Customer Reviews

Suburbia Sessions 1983

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This DVD is the greatest thing in the world, for me at least. I grew up in Fullerton and at the time this was shot (spring 1983, around my 14th birthday) I was in my first year or so of getting my feet wet in the scene. The Adolescents had broken up, Social Distortion seemed to be in hiding, Agent Orange had gone full-on surf music, so DI was pretty much the only game in town if you needed a local hardcore fix. One of the first gigs I ever went to was DI at the Masonic Temple on Harbor and Chapman. One thing that made DI stand out was Tim Maag's sound. Rather than the generic chainsaw guitar that every other hardcore band had, he dialed down the overdrive and cranked up the reverb. Not much low end, but rather a ringing high/mid range. It gave them a sort of quasi-goth sound. About a year later this line up broke up. Rather than let DI go, Casey Royer recruited all new members; DI basically absorbed the band Almost 21, taking their guitarist (Alfie Agnew) and drummer (John Knight) and rounded out the line up with former Adolescents guitarist Rikk Agnew and some random guy called Bosco on bass... I forget where he came from, I just remember him always hanging out at my high school despite the fact that he wasn't enrolled there. At this point they converted to a more standard OC hardcore sound (i.e. generic chainsaw guitars) which was in fact actually the Almost 21 sound, for the most part. And they've stuck to that sound ever since. Jesus, 25 years now.

The title is misleading. Other than that they mention in the interview that they recently were filmed for the movie Suburbia, this has nothing to do with that movie. It's just Flipside video taping them rehearsing in their scuzzy little practice pad behind a pawn shop in downtown Fullerton. Two or three of these songs and a few minutes of the interview footage were once upon a time available on one of the Flipside Video Fanzines, I must still have my copy somewhere. As another reviewer mentioned, the interview on this DVD is seriously messed up, the sound is missing from huge portions of it. It's not much of a loss though, because it's not much of an interview.

Awesome! It's about time somebody collected all the old Flipside video footage together for DVD. I've seen most of this footage and it is the earliest footage I've ever seen of the original line up with Tim Maag on guitar and Derek O'Brien on drums. Plus the interview footage is priceless and worth the price alone!!

I've been a DI fan since they formed in 1982, Casey Royer on vocals hasn't lost any of his energy on this release. It sounds like punk rock from the 1980's. I saw DI live from 1982-1988 and always liked their style in the vein of Adolescents and Social Distortion. They produce fun songs that are catchy punk.

If you are planning on purchasing this dvd, be warned-the audio on the interview segment is defective, to the point where at least half the interview is silent. I know the audio for this interview exists, because I have an old vhs copy with most of this interview on it, so it must have just been carelessness on the part of Flipside, or whoever made this dvd. As far as I know, all the discs have this same defect, and I don't think Flipside has done anything to fix it. The music footage is very good, however.