily and also meant you could get messed up and you didn't have to drive so there's a lot of different reasons but also we didn't tell people where they were going so there's a little bit more of a performance-art aspect and then risky it must have been one of the first people that I hit up to actually help do this where do you uh where to in

wasn't it one of your responsibilities to sort of the I was busting yeah yeah keep everybody you know from acting to insane on the bus we had these weird waivers where people had sign in case they got hurt but no what happened to

band with Perry Farrell at the time too which is how I met Perry and so Perry was there's three buses I think maryska had one bus and then Perry had one of the buses taking the ticket supervisor

but anyway so we well got there everybody survived later on Perry and a different lineup of sicom open for the sonication right so the that particular show had it didn't all go as planned I know that I think if I remember correct there was kind of a windstorm and there was some audio issues so you went from that and what did you learn from that what did you take away from that leading up to this show it's Sonic Youth and what did you want to do differently I I

thought it was really cool I guess I just somehow wanted it to be bigger and that was my idea and I actually didn't know what that was gonna mean I didn't even know if I was gonna do another desert show I might have just jumped into doing something else like the the joycie show on the boat or whatever but then I just I quit my job and I ended up just basically bumming around Europe for a while and I met the people from einstürzende Neubauten we have really talked about that much right but they were kind of like this thing where people like you got to see these guys they bang on metal and they're like industrial music but with power tools and so when I saw him that that kind of like and I somehow you know had a conversation with them at this club afterward or whatever we started talking about playing out in the middle of the desert so then that gave me a bit more of a like motivation that I'm sure snow

gotten was going to be the next one and then a lot of the other things became about were somewhat related to them knowing people like survival Research Laboratories boy Rhys things like that right and so that's that the one so you you put it up tickets in advance we always had tickets actually that was another know Bruce leister thing is he actually had this printing press where he did these beautiful flyers and album covers and you know we're still in touch with Bruce and I think Steve and I are talking about working with him on the on the soundtrack when it comes out so yeah

anytime they put out or anything that he did back then was so identifiable you instantly knew so we had pretty basic flyers but really beautiful tickets but

but as far as we got a little bit more publicity I think more than that I even remembered when I started looking into it like there was blurbs and the LA Weekly and things like that and we

ended up with six buses so still limit you had to be on the bus do you want to get there kind of thing and a few people obviously drove out you know what am I going to say no check to Kowski you can't take your van right so that

basically was a similar thing I mean what we had trouble with with the first one was buses breaking down people like

throwing rocks at the bus from the side of freeway because there's a bunch of you know loudmouth punk rockers yelling at local gangbangers and so I tried to avoid all those scenarios maryska did we do any better with getting people home the second time around god I don't never remember anything past noon but I mean you know no one really got hurt so that was the important thing and in the case of a second show we actually had Mark Pauline bringing explosives and

blowing up refrigerators and so that was kind of an epic opening act for I streets to know about with the the sounding like - we've now begun wasn't it like he would he did an explosion and then like the steel wasn't he their mission that took place to let everyone know okay the concert is about to begin yeah you could put it that way I mean yeah I think we had somebody you know and talking into the microphone and it something like get away from the rocks cuz things are gonna start blowing out and it wasn't quite the massive explosions had been promised but it was there was definitely some flying sheet metal and some things that I didn't even know until I went back and started interviewing people right yeah the one sounded pretty hairy when you had the flying piece of sheet metal that was just ten feet above the audience's head that had been literally so you know the

only one of the things I think about one thing about going to shows back in the 80s was that that experience of not just getting to the of not just experiencing the music and being at the show and then leaving and just the adrenaline pumping but getting there getting there was part of the fun too it was this entire night where you would have to figure out okay if I take bus 340 and then I can dig it and pick it up in the corner of whatever and you take that bus or you know you hitchhike or your friends get a rot and it give you a ride whatever but we're talking this is next level without in three hours okay and so out of downtown LA but what I'm curious about is Bob what was it like for you I

mean there's no GPS again you know we

have to give people a sense of the time this is what 80 85 my thank you so no

GPS the maps were kind of handwritten or well I'm sure you had actual topographical maps but some of the maps in the film looked like they were handwritten I mean thinking how did you I mean a did you ever get lost B were you thinking what the hell I mean what-what were you well I remember like you had to if you want to take it they gave you a map at the record store or whatever everybody I don't remember us having any problem going out there if you see in the film Red Cross got completely lost and you know everyone was freaking out whether they were to show up and but I don't remember I don't

even remember who drove or what kind of vehicle we're in I you know we you know we just got there and everything was cool I remember before the show I went

over to who to some guy's house to check

out the drumset I was gonna use and it you know I was like just weird goth guy that lizard was all over the place and it was until about ten years later that I realized it was hairy it no need you

guys headline that show Sonic Youth headliner well I don't know what you consider headlining I guess right crossing it lost so they they probably stood up getting playing last and it was sicom than the meat puppets that Sonic Youth and then her across in for the first time out there no one really knew that much about us then we were freaked out because we drove up and you know we hear like you know everyone's tripping on acid and I'm like me especially I'm like people are taking acid in 1985 what's up with them you know so it's kind of crazy and I was really excited because Thurston had turned me on to the Red Cross and I that was the first time I would get to see them and maybe there's a slew me away and I've been such a big fan since Steve was like 16 at the time Steve McDonald yeah you look at pictures of him now and he looks like he was ten figure that he

was um just you know I think that's a good segue into the into the Sonic Youth performance video Steven can we can we see that there's a great performance video from desolation center where you see them playing this show where there were 500 tabs of acid hand it out to the

audience and so it was quite quite the evening and that was courtesy of the meat puppets that's right

Oh Steven if we things were getting weirder songs were getting longer Indian hands were going off and very own okay directions there was a sort of great just new thing I think when we started

hearing him know what was going on with these dudes in the desert with no value and survival research laboratories and then Minutemen on the boat it just sounded like it was part and parcel with all this remember it was really cold that night right weird actually playing in the cold yeah it wasn't us from third we had winter winter jackets they have

all these great burgers and yeah well me and Kim went with the NIP drivers up to spawn rash and like they were taking some black gel acid but not me not me and Kim and then they came back to visit Kim's family over Christmas that's what we decided well since they're gonna be here anyway let's do a desert show so we picked the first full moon after New Year's great so that was Sonic Youth playing out in the desert what was the exact town that was not the hobby that was Stewart what town was that in well as technically it's Alden the Mojave it's a place called Lucerne Valley would be the closest town the plate that the dry lake bed was is called soggy dry lake but if people know Joshua Tree it's really not too far from there maybe I'm right there was a full moon I think no yeah that was part of the plan yes I think that's in the full moon I think yeah yeah so what were some of the other

do you remember anything else Bob from that evening that that that struck you other than red cross what were the meat puppets the meat puppets they were doing I think they're playing most stuff up on the Sun album the name of it it was very internally you know I actually have had

a bit of DVD in a video of the whole show except for sicom and the B puppets were pretty mellow kinda jammy I mean our perfect yeah perfect Dean yeah they're really good and yeah just I just remember that big pile of rocks and it's weird because you know there's no stage you're playing on the ground and especially during red for us is set you see all these like drunk people one guy pulls his dick out I think that in the film but uh it was

it was crazy because everyone was like right there in your face I think basically you know people you know never

heard anything quite like us before so they were probably I would imagine it gave them a pretty rare trip yeah yeah

so kind of moving forward and jump it a little bit but and again so much of this is about context you know sonic you've played law Klose and what 95 I think was that the first time he played Lollapalooza

okay just uh lip-reading yeah I'm trying to lip read I think that's correct yes okay so given what we know now about some of these shows that were taking place that again were powered by generators very DIY in every sense of the word give us a sense of like what playing Lollapalooza was you know ten years later you know whether we were

talking about shows Stewart put on you there's no dressing rooms there's no bathrooms there's no bar there's no you know so it gives us a sense of you know the differences ten years later you know in the 90s well in the 90s you know it

was it was a lot more corporate America which was you know not as much fun there was a lot of advertising and and you had

to work your way around that and and you know do your best to present what you wanted to present without the you know the corporate world getting in the way right yeah so which is a great segue into the fact that we know we've mentioned Perry Farrell several times now Perry was at both desert shows

Stewart was three yeah okay so sorry so

so that you know clearly inspired him were was part of this inspiration for you know creating putting together Lollapalooza but I think a little more at least geographically speaking you have you know golden voice doing Coachella years later and then of course Burning Man as well what is it about the desert that

you think appeals to sort of not just the artists that are playing but the audience as well you know is it just that it's so expansive there's a sense of freedom it's what what it's just interesting to me that some of the most successful festivals well until this

year to you know take place in the

desert didn't Chris say something in the movie Chris Kurtwood about how plane in the desert allowed you to really relate or the audience to really relate to them

I mean there's good you when I kind because you're still involved with events in the desert you want to talk a little bit about you you've been doing it all these years yeah well it's just a sort of alien like

I think someone in the who was in the movie said Sonic Youth was alien like because of the music and it just feeds into that and I mean I'm not a I'm a city girl and hurt right yeah and I'm an

East Coast person so it's not something I can doesn't wrap my head around it so I'm just curious but Steve you were

first and last you were saying something that Kirkwood's talking about there was

a great quote I think you were about to I was trying yeah I keep I'm sorry about my connection here yeah Chris said something about being in the desert and plaint playing music to the audience that everyone was ultra receptive to to

the music and the vibrations and I'm sure that has a little bit to do with the acid mentality but I'm but I enjoyed

what he had to say about that that there was a heightened awareness because you're not in a club you're not dealing with the usual things that you deal with in a club and it was a unique circumstance um I wish I could have seen that yeah you don't have

the the usual set of distractions you have in a club you don't have the bar you don't have the exactly so yeah it's really you and well someone in the film

and I'm and I apologize for not remembering the name but they described it the whole experience between getting in the bus going out hearing the music and coming home as magical and you know

I I think maybe that's not too strong of a word I mean I could I could only imagine it had to it then that is an alien

landscape and and so it's like you you you're just going on a bus or in a car but you're being transported to this other place and and I think the weight certainly that that's true of Burning Man Amin Coachella I don't know like you're still somewhat you're in a polo field or whatever but I still think there's something about just the light being different and and so it's like a it's a very kind of safe version of maybe what we were doing but there's still those elements to it and it's there's a whole interesting story which I wasn't able to put into the film but starting with the original desert rock people Queens of the Stone Age and caius and a friend of ours Mario Lally who was one of the first people to do those shows and those guys you know they were hardcore bands that once they started playing with a generator out in the desert the music started to change because they would play all night and it got to be much more like Black Sabbath heavy rock kind of thing but golden voice was kind of around all that too and putting on certain shows and soso

leading up to Coachella there were some kind of misfired desert things that I think we're gonna tell the story on our DVD as an extra because Mario does it really well like by the end he you know there somebody's been knifed in the Highway Patrol's there and then he's the only guy left cleaning up this mess and then the local news from Palm Springs shows up and they're like so what happened here right yeah so there's just I think there's an element of just you know it lends itself to sort of this outlaw feeling of like you know you're outside of society's control also and in our case it always worked out well I think it was such a pressure situation in clubs and stuff that getting the same people but in a totally different setting made it feel very different it probably goes back well at that point again you know you were under this microscope when you're in LA and you get out there and I can only imagine how especially back then I get because again looking the way kids did then it was you can look that way now and it wouldn't I'm not sure what it takes right now to to really make anyone look twice but but certainly back then so if you get all these people out into the middle of the desert it must have felt like safe like you know this is like a safe place until my I really if

the flying fleet would have taken off a few heads we wouldn't be sitting here right I certainly would yeah but I do think there's something powerful about the I'm just gonna say that you know since we've been talking about everybody being on acid and all that stuff there were a lot of people that now are coming out of the woodwork saying well I wasn't tripping and I had to drive and whatever but they just also had a really powerful experience and and so I think that you know there's different ways to approach it you sure well again it goes back to the communal thing and that and you know and I think that that had to be a pretty powerful experience for anyone that was there I want to mention also by the way anyone that's watching on YouTube right now if you have questions feel free to to post him on YouTube and we'll try and answer them the best we can so you know

I did a film about I've done two films about the past and one was about the DC

punk scene in the 80s and another was about a magazine called cream and its heyday in the 70s and the the one question that people always ask and and I'm gonna ask you all because I always I just never know how to answer it I mean I think I I think I know the answer but what happened with desolation

center was it was a time in a place I mean a lot of what happened in the 80s was of a time in a place and but I'm always asked like can that happen again can you could that happen in 2020 and I'm just curious what the panel thinks of that given where we're at right now like what Steve alluded to with the the co-opting and everything else I mean in the corporate clause that

always seem to you know find their way into these types of events is something like this I don't know I'm just gonna

throw it out there could it happen again and if so how and why and all that kind

of stuff well Stewart mentioned I still go out

just one group one of the reasons they're still going on is that's why I can't tell you the name but um there on the 27th anniversary I think it's a lot about betting you don't you invite somewhat we'll have their own manifesto wasn't it's not intense but it's simple it's like invite someone you would invite it to your home and they're not they're not in it for the money and all the money goes to the heart cause it's a ten dollar donation at the door still and very pared down to kind of like desolation Center wasn't it's all about to lose it it's music is it music and art is is it just music it's in the

desert so there what do you think Bob

and Steve do you think something like this could ever I mean oh you know this stuff exists you know I'm not talking

about concerts in the desert but you know obviously there's always going to be these subcultures and these little things that are happening these hot spots everywhere but but what is what do you say you think do you think something like this could maybe in other places

she's just foods being wrong but I was I was gonna say no it can't happen you know because you know especially in 2020 no one can even leave their house but uh yeah I don't see that happening and I don't see I mean maybe you know maybe you can I get maybe I'm just from a different generation because I don't even know what bands kids would go see these days anywhere for most part and so

yeah I mean New York City will definitely never be like it was in the seventies or eighties well they do take

place in the desert so we have that we can do go off in private land you know so that's great

you're the spirit is still there keeping it alive Stuart are you involved in those at all or you know I know I know I

mean it's more like of a DJ culture thing which I appreciate but I yeah I haven't been motivated to go out there and do it but um I you know I think that

when I think about all the different things evolutions that Bob's been through you know when you say could it happen again I think it's always gonna happen differently you know I mean hopefully it would be the same and I do think that you know one of the things about the LA punk scene I think about something like Mike Watt you know that in the film is that we were kind of like in the shadow of stadium rock you know there was the Eagles and all it was bigger bigger bigger you know and so we were just like a few people and honestly when I started going to gigs I was 16 so you know kids that learn this idea you

could have a great time at a Chinese restaurant and see the germs you know or weather so it it could be small and and cool and so I think that's kind of the important thing but as to whether I would do something exactly the same way no I definitely wouldn't but I do like the idea of now that we're finished with the film and we're screening of doing other kinds of events and and putting things together that you know maybe we have elements of it and one might be in the desert we might actually do desolation Center at a drive-in because that's you know absolutely and we'll have music as part of it and stuff so I think that you know there's possibilities of sort of rethinking where you present music and it really does make a big difference so let's go back to beginning castee Shelley you're working on the soundtrack with Stuart maybe you know would be great or just throwing it out there you guys could perform the soundtrack live in the desert brilliant I think it'll be

hard enough to get them all the approval we need to get the double the double album that we're trying to assemble Oh ambitious okay yeah we're hoping to represent everyone who you know who's in in the movie and it's it's a it's quite a community of groups I can imagine it I

can imagine how how long did it take to start to put this whole thing to get there talk about music just I know just the whole music component to any film takes a while I mean look I'm sure you were still in touch with a lot of these folks and I'm sure they're you know they're you're able to sort of ask for some favors and things like that but how long did the whole film take the whole production everything from I mean I guess we probably started about five years ago now and I think you know the

beginning of it was me getting back in touch with Mariska and saying hey these are those pictures of the desert shows that you took and then you know as far as music clearance goes I mean people like Steve I mean it's been amazing too

because you've been through it twice but to have that kind of you know level of support you know there's no way we could have done it with without everybody helping us you know with music rights and all that but I'm just lucky that the video is out there you know and I'm lucky that people recorded the audio that you know one guy on a Sony Walkman you know something else from flipside magazines you know VHS recorders you know and so it was kind of like a process of putting all these different things together so it feels like oh yeah this is cool but really what it is is kind of like a big digital mash-up of all these little elements was there one they'll get a one

piece of found footage or maybe audio where you just went it was like finding sunken treasure you know or you went oh my god this is one I can think of - they're both from from the night that bob was out there at Gila monster Jamboree one of them was when Carmel who

was Red Cross's manager at that time I'm comes up to the microphone after they get there after they've been lost for like three hours in the desert and says and me puffins are still playing it she's like can the girl that drove us out to the desert come up because my acid is in your car it's an emergency and you can hear the meat puppets like doing this incredible Space Jam under it so that was like one of those like wow somebody should sample that and like you know and then the only thing also when when a friend of ours Dave Travis he had assembled a lot of the different footage from Gila monster Jamboree and he's like we have the were in the desert guy I was like no way and because there's the guy who I think also whipped his dick out at one point but he stumbles across the screen was like a vodka bottle and he kind of commandeered the mic for a while and just basically yelling like the desert and and there are certain people that if you say you know elem awesome Jamboree that's what their response will be you know to that day and to actually

have that footage and that just kind of blew me away cuz I wasn't even sure I mean I remember having to take the microphone away from him and being like this isn't gonna be fun I mean he was kind of quick only did it but to see it again that was just like that brought me back and that was that's what I thought was really cool is that somebody I saved that footage and it wasn't you know the headlining bands performing or anything was just kind of these other things that were going on which I think gave it a lot of character right right we have a few questions here that I'm going to throw out the first one is

directed at Steve and in Bob the question is have you guys ever drum

together on a Sonic Youth's stage or anywhere else we have one time at folk

city Steve was not staged playing with Sonic Youth and I was in one corner playing the drums and Theresa and King coffee from the puddle surfers were in another corner and they were showing Richard Curren films over the Sonic Youth while they were playing and I think that's the one night I remember that was one of my first shows with a band maybe the second or third and and also Bob although we didn't play a concert we both drummed maybe maybe at

peppermint lounge for the Death Valley 69 video right so we have played

together a little bit okay I want to

know and of course we were gonna talk about this and and I'll bring it up again but somebody wants to know if this film's gonna be on Netflix and it's not only on Netflix it's streaming now correct well it's definitely not on Netflix yeah no I mean you know there

was a lot of ways to see it streaming just as of about the last less than two

weeks so you can see it on iTunes or Amazon Fandango now Vimeo and if you want to support you know there's ways to go to like the W F mu website or Amoeba Records and and and you can stream it that way and that helps independent music out as well so but yet you know the reality of Netflix is that there they're moving away from independent film and more toward their big shows and so it's not like they're rushing to get something from Slamdance festival ever yeah that's a tough nut to crack that's a whole other episode we'll have to do here sometime but but yes so no to Netflix but yes to iTunes Apple Amazon Fandango now Google Play and venom and imio on demand and one last

question I think it was part of that same question is are you gonna be doing additional drive-in theater screenings that's what a lot of people are arguing right now and I don't know for how much longer I guess in tonight it's just kind of little window of like you know what are we gonna do how do we get our film out there you know it's funny like I mean I don't even I'm I'm hoping that we do one because that would be really really cool and it something that I actually talked to Kim and Thurston about enough bob was part of that conversation - that wouldn't be cool that sonic you play it drive-in and you know cuz after we did the desert show like what would we do next you know and so the ideas been there for a really long time and so I think yeah maybe we

could take it on the road or you know I mean it really depends on finding the drive in the that wants desolation Center and it's cool with live music that's really noisy and that kind of thing again it seems like the perfect film to be shown outdoors considering so much of the film which by the way is beautifully shot you know the the desert scenes especially that were shot recently you know beautifully shot stuff yeah I have to credit you know both senator of all day and and Jeremy Jeremy

actually knew how to work a drone which was like so we rented one for a very small budget and and he was able to actually make all that stuff work and yeah it's a it's a strange world out there where you can get that kind of beautiful footage that used to be helicopter shots you know with a hundred dollar drone rental yeah yeah you got a sense of the expand of the whole thing but but I can't stress enough what a phenomenal film this is I've watched it now maybe a half a dozen times I my wife is already tired

of me repeating the lines from the film because I know so but I encourage

everyone to to go check this out again desolation center streaming now on once

again iTunes Apple Amazon Fandango now Google Play and Vimeo on demand so I really appreciate unless anyone else has any questions or is the DVD

coming out well the DVD is going to come

out and and I want to we have to edit all these extras and really make it I want it to be kind of a cool package that that will last so I don't know where I'd say where he's six months away from from putting it out but cool and what's going on with the cream Doc Scott yeah like I'd love to see it in Detroit but how this is your show but I think

you asking but yeah we will we can talk

about that but uh but in the meantime though checkout desolation Center and did you guys want to add anything else was there anything else we want to plug or I was just going to say that if people want to keep up on what's going on with you know you maybe they'll be screaming someday again or the DVD and things like that we've been talking about just go to desolation center calm and if they sign up for our email list they'll be you know the first to know and so that that's one thing and then also I just want to thank you guys been really really cool to have you know two members of Sonic Youth and I love your films and brisket so anyway I'm honored and thanks for doing this thanks for your time I enjoyed this thoroughly and thanks it was nice to meet Bob and Steven Mariska we've met before but just I just can't stress enough what a great film it is and thank you for putting it out and for making this available to guys like me in rest of them poor l2 are going to discover this whole I think it's just gonna blow people's minds it's and it's just beautifully done so that's I'm all for blue in minds right everyone thanks

again man

you