I recently watched Penelope Spheeris’ three part documentary
‘The Decline of Western Civilization’. I would strongly recommend it to anyone
interested in music and youth culture. In the first part of the series there is
a performance by Catholic Discipline which really struck me. Catholic
Discipline was started by Claude Bessy aka Kickboy Face,
co-founder/editor/writer for the renowned LA punk fanzine ‘Slash’. Claude
wanted to be in a band but couldn’t play anything so he got friends from other
bands to join him and play different instruments to the ones they played in
their respective bands. They were only together for about a year, between 1979
and 1980, and never released any studio recordings. They did however release a
collection of live recordings in 2004, five years after Bessy died.
The performance in ‘The Decline of Western Civilization’ is
of their song ‘Underground Babylon’. It’s so rough and grimey, which admittedly
is something I love in music, but there is also bucketfuls of melody and pop
sensibilities to get the heart racing. There is just something about this song which
I can’t explain, but I’m sure it’s the same thing that has caused it to become
firmly embedded in my mind.
Get ‘Underground Babylon’ below. It’s the version from ‘The
Decline...’ and has an excerpt from the interview with Claude Bessy. This version
is far better than the one eventually released on the ‘Underground Babylon’
album. I’ve also included the video of this performance for good measure.
Catholic Discipline - Underground Babylon
and the video...
Sometimes the world is great.
