Image and Word

Gather round my children to hear a story of an unimaginable time, long ago, when Ozzy Osbourne spoke coherently. Yes, it’s true: at one time, the marble-mouthed rock star was able to enunciate and string together entire sentences.

How do I know this?

It is all thanks to the Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, the astoundingly entertaining Penelope Spheeris documentary from 1988 that I just stumbled upon on IFC. The movie is mostly composed of interview clips and performance footage and some contrived tableaux that foreshadow the reality TV craze of our millennium in which so many of the film’s subjects have attempted to resurrect their careers. The musicians featured include established stars like Osbourne and Alice Cooper, as well as a host of aspiring metal bands.

There are no melodramatic voice-overs or transparent narratives of redemption; there are only the subjects, talking about themselves and their craft, prodded on by sporadic questions from off-camera.

The musicians are all big hair and oversized ego as they ponder the wonders of groupies (“I like sluts. I like slutty girls. I like girls who will take off all their clothes and dance in my face. That turns me on.”) and muse on the role alcohol, drugs, and Satan (“I like death and destruction and frenzy and hatred. Not doing it, like reading about it.”) play in their lives. As they tackle these topics, however, their uncertainty slowly bubbles to the surface and the result is a portrait of a poignant blend of youthful confidence and faltering insecurity, with an occasional soupcon of skilled musicianship and thoughtful philosophy.

In one particularly gripping scene, W.A.S.P.’s Chris Holmes floats in a pool, drinking a screwdriver and sharing stories about frolicking with naked women in his hotel room. Beside the pool, his mother sits making the occasional wry osbervation (“He’s only drunk when he’s awake.”) and mostly seeming uncomfortable with her son’s behavior. Holmes for his part tries his hardest to maintain a veneer of enthusiasm for his lifestyle, but the moment devolves into a stunning show of self-destruction as he discusses his alcohol dependency and tries to avoid thinking about why it is his drinks. His voice cracks and he evades questions, before he chugs half of a bottle of vodka and pours the remainder over his head.

Though Spheeris finds the cracks in the glamourous rock star surfaces, she also captures the energy and appeal of the heavy metal scene. Cooper and Osbourne both make rather cogent defenses of their oeuvre and the fans that are interviewed exude an almost palpable passion. The picture that emerges is complex and compelling.

And now, while I wander down to my local CD store to find some used Megadeth and Poison albums, I will leave you with the excellent advice offered to aspiring rock stars by Mr. Steven Tyler: “Be real careful, wear a rubber, and don’t do drugs.”