- [first lines]
- Self - Light Bulb Kid: [Eugene] That's stupid. Punk rock. I don't - you know - I just think of it as rock-n-roll; because, that's what it is, you know.
- Self - Interviewer: What do you like about it?
- Self - Light Bulb Kid: Well, I like that it's like - it's something new and it's just reviving like old rock-n-roll and it's like rare again and it's for real. And it's fun and, you know, it's like - it's not bull shit. There's no rock stars now, you know.
- Self - Owner - Masque: I think a lot of the time that it gets out of hand is because of the - the speed of the music, which is way above the normal rhythm of a dance. I mean, if you take a four-four disco time signature, you know, which is comfortable, you kind of - dance easily to the disco rhythm, which is, I understand, is 126 to 132 heartbeats a minute. Where as the kind of music the Germs or the Black Flag is playing, it's upwards of 250 to 300 beats a minute. Which is *not* comfortable or normal to dance to.
- Self - Owner - Masque: Nowadays, I think the kids are more desperate or something like that - or more bored.
- Self - Owner - Club 88: Punk music is generally, that is, hard core punk, is characterized by it's speed. It has a lot of fuzz, as musicians call it, cranked into the music. It's high volume, high speed, usually monotone volumes, eh, vocals - characterized by protest-type lyrics.
- Self - Interviewer: What about the hippies? Do you get along with hippies?
- Self - Black Flag (Guitar): They're okay, cause they just get loaded and they're pretty mellow. Mellow dudes!
- Self - Owner - Club 88: Some of the better of the punk bands that developed into - sort of like folk music, I don't mean folk music as a traditional folk music. But, the allegory can be drawn to the 60s when protesters used acoustic guitars. Now, instead of acoustic guitars, you know, they have high-speed, 300 beats a minute, speed rock, and yelling about the same things.
- Self - Owner - Club 88: The air is poisoned out there. You know, the air in Utopia is poisoned. You know, the final joke.
- Self - Interviewer: Where are you from?
- Self - Black Flag (Vocals): I'm from Puerto Rico. But
- [sings]
- Self - Black Flag (Vocals): I like to live in America.
- [laughs]
- Self - Interviewer: How is that you're always getting hurt?
- Self - Germs (Vocals): Well, at first I did it on purpose - to keep from being bored.
- Self - Germs' Manager: I've had promoters grab me and shake me and say, "Stop this show. It's on the verge of becoming a riot."
- Self - Germs' Manager: He's come out of shows with huge scraps and scratches and claw marks all over him and just pouring blood. But, it always looks a lot worst than it is.
- Self - Black Flag (Vocals): I can't rent a house because I owe the gas company money, I owe the electric company money, I owe the telephone company money, so, I can't rent a house under my name. So, I might as well live in a fucking closet for $16 a month.
- Self - Germs' Manager: Well, when they first got together as a band they didn't know how to play their instruments and they did things to kind of camouflage that. Darby would smear peanut butter all over him and he'd dive through broken glass. He'd break glasses on his head. And eventually they learned how to play.
- Self - Interviewer: Why do you get so loaded to perform?
- Self - Germs (Vocals): Because, that way I don't feel myself gettin' hurt. I mean, it's scary out there.
- Self - Interviewer: Tell me why you don't sing into the mike, Darby?
- Self - Germs (Vocals): I just don't pay attention. I'm too loaded.
- Self - Germs' Manager: Well, it's more like being a mother of four three-year-olds who are always fighting with each other, but not-not seriously fighting, just "he did this to me," "she did this," I can't stand it and sometimes I get at the end of my rope and just want to batter my children.
- Self - Editor - Slash Magazine: I have excellent news for the world. There's no such thing as New Wave. It does not exist. Its a figment of lamekind's imagination. There was never any such thing as New Wave. It was the polite thing to say when you are trying to explain you were not into the boring old rock-n-roll, but, you didn't dare to say punk because you were afraid to get kicked out of the fucking party and they wouldn't give you coke anymore. There's new music, There's new underground sound. There's noise. There's punk. There's power pop. There's ska. There's rockabilly. But, New Wave doesn't mean shit.
- Self - Interviewer: Didn't you feel bad that the guy was dead?
- Self - Darby Crash's Roommate: No. Not at all. Because I hate painters.
- [Darby rolls his eyes]
- Self - Interviewer: Do you think your songs look on the dark side of things?
- Self - X (Vocals & Bass): They look on the realistic side of things. Realism is dark.
- Self - Concert Promoter: He did not understand the difference between pogoing and real violence. There is no actual difference. Violence is violence. But, I mean, if they're bashing each other and enjoying it, well, that's up to them.
- Self - X (Vocals & Bass): I wrote the song around, basically, a fantasy wish. The whole idea of the lines, "but she was still awake," is that, you know, yeah, there's this rape but its sort of a seduction. It's every man's like dream to be able to be so potent that they can have sex like - if you could have sex, once, if I could have sex once an hour for twenty-four hours, I would do it.
- Self - Interviewer: What's the worst problem you ever had?
- Self - Bouncer: Oh, one time three guys came up on stage and they were hassling the lead singer for - Exene, I believe it was, from the band X. And they were tryin' to rip off her dress or somethin'. And I had to go out and kick 'em in the face
- Self - Light Bulb Kid: [Jennipher] It seems like little crowds, you know, will be dancing and then they'll start punching and then they'll just like move over to the side, you know, and they'll just go back-n-forth-n-back. And you can't - you can't dance.
- Self - Interviewer: What's the pent-up aggression? Where's that come from?
- Self - Light Bulb Kid: [Eugene] Well, with me it just comes from like livin' in the city and just seein' everything. Seein' all the ugly, old people and just the fuckin' - the buses and just the dirt. That, you know, just - and that's what - what I see all the time. So, it's just, all the time, it's just fuckin' bums me. Thinkin' about that, so, when I go there, I just, sometimes I can get out some aggression maybe by beatin' up some asshole, you know.
- Self - Light Bulb Kid: [Eugene] When I go to concerts, it's like my friends get beat up by my friends, you know. Then it's like, fuck, you know. It's cause, like, they're not beatin' up the right people. They're not beatin' up the fuckin' posers. They're beatin' up just, like, just my friends. Fuck, you know.
- Self - Light Bulb Kid: [Pat] I probably hit lots of girls in the face. I don't like girls very much.
- Self - Light Bulb Kid: [Jennipher] Everyone shouldn't be afraid to be as different as they want to be. People hold back a lot.
- Self - Fear (Bass): [from the stage] They said the last time we played here there was a riot. So, you're not going to disappoint us are you? Let's see a little emotion up here. This ain't no fuckin' country club.
- Self - Fear (Bass): [from the stage] We all wish we could be as nice as you people. But, we were born with problems.
- Self - Interviewer: Why do you think they act like that?
- Self - Owner - Club 88: It's - it's an energy outlet. It's - they're really nice kids. They just have to be doing something different. It's a release - from their daily tensions, I guess, whatever it may be.
- Self - Manager - Club 88: In our day, we ate goldfish.
- Self - Fear (Guitar): You know why chicks have their holes so close together? You can carry 'em like a six-pack of beer.
- Self - Darby Crash's Roommate: It was really funny, actually. And the paramedics and they were joking with us and the coroner came.
- Self - Germs (Vocals): Remember all those jokes?
- Self - Darby Crash's Roommate: Oh, yeah! What were some of the jokes?
- Self - Germs (Vocals): Instead of John Doe they put down José Doe 'cause it was a wetback.
- Self - Sound Man: There's a fine line between pogo dancing and fighting. And the fact that if you see somebody, you know, come here, come here Dutch, if you see somebody over there grabbin' a girl and, you know, shakin' and shit and throwin' 'em up against the stage, you know, grabbin' her ass or whatever, they're dancin', they're havin' a good time. You know, she may be cryin', but, she may be lovin' it - as weird as these kids can get.
- Self - Owner - Masque: The dance you will see in the film, the Pogo dance, which is jumping up and down and bouncing off walls and stuff like that, is kind of at an abnormal level of adrenaline. And, eh, so sometimes some violence breaks out.
- Self - Black Flag (Vocals): [singing] I don't get no friends to call my own, I just sit here all alone, There's no girls - no girls that want to touch me, I don't need any of your - your fuckin' sympathy!
- Self - Black Flag (Vocals): [singing] Whoa! All by myself, I don't have no one else, The situation is bleeding me, There ain't no relief for a person, person like me, Depression's got a hold of me, Depression! I gotta break free, Depression's got a hold of me, Depression it's gonna kill me...
- Self - Germs (Vocals): [singing] Evolution is a process, Too slow to save my soul, I got this creature on my back, And it just won't let go...
- Self - Germs (Vocals): [singing] I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I came into the world, Like a puzzled panther, Waiting to be caged, But something stood in the way, I was never quite tamed, I crossed the path of right and wrong, And saw them take their toll, I saw armies that marched, And like animals they crawled...
- Self - Interviewer: Tell me about the painter.
- Self - Darby Crash's Roommate: Oh, the dead painter. My parents were in China and we were just finishing having the house painted and Darby and Donnie and Dinky and Mark Plummer and my brother were all at my house and my brother and I went to take the trash out at like 1 in the morning or somethin'. And we hadn't been out in the back yard. It was on a Tuesday and we hadn't been out in the back yard since my parents left, since like the Friday before. And, so, anyways, I went outside and I must have walked right over the guy because I couldn't see anything anyways. And then my brother, my brother goes to me, "Isn't there somebody sleeping in the back yard?" And I just went, "Whaaat? What are you talkin' about?" And I went over and looked at him and I was just joking and I went, "This guy's dead." And I gave him a kick in his stomach, you know, and he was dead. He was dead.
- Self - Germs (Vocals): Her brother thought we killed him. He goes, "What should we do? Like, should we hide the body or something?"
- Self - Darby Crash's Roommate: So, anyways, we went and Donnie had a camera and we went and we lied down - I lied down next to him and we all got around him and we took a bunch of pictures, like family pictures, and we're all going, "Hi," you know, and taking pictures and stuff.
- Self - Editor - Slash Magazine: I'm not writing, you know, to be pleasant, and just to have everybody say, "What a pal," "What a great guy," you know. I mean, I'm not choosing all these fucking hatred and contempt, you know, as a style. Because, I don't have a style, you know. You pick up an article, you pick another article next month and there's no style. Except - except its always overkill. So, if that's a style, you know. But, the intent is really to piss off people that, you know, I really hate and I want to see them dead and I really despise everything they stand for. Every word they say. The way they live. And I really want them to hate me. It makes me feel - good.
- Self - Publisher - Slash Magazine: Everyone seems to get on everyone else's nerves and there are things that happen. Like one of the contributors got on another one's nerves, so, he broke the other guy's collar bone. And then another contributor punched out one of our photographers who refuses to contribute any photographs until he gets a written apology.
- Self - Editor - Slash Magazine: [singing as Kickboy Face for "Catholic Discipline"] My head is on fire, It's already morning, But pieces of the night, Are stick-tuck to my hair, What we did is fading, In the light of the day, What we say is bullshit, We live the modern way...
- Self - Publisher - Slash Magazine: Punk.
- Self - Interviewer: Why do they like it so much?
- Self - Publisher - Slash Magazine: They got to do somethin' with their time and its the most fun. So. Nothing else is going on. It's the only form of revolution left, I think, in this - in the 1980s, you know.
- Self - Interviewer: How do you feel when you're performing?
- Self - Editor - Slash Magazine: [aka Kickboy Face] I feel - powerful. I feel like I'm making an ass out of myself and I'm getting away with it. That's what I feel like.
- Self - Editor - Slash Magazine: [singing as Kickboy Face for "Catholic Discipline"] On this spotty mattress, I will lay for hours, Adding up all my sins, And inventing new ones, I'm proud of my life, And I stand by my doom, I can't tell right from wrong, It's never stopped me, All the prophets have died, The books have been written...