Kill Your Idols

The filmmaker should have called this Make a Dreadful Noise, because that's exactly what the various bands featured in this profile of the outré, underground New York scene do...and they wouldn't have it any other way. From the "No Wave" of the '70s and '80s to the "Like, Wave" of today (they don't actually call it that, but most of these sub-literate slackers say "like" enough to make Dubya Bush sound like William Jennings Bryan), the music emanating from SoHo and southward has been all about "invention through subversion," as one guy puts it. What that translates into in practical terms is a grating, jarring, thoroughly inaccessible sound—music that "references nothing else," presented not as entertainment but as a weapon, and performed by people who can't play and are proud of it. Decades ago, it was bands like Suicide, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks (fronted by a sneering punk groupie named Lydia Lunch), and Theoretical Girls who pioneered this art-punk blend of attitude, energy, and caterwauling; in the '80s it was the likes of Swans and Sonic Youth (who are way more proficient than the others); as the new millennium progresses, it's the very popular Yeah Yeah Yeahs (fronted by Karen O.), along with lesser-knowns like A.R.E. Weapons, Flux Information Sciences, and Gogol Bordello (you may hate the music, but you gotta love the names). Director-cinematographer-editor S.A. Crary's Kill Your Idols combines raw live clips and interviews with most all of these too-hip-for-the-room folks (Crary's editing style is kinetic and clever, but the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is almost superfluous—this stuff isn't supposed to sound good!). DVD extras include additional concert footage. To each his own, for sure, but for most this should be considered, like, optional at best. Aud: P. (S. Graham)