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(rattling)

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(teeth chattering)

- [Voiceover] Something cool about the desert.

(experimental noise music)

- [Voiceover] It is a trippy place.

(mellow guitar music)

- The obvious, big sky,

vast amounts of space...

- Sounds cheesy but you soak it up.

And you know, I think that it comes through in the music,

it really does.

- If you live in the middle of the city,

there's places people go where no one's around.

Whereas in the desert, you know,

I just have to go, like, two streets over

and I was looking at basically a horizon,

and I wouldn't see pavement,

a building, or a power pole.

It was on the edge of infinity there, you know.

- I was like, "Fuck this, man.

"There's nothing out here and it's way too far away

"from everything," you know, 'cause it was literally still,

you know, not built yet.

Coachella Valley, this is our desert,

this is the whole thing.

10 East.

Right there, boom.

Highway 111, Palm Springs,

yeah, coming right into town,

this is where we are.

Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage.

That's all of Palm Springs back in the '30s.

Very little, right?

My great-grandfather had a cactus garden right there.

He came to the desert in the early 1900s

and homesteaded, pioneering white family,

and took this thing around finding water.

So my granmda and my great-uncle

were the first white people born in Palm Springs,

which sound insane,

but it was just Indians.

There was no, kind of weird, second-class thing happening.

They were poor white people and they were poor Indians.

(car engine starts)

("So Low She Rose" by Sean Wheeler , Zander Schloss)

* Waiting on a guilt trip

* Sitting out the flu

* Dying for a repeat

* Taking it for two

- This is my favorite back route right here.

This is the last little neighborhood.

Little zone.

That used to be my family's trailer park,

now it's a Motel 6.

* So low she rose up like the sun

* Up like the sun, up like the sun

* So low she rose up like the sun *

- Best neighborhood in Palm Springs right here.

For as uptight as, you know, America might be,

you've got your leather gay shop right there

with all the, you know, paddles, ball gags,

locks and chambers,

then you got killer Mexican restaurant,

and you got the Tool Shed,

leather boy gay bar.

And then you got all-nude girls across the street,

and you've got legalized marijuana, Big I,

right there too,

so this is a very...

It's a perfect little neighborhood.

You know, weed, drugs, girls, boys,

and good Mexican food.

(upbeat rock music)

- [Voiceover] The desert's great.

Well, I appreciate it more now

that I'm seven hours away from it.

* Lucifer's here

* He sleeps in the rear

* Can't understand him and it's all that I hear

- [Voiceover] But there's things I miss about it, though.

It's nice to come back.

- We're setting the stuff up,

everybody's gonna have a good time.

It's not as hot as people thought,

so everything seems good.

- It's how it goes.

Try to make a nice show for the people.

Have some fun.

(rock music)

- There's venues down in the desert now.

There's a couple bars that do music every weekend.

So, people aren't as desperate for that kind of stuff

as they used to be when I was growing up down there.

(clapping and yelling)

- Boredom.

(clapping)

(slow experimental music)

- Growing up, obviously, you do whatever you do.

You go out and it's too hot,

you try to entertain yourself.

Maybe as a kid you play sports,

or we liked to skateboard when we were young.

Then you hit puberty and you start to party and chase girls.

Everybody dates each other's girlfriends

because it's such a small town.

- We were waiting for the scum bus for like a half hour

in my Chuck Taylors and

the sidewalk being so hot that it actually

was starting to melt and loosen up the bottom of my shoes.

It's hard to be cool,

it's hard to be a punk in the desert.

All that shit you put on to be punk,

like mascara and hairspray,

it just starts melting and it burns your eyes.

- [Voiceover] Palm Springs, where I live,

you know, it's a resort town.

The poor people stayed in the summer,

and rich people came here to bourgeois in winter.

- But that's about it,

it's where old people go to retire and play golf.

- You know, nothing to do,

unless you golf,

which I don't.

(laughs)

- "Sonny Bono,

"Frank Sinatra, and other interments of interest."

Number 151.

We did a great show at the Graveyard in Palm Springs.

The singer for the bands that I was in then,

the band was called Valley Days,

his parents were the caretakers,

and they went away.

Sinatra was alive then, now Sinatra's dead

and he's buried here.

("Crappy Hotel" by John Swanson)

- You'd see Dean Martin.

You'd see weird people like movie stars,

and then you think about that generation

and what they must have thought of us.

- [Voiceover] Palm Springs at that time

was dominated by Frank Sinatra

and his Rat Pack culture.

He lived in Rancho Mirage,

which is just outside of Palm Springs.

- It was far enough away from their wives

that they could feel like they were in another state,

come here, and get laid.

They'd bring their girlfriends out here,

get drunk, shoot guns, play golf.

It was like you were in another world.

- The whole scene was around these little lounges

where Frank Sinatra-type of musicians

would sing "New York, New York."

So there grew up to be this Ring-a-Ding-Ding

type of swing culture that really hated rock and roll

because Frank Sinatra hated rock and roll.

So they basically banned rock and roll in the 1970s.

There was no concerts at all in the mid 1980s.

- Great voice, mafia connections.

- But you can't stop rock music from developing,

you can't stop kids from practicing their favorite art form,

so this underground singing developed, basically.

(heavy rock music)

- To be honest, it never really got bigger,

it was always the same size.

It was always somewhere between 200 and 600 people.

And you knew 450 of them.

- [Voiceover] When punk rock was happening in Los Angeles,

it naturally pervaded the Coachella Valley, also.

(punk music)

There was a band called Target 13

that was very influential.

- [Voiceover] The theme song to Rodney on the Rock

was written by Target 13.

- [Voiceover] The leader of that group

had a skateboard shop in downtown Palm Springs,

and so he was kind of a meeting place

for a lot of the punkers.

- [Voiceover] Myke Bates, he was the only

punk rocker in high school

and he was the only one that was old enough to have a car,

that would take you to a punk rock show in LA.

- Those guys were all doing the same thing,

but not so much generator parties,

but they set it for us, you know?

(upbeat music)

- Yes it rock sound and stoner rock.

I'm 47 years old.

What was in my record collection growing up?

It was hard rock.

- Blue Cheer.

Slade.

Black Sabbath, of course.

The most underrated AC DC album

that Bon Scott didn't sing on.

Cactus.

- My family influence was Jackson Browne,

The Doors, Hendrix,

and a lot of blues stuff.

Just a smattering of blues, Chuck Berry.

- And then...

To punk.

(record scratch)

- Ology, Stooges.

I forgot to mention the Ramones in my influences.

They're number one.

- The Misfits and Black Flag

and GBH and Exploited.

- GG Allen, of course,

Glevel Surfers.

This album changed my life.

GBH.

- [Voiceover] I knew when I heard it

that that was where I belong.

- [Voiceover] I think the desert scene,

even though it doesn't sound like punk rock,

I think it does come back to the same sensibilities.

(electric guitar)

- [Voiceover] Punk rock's like one of the few kinds of music

that there's no necessity for any kind

of technical knowledge when you do it.

- If you had an amp and a guitar,

you could play in a band.

It didn't matter if you knew how to play or not.

"You got gear? Let's jam."

And we'd make noise.

(rock music)

- It's just as much like a performance art

as it is proper music, in a way.

Just pure expression, short and simple and straight up.

And no fluff.

(punk rock music)

(door creaking)

- It's kind of like Florida, too,

where you get all these old rich people

that come here to die.

And some are cool, and some suck

and make it hard on the youth.

- Nothing against old people,

they're cool, they're just older.

But when we were kids,

it felt like it was us against them.

They didn't like us having parties,

that's why we couldn't do it in our neighborhoods.

- They don't want purple-haired kids running around

you know, looking like freaks and doing their thing.

(electric guitar)

(hawks and spits)

(punk rock music)

(music stops, crickets)

(screaming)

- [Voiceover] I had no trouble with the law ever. (burps)

They had trouble with me.

(punk rock music)

- (mumbles) This big old skateboard, you know,

and I'd look over,

and two cops are in this undercover car.

And these two guys are looking and I was like,

"I'm jamming, man.

"I'm jamming."

And they were laughing.

(laughter)

And they pulled right in front of me.

(siren)

And fucking smashed me.

- When you tried to do things like skateboard and stuff,

police would take your skateboard

and roll over it with their squad car and destroy it.

- You'd go to someone's house

and just play until the cops showed up.

And we would get busted within, like,

the first two songs.

(electric guitar)

- I played, like, garage parties and fucking

Mayfair, you know, like hoods.

(yelling)

- [Voiceover] There were no rock clubs,

so we'd try to play at the dance clubs.

- People were gonna go, "Are you gonna behave?"

and I'm like, "Fuck no."

You know?

I mean, what?

When I'm having a good time, you're getting mad,

I understand that.

- [Voiceover] People started slam dancing

and the big, beef-cake security guards

would actually start macing the crowd.

(heavy punk rock)

- And then all of a sudden, you got girls crying,

dudes throwing up,

and the cops showing up.

There was a new place called The Hood.

They're all the same,

it's like a sports bar,

it'll open up and have punk rock shows for a while,

and then they're done.

(punk rock music)

- Yeah The Hood's not, like, ideal,

but it's what the desert has.

If you live in the desert, you can't be picky

about some of that shit.

(electric guitar)

You're playing in your mom's garage for so long,

you wanna play out.

For Solarfeast, our first show,

we borrowed a generator,

and we just set up and played a parking lot downtown.

(punk rock music)

Suddenly, like a 100 kids and people

were like jumping over a fence to come see us play.

(punk rock music)

(crowd cheers)

(shouts from crowd)

(slow blues guitar)

- This is the library.

This is where I work.

- Murphy Beds, I heard he hires, you know,

scumbag rock and rollers to help him out.

I worked for him a couple times.

- [Voiceover] That's a selling point for Murphy Beds.

(laughter)

- At 16, the desert meant nothing more to me

than a dead end,

boring place, full of old people.

I can appreciate it a little more now

that I'm...

Pushing 47.

(chuckles) as opposed to when I was 16.

(mellow music)

- Through skateboarding, got turned on to some guys

from Palm Springs.

We had a punk band

called Dead Issue.

Scott Reeder on bass,

me, Alfredo,

and Herb on guitar and vocals.

- When I was living at my mommy's house,

Herb was living out of a car.

That guy is punk rock and he's been around forever.

- [Voiceover] Have you ever seen Scott play bass?

He's definitely,

he's gotta be one of the rockingest bass players

in the world.

(rock music)

- It's fucking insane.

He's so goddamn good, it's almost bizarre.

- [Voiceover] I met Alfredo one night

at a Target 13 show.

- [Voiceover] I'd walk up to a party

and I could tell it was Alfredo playing drums

from like five blocks away.

I didn't know what band it was,

I didn't know what song they were playing,

but I could tell from the style of drumming

that it was 'Fredo.

- [Voiceover] And it was hard for a drummer

to have a style.

- The difference between (makes drumming sound).

Instantly, you're in a low-rider.

- At the time, he was playing with Sean Wheeler

in band called Mutual Hatred.

- Mutual Hatred, which was my first punk band,

look at that.

The Cramps at the Whisky a Go Go.

That's like 1980 or something.

So we made this,

this is the first set list from the first show

at Alex Fernandez's house.

Petroleum Jelly.

Oh yeah, that's about masturbation.

Dude, Green Peace Sucks.

This was Alfredo on drums, right?

May 15... (tick sound)

"Kill the whale, watch him die,

"Ignite his blubber, make him fry."

(imitates guitar chord) "Green Peace sucks.

"Green Peace sucks.

"Turtle meat, I love to eat,

"I thrash and beat for turtle meat."

(imitates guitar chord) "Green Peace sucks.

"Green Peace sucks.

"Kill the seal, take his belt,

"chop it up into a kilt.

"Green Peace sucks, Green Peace sucks,

"Green Peace sucks, Green Peace sucks."

It's like 40 seconds long, you know what I mean?

Kids were so dumb, you know?

We thought that would be punk to say,

to bum people out.

(rock music)

- [Voiceover] Sean Wheeler is one of my heroes.

He's in a band now called Throw Rag.

(punk rock music)

- We used to have a band when I was a kid

called Zezo Zee Zaddfrac

and the Dune Buggy Attack Battalion.

- Which was pretty much like Zodiac Mindwarp but weirder.

(laughs)

- This is the band Zezo Zee Zaddfrac

and the Dune Buggy Attack Battalion.

This is me, my nice long hair,

my fur vest.

Zezo's whole thing was like Mad Max

and the Manson Family.

And then dune buggies,

and they were out in Death Valley.

when Josh and Nick and those guys were kids,

they seen us play and they always tell me,

"Wheeler, man, do you remember that time that

"you had that band and you played with whoever, man,

"over at Adrian's, man? Wow!"

So that was the whole thing.

Yeah, fur, Max Max, dune buggies, Charles Manson,

like come on, man.

There's nothing cool about Charles Manson,

you know what I mean?

You know, I guess it's the fantasy of hopeless thought

and all that... what is this? Dig?

(punk rock music)

It's hard to jam when you're a punk band.

- [Voiceover] You can make a bunch of noise

and go through the same four chords over and over again.

(punk music)

Once you discover that, then it's like, whoa,

there's way more going on here than just

high energy... (makes guitar noises)

You know, there's so much more to music than that.

(rock music)

- [Voiceover] We converted the garage into a jam room,

and we just played music, everyday.

Scott had taken off to play with Whino and The Obsessed.

And then Gary came and lived with us.

And that's how that whole thing started

with Yawning Man.

- [Voiceover] There is a classic desert guy, you know?

Someone who is not a follower.

- [Voiceover] He'd just put on the guitar

and mess with it with hims thumb.

And it started to sound kinda cool.

- Gary's this handsome Mexican dude

and together with Boomer and Larry and Fredo,

it painted such a strange picture of a band.

The thing is that the music sounds nothing alike,

but that's the point.

It's such a strange juxtaposition

of different schools of playing.

- [Voiceover] It wasn't so much about creating

this really interesting thing to listen to

as it was about how enjoyable it was to play

and just flow.

- [Voiceover] Mario is the one guy

that I've always thought, you know,

deserved most of the credit for everything.

Boomer had something special down to his song titles.

"This song's called 'Three-legged Table'."

and I would be like, "wow, that's fucking deep."

He was always a few years ahead of his time.

When grunge got big,

initially I was like, "Mario's been doing something

"down this road for five years, you know, before this,

"and he ain't asking for nothing."

- Mario is always...

He's always been humble.

He would always put his band lower.

Mario's that kind of human, man,

he's not...

But who plays guitar like Mario, man? Nobody.

You know what I mean? Fuck.

(electric guitar)

(vocalizing guitar solo)

- [Voiceover] 500 times in a row.

- [Voiceover] Watching guys like Boomer when I was 12,

13 years old,

I remember thinking

that Boomer was unheckleable.

There was no way you could say, "You suck!"

He was so...he meant it so much.

And I remember thinking,

"that's what I wanna be, is unheckleable."

(rock music)

At the time Boomer was a really big guy.

And his cousin, Larry,

like a stick skinny.

They were the same height,

so they were just this beautiful odd couple.

(rock music)

(crowd cheers)

- [Voiceover] Good pussy for my man Boomer.

("Good Pussy" by Sean Wheeler and Zander Schloss

* Call it what you will

* See it how you must

* You got a broken tool when it comes to those you trust

* You missed the flashing signs

* For you should wake to find

* Good pussy's like heroin

* You're better off with that cheap wine

* She gonna steal your heart, she gonna rot your mind

* She gonna make it hard, brother, for you to do that time

* I told you more than once

* Told you more than twice

* Good pussy's is a fool's game

* You got better rolls with dice

* Now you're running high

* Got your back against the wall

* Good pussy on a mountain top

* But now it's time to fall

* She gonna steal your heart, she gonna rot your mind

* She gonna make it hard, brother, for you to do that time

* There really ain't no rainbows

* Falling down on gold

* Good pussy is the devil's tale

* Don't say you ain't been told

* Good pussy is the devil's tale

* don't say you ain't been told

* I know it don't add up

* Count it back from nine

* Good pussy like heroine

* You're better off with that cheap wine

* Good pussy like heroine

* You're better off with that cheap wine

* Good pussy like heroine

* You're better off with that cheap wine

(crowd cheers)

(punk rock music)

- [Voiceover] Punk rock, at that time, punk in the desert,

was allowed for a huge span of music.

There were a lot less formal ways to dress,

a lot less formal ways to play

than the word "punk" implies now.

It was a very open scene.

And there were varieties of styles

within individual bands.

(punk rock music)

- There wasn't a particular desert look,

or a specific desert sound.

All the bands were very unique

and had their own individuality.

- [Voiceover] In LA, if you went to a punk show,

there'd probably be punk rockers.

In the desert, you're just gonna go to a party

and whatever band's playing,

everyone's gonna be there,

whether it's the football players from high school...

It doesn't matter who, it's just a party.

The party's first, and you know, format second.

It's just a gathering of people that are bored

and wanna go somewhere beer and get laid.

(rock music)

- You know, you put these bands together, they break up.

They reform into something else.

- We've been in bands together.

We've been seeing each other's bands forever.

(heavy punk rock music)

- We've been in the same band but at different times

and we weren't playing with each other.

- Yeah. And us, too.

- Yeah.

- That's kinda how it works in the desert.

(punk music)

(crowd cheers)

- Punk sucks.

Punk pussies, faggots,

Sabbath, mother fucker, Ozzy.

- The punkers didn't like the rock metal heads.

- Van Halen, mother fucker.

And I was like, "fuck you, man."

- There's like the jammy Official Dead click,

and then there's the fucking thrash, heavy metal click.

'Cause we had long hair and our fucking Nike's.

We were metal-ed out.

- [Voiceover] There was a point in school where

all the punkers were pushed out

and all the rocker guys were beating us up.

(rock music)

* Hey everyone

* Look at me

- All those stoners,

they were the enemy.

Those were the kids we were fighting

when we were punk rockers.

They weren't us yet,

but we became the same thing that was our enemy.

- [Voiceover] There's this sense of community

and respect for other musicians,

and also that...

I would say, kind of an intense

sense of competition you might have

with your brothers and sisters in a way.

You know, there's like, some shit-talking.

When Kyuss was starting,

all you got was a lot of talk of like,

"Fucking Kyuss is just trying to be Yawning Man."

- If you sounded like someone else,

you got worse than made fun of,

you got nothing from anybody.

- And then Kyuss had done so well,

that there was almost the sense that anybody else

that was making loud music and doing well

was just trying to fucking be Kyuss.

You know, it's a little bit of that

small town thing that happens.

- I loved my friends, but I was glad to get away from them.

I was glad to move to a different town

and have a different life at the time.

I wanted to be near the water.

And it's not because I surf,

it's not because I go fishing,

it's because it's not the desert.

- I visited San Francisco with Nick

and I fell in love with the place.

- Oh, look Mike.

(laughter)

What did you think about Elmer Gantry?

- [Mike] I need to go out of my house,

have an aperitif and some coffee,

have someone spit at me,

walk on human shit and have shows every night.

- Couple crackers.

- [Mike] Try to sell me crack.

I like that.

- Looks like a phone contract.

That shows promise for Yo Daddy.

- [Mike] Is that Yo Daddy of Bayview, or Yo Daddy of...

- [Nick] Mission Street.

Yeah, 1288 Mission Street.

- Okay.

I know a few Yo Daddies.

(laughter)

- [Mike] There's more variety, you know?

You want...

I don't know, you want a she-male dwarf

to piss in your face?

It's easier to find in San Francisco.

- San Francisco is probably the best choice

of places to move to from the desert.

We coulda moved to LA but,

LA seems kind of lame.

- LA was much worse than it is now.

In the late 80s and it was like

Sunset Strip glam-rock bullshit.

Yeah, I don't think bands in the desert

would wanna come and be part of that.

(rock music)

- It's LA, it's a big metropolis.

(rock music)

- You grew up hating Los Angeles.

LA, lots of people.

- It's just too many people.

(motor revs)

(motor stops)

- [Voiceover] I lived in Los Angeles for about five years.

To finally have this,

it's like living in slow motion.

(slow guitar song)

I can make a lot of noise.

I can't imagine moving back to the city.

- That's just gonna be in those mellow--

- [Voiceover] I went to high school with Zack

and Eric.

And when they wanted to work here, I was thrilled,

old friends.

(heavy rock song)

They brought in Mario Lalli and Sean Wheeler

and Joe Dylan, all these old friends

from the high school days, the early punk days.

It was awesome.

(rock music)

I love Dali's Lama,

Zach is amazing, great songwriter.

(rock music)

- Making change for people.

They give me bigger bills

and I break them into smaller bills.

11:45 to 8:00 in the morning.

Rock'n roll hours.

And then I clean the booths,

mop the jiz out of the booths.

Mike works here too,

he's working tomorrow morning.

He's doing the janitor shift,

he'll be mopping jiz tomorrow morning.

(laughs)

(electric guitar)

(heavy rock song)

(crowd cheers)

- That was a lot of fun.

Full moon,

see him play, drink a beer, kicking back.

When Fatso Jetson was playing I was on top of your band,

that was awesome, that was like the old days.

Well, it's not as cool as playing out

in the middle of the desert with a generator.

(rock music)

* Itchy brother's gone away

* Itchy brother's gone away

* Itchy brother's gone away

* Itchy brother's gone away

* Itchy brother's gone away

* Itchy brother's gone away

* Itchy brother's gone away

* Itchy brother's gone away

- Thank you, guys.

(audience cheers and applauds)

(somber experimental music)

(lap slide guitar)

- [Voiceover] Just, I felt stuck here, really.

I still feel like that sometimes.

It's not a bad place to be

now that I've opened my eyes.

(gun fire)

- [Voiceover] This hill we're on is called Edom Hill.

A lot of people come up here and party and shoot

and drink and hangout.

He's dead, but this is the

rare Coachella Valley monkey.

They come up from Mexico.

Looks pretty good for being dead, huh?

(punk rock song)

(small explosion)

- You can go out in the desert and blow shit up.

You can fucking shoot guns.

Explode things, ride motorcycles.

And you can play music.

- [Voiceover] This guy named Stuart Swezey,

who did a thing called Desolation Center,

he did two generator parties.

The first one was with the Minutemen

and Einsturzende Neubauten from Germany.

The second one was with Red Cross, Meat Puppets,

and a band called Sonic Youth.

I met Mario and Scott and Alfredo

and they suggested do the generator show in the desert.

So Mario and Larry bought their own generator

and did by themselves.

- On music talent alone,

Mario deserves an awful lot of credit,

but also for doing it, and providing things like that

for the scene.

(electric guitar)

- This would be great place for a generator party.

Relatively close to the cities,

and it's got one entrance

and it's just surrounded by these huge canyons,

it's like a big bowl.

And then over here is this little cave-like canyon,

where it'd be great for the stage and stuff.

I think the sound would really just stay in here.

This is the entrance,

so you'd have the band right here.

You could actually put the generator back far enough

where you wouldn't hear it.

(electric guitar)

- When I was in Across the River,

we'd set up our gear

and basically practice outside and just jam.

- At night, there's a lot of...

It's really clear and you can see the stars

and you just feel like you're just floating around

on a rock.

- What we did in the desert with the generator

is set up,

and play.

(rock song)

And maybe it was shit,

but...

Maybe it was fucking amazing, too.

- There were a lot of jam sessions

where you really didn't know exactly where it was gonna go.

It's gonna be the most amazing feeling,

or you're gonna fall flat on your face

and it's scary when you get to that place.

(crowd cheers)

- It was just insane with energy,

and the people were so excited by the music,

it was something that you didn't see in LA.

You could have someone improvising

on an instrument you didn't expect,

someone singing crazy-like in a Diamanda Galas style,

it was all whatever.

- As real in entertainment

as the Colosseum was in Rome at the time.

- A friend of mine said, "This is not a rock show,

"this is a tribal ritual."

I think there was a naked guy running around,

just people boiling with energy and excitement

and they were so into the music

that we'd never seen before.

We had no idea what was going on

and we could see there was something

really special going on there.

(heavy rock song)

- [Voiceover] It needed to be almost like excessively

whatever style it was in order to function outside.

If you were gonna be heavy, you had to be real heavy.

Everyone had four wheel drives

and you'd drive by police that were buried in the sand

trying to stop you to get you to help dig them out.

And you'd just roost them,

drive past them. (chuckles)

- There's a party? Where's the party?

It was all word of mouth.

And there was the certain spots that

you knew where it would be.

- It'd be the middle of summer,

and me or one of my friends or someone would go,

"Hey, there's a light up on the hill at the Nude Bowl,

"let's go," and we'd go round up our friends

and be up there within about 20 minutes.

- [Voiceover] Nude Bowl was an actual nudist colony

and you know, it just went defunct, it fell apart.

Beautiful bowl to skateboard,

set up generators, shoot guns, camp,

do whatever you want, free for all.

- [Voiceover] The walls were up, there was no roof.

People are hanging in the windows

and on top of the walls like monkeys.

And it was just beautiful.

(lively rock song)

- I would actually spend my days there, too, skateboarding.

And then I had a microphone in my hand.

(punk rock song)

- It's about 20 years too late

but they finally built a park out here.

They built a Nude Bowl replica.

It's basically just a replica in the sense that

it's a left-handed kidney.

But yeah, it's good to see that they're still

remembering it somewhat.

(rock music)

- Lots of people, lots of drugs,

lots of freaks, lots of violence,

lots of, you know, sex. (laughs)

- We used to do a lot of...

We would party a lot.

- We were all under 21 back then, too,

so you could drink,

and do different substances.

- You'd take acid and go crazy in the desert.

- [Voiceover] There's a fire pit in the pool

and people were skating around the fire pit.

Like there's flames going.

- And bands would be playing

and you'd just see their shadows through the fire.

- [Voiceover] The sound...

It hurt.

- And then somebody got in a fight in the swimming pool

and everybody starts yelling,

"Two men enter, one man leaves.

"Two men enter, one man leaves."

- Gunfire in the background.

- Tumbleweeds, people falling on the cactus.

- No rules.

- Bands playing above where the people are fighting

and that was like...

- Anarchy.

(punk rock music)

- [Voiceover] It was a bunch of shitheads.

And they're going around in a circle

creating a typhoon of dust.

Dust would get in the cones

so we'd be playing with blown-out speakers

and crappy sounding.

And you know, they were having a great time,

but it was like, this sounds terrible,

we're playing terrible,

and these people don't fucking care.

And it was the chaos that they liked.

(heavy punk rock song)

- Roll around in the fucking dirt.

- Roll around in the fucking dirt.

- [Voiceover] You don't know what could happen.

- Roll in the dirt, roll in the dirt, roll in the dirt.

- [Voiceover] And you're always on the edge,

you're like keeping your keys in your pocket,

like, "Oh, fuck, should I get in the car and go?"

And that was good, that was genuine, you know what I mean?

That was where it made it feel more real.

(crowd shouting)

- [Voiceover] Sometimes it was dark,

like weird, a lot of drama,

people that had to get their anger out in the desert

an do their thing, get drunk, throw shit at each other,

whatever they needed to do.

- Some nights it would be Mexican gang members

on LSD with shotguns.

And you'd be like, "This fucking sucks."

(crowd shouting at each other)

- Sometimes the partying became a huge issue.

And partying's a nice way to put

because it got pretty

self destructive and pretty crazy,

like sick in a way, you know?

- I remember one year, probably about '95,

I played with Decon at the Nude Bowl.

- In the middle of us playing,

somebody tapped me on the shoulder

and kept pointing behind me.

I didn't know what he was talking about

because I was singing at the time.

(slow electric guitar)

I turned around, there was a fire coming over the hill.

And everybody just scattered, got in their cars,

tried to get down as fast as we could.

- 200 people had to evacuate.

We're started throwing all the instruments

in different cars.

I don't know how we got all our stuff, man.

- [Voiceover] One of our friends ended up

having to leave his truck there.

It got stuck in the dirt and his truck burnt.

- It totally exploded, burnt up.

And then the next morning,

the whole scene of cops and everyone that was on the scene

were blaming him.

They thought for insurance purposes or something,

he burnt his truck.

They're like, "So you're the guy who started the fire."

"What are you talking about?

"There was a huge party."

They're like, "What?"

He was like, "You mean you didn't know

"there was a huge party of like 600 people

"and bands and everything?"

Shows the communication between law enforcement at the time.

(gentle guitar strumming)

- What was great about playing in the canyons and stuff

is that the police never knew where it was.

- The party would hide behind the dunes,

low enough down there that you couldn't really see much.

You'd see maybe a glow or some crap,

but it wasn't much, you know.

Then they got the helicopters,

and then they got two,

and then within, like, what?

The late '90s? That shit was done.

You couldn't party anywhere for more

than like an hour, an hour and a half.

- Layers and layers of paint.

If you look and get close,

you can still see layers of paint

from all the cool graffiti.

- [Voiceover] As the time went on,

kind of like the scene, actually,

it started to crumble,

and it just became a slab with no walls

and just trash.

With the hillside burnt,

and a car turned over in the roadway.

- [Voiceover] I think it was a really special place.

Can you imagine? Look at this view.

- We had a contest

back in March, I believe,

and it was the first annual Nude Bowl Tribute.

A lot of kids showed up,

a lot of really good kids

skating in the contest.

Yeah, I'm sure the younger generation knows for sure.

All right, here we go.

Oh, that's it.

Good night

for the Nude Bowl.

(gate shuts)

- [Voiceover] What the fuck?

Let's try to make a club in the desert.

- Get away.

- Hey, hey, no cameras.

- PA system, and keg box,

cold beer on tap and a pizza oven.

And we were just like, "What would be the perfect situation

"for a rock and roll club?"

- A big development in the scene was

when Mario and his cousin Larry Lalli

opened Rhythm and Brews in India.

- [Voiceover] Our gourmet chef.

- There we are.

Here I am.

- [Voiceover] What's on the menu tonight?

- One guess.

- [Voiceover] The usual?

- [Voiceover] So that was even radder than the desert

in a lot of way because it was comfortable

and you could play pool.

- There was actually a sound system you could hear,

and if the wind was blowing 80 miles an hour,

your mic stand would stay standing up.

You know what I mean?

Your cymbals wouldn't blow off the stands.

It was good for that.

You'd sleep on the couches,

get up, clean the place,

open up, have another band show up,

and Mario would get up and play.

We'd practice there and stuff,

it was like a 24-hour thing.

Sometimes, I remember, I think it was

Pigmy Love Circus or something like that,

played for me and Mario and Larry

and we had a pitcher of beer, a pizza,

and us three sitting there watching the band,

and that was it.

- [Voiceover] Rhythm and Brews was my training ground.

I was like 15 at the time.

I was probably weird to some people

as like a rocker with long hair

and whatever.

(laughter)

But at that place,

I was like, I fit in.

And it was all the time.

There'd be weeknights

where some band would come in

from out of town.

(rock music)

- [Voiceover] Played just a few parties out in the desert

and then they'd come to LA to play real shows.

We'd only play in front of 40, 50, people,

friends back then, you drink beer and, you know,

take drugs and whatever.

- [Voiceover] At that time, this area was so rich in music

that Mario was looking for a place to showcase it.

- But you had to pay bills and permits

and deal with the police.

And all that shit ended up shutting us down after a year.

- [Voiceover] They put undercover cops inside the buildings

and they were just looking for opportunities

to arrest underage kids.

- How old were you when you were going

to Rhythm and Brews?

- 15? (laughs)

- Were you drinking there?

- Absolutely.

- Yeah, so, that didn't help Mario.

Minors in his bar drinking.

- Acid in the parking lot.

- [Voiceover] After they lost their license,

they got involved in a lawsuit

and all the musicians got together

and put on a benefit concert to support Mario

and the scene went dormant for a while.

(mellow rock song)

- [Voiceover] It really had an identity of its own, then.

Kyuss was already really kicking ass,

and Unsound was doing...

You know,

was doing huge parties with hundreds of people there.

- And I think the scene's changed

every four years of high school.

You know what I mean? (chuckles)

You go through high school,

that's the band that are playing.

Then those people graduate

and then there's a new generation of people making music.

- [Voiceover] Unsound was like Black Flag,

and Kyuss was like Black Sabbath, you know?

We were two totally different things,

but the same thing.

- When Kyuss played with Early On, we were like:

which is great,

because you need that challenge.

(rock music)

- [Voiceover] We got a little bit of press and stuff

locally in the desert newspaper.

That was kind of cool and I remember

the Flip Side interview.

"Oh man, we made it, we're in Flip Side,

"the punk rock bible."

- Unsound is probably the one band that

people that would be into desert rock music

wouldn't know, but they were one of the best.

- We'd go to LA and they'd get super wasted

and blow it and piss off the people

that were supposed to be kissing their ass,

and me and Ian would get in a knife fight in the kitchen

and Brian Maloney would puke inside their car.

Whatever the case was, it was just we weren't ready

to deal with anything semi-professional.

- We couldn't handle the pressure,

we fell apart.

Unsound died in the early '90s.

Unsound lives.

Unsound rules.

- I don't know.

(laughs)

- See? Nobody knows.

- When I was 13, I was in a band

in Palm Desert called Today.

And while I was in that band,

Chris Cockrell and I decided to start our own band,

it would be called Katzenjammer.

That would evolve into Kyuss.

- [Voiceover] Brant got a friend named Josh Homme

to play guitar.

- We thought we were like a punk band, basically.

We thought we were this heavy version of a punk band.

Everyone else thought we were heavy metal, you know?

Which actually bugged the shit out of me for years.

- At one point, we had Nick Oliveri,

who was another friend of ours from school

try out on guitar.

- [Voiceover] Nick was the one stoner dude that hung out

with all of us guys that weren't into metal, you know?

- But Nick has definitely made up for it in punk rock

in a sense, hasn't he? (laughs)

(guitar strumming)

(screaming)

- Nick was already known as the loose canon.

He was already getting fucked up before school, you know.

He was like 14 years old.

And Nick has one of the most infectious laughs of all time.

(laughter)

- [Voiceover] And then, of course later

he replaces me on bass.

* I lost my job

* I lost my way

* But I still got a beer

- Why they broke out, I don't know.

You ever listen to The Wretch?

The first Kyuss thing?

(laughter)

- I went out and bought it

and I was like, "This is the worst shit

"I ever heard in my life."

And they put out a fucking record.

- Yeah, but now you can sell it for a couple hundred bucks.

- Yeah, but I was like, "Man, I could put out a record.

"I could take my band more seriously

"and wanna put out some piece of shit

"that no one else likes.

"Fuck yeah."

- When we went to record our first record,

Brat and I were 16 years old.

And we showed up with bass cabinets for guitar cabinets

and bass amps for guitar amps.

The engineer was saying, "You're gonna have to tune up.

"And you're gonna have to get guitar amps.

"We can't do this like this."

- So is that how Kyuss influenced you?

- That's how Kyuss influenced me, yes.

But I did start liking them

after a couple of records after that.

- [Voiceover] I had no idea on the levels of success

Kyuss was reaching.

Heard of them playing in Europe

and this "stoner rock" title.

(distorted noise)

- [Voiceover] It's weird when people say that

Kyuss started stoner rock.

When I was in Across the River,

there were a lot of jam sessions,

and Kyuss did that, too.

- [Voiceover] I think people associate it

with two types of things,

desert rock with kind of heavier, dirtier,

then I think there's also this kind of spacious,

almost earthlings vibe.

- [Voiceover] The low tuning was a thing.

- [Voiceover] Part of why we tuned down

was to try to sound heavy outside,

and also because I couldn't afford a tuner.

I thought, "This is something no one's doing

"that would make us different before we even played a song."

I would just go blah.

- [Voiceover] They got asked to open for, what was it...

Metallica in Australia.

I remember that was like, what?

- They opened up for Metallica.

- "Those guys suck, they sold out."

That's how everyone was, I'm sure. I'm sure.

- It's funny 'cause the reaction was like,

"Pfft. Do well, but don't do too well."

What I call punk rock guilt.

(rock music)

- [Voiceover] The desert rock scene was so...

I'm saying this cautiously but kind of arrogantly,

insulated.

It didn't want any attention.

- Basically, this was a true underground scene.

These people were performing without permits,

and since this was really guerrilla style,

they didn't want the publicity.

- [Voiceover] The point was always just to make

some music and enjoy playing.

And I think we've always been kind of scared

of turning it into a business.

- If Nirvana didn't break out, you know,

punk rock and alternative out to the world,

who knows what would have happened.

I don't know, would Josh Homme be playing with Dave Grohl?

20 years later?

(crowd cheers)

- Kyuss broke up.

Josh went up to Seattle and that scene kind of broke up,

but out of that came Queens of the Stone Age

and you know what happened with Queens of the Stone Age.

("No One Knows")

(crowd cheers)

- [Voiceover] It's hard to mix art and commerce,

it's a tough thing.

And if you can do that, you know,

and you're brilliant at it,

that's awesome.

- We went to elementary school together,

and I hated him with a passion

because our class and his class

were competing in every sporting event

and they'd always kick our ass.

- You look fucking wonderful.

(crowd cheers)

- That dude was always like very supportive

of local bands and shit.

- I asked him, "Hey, can Throw Rag do a

"Queens of the Stone Age tour?"

And he said, "Sure."

And took us on tour.

All I did was ask.

* Heaven smiles above me

* What a gift here below

* But no one knows

* Gift that you give to me

* No one knows

(crowd cheers)

- [Voiceover] Shit's all right, man,

put this shit on a map, for sure, man.

It's a success, you know,

we wouldn't be talking about the desert, I don't think.

(crowd clapping and cheering)

("Everybody Wins" by Oddio Gasser)

* Super duper pooper scooper kissing on my chin

* Little bratty bunker squad kicking at my shins

* Ugly duckling sweetie pies, everybody friends

* Stuck in a loopty loop, everybody wins

* They win, they win

* They win

* Everybody wins

- [Voiceover] I know guys that have been...

Are really amazing musicians

and have worked their asses off all their life.

"What the f...you're going to...

"How the fuck do you do that?

"How did that happen that you can go to Europe and play?"

I'm like, "You know, it's a long story,

"but it started honestly with this band from the desert..."

And I try to explain this whole thing, you know, like,

"Started with this band from the desert

"that got some success and they get a couple good tours

"and then they got kinda big in Europe

"and somehow that ended up in us getting

"the opportunity to go play in some fucking pizzeria

"in Latina, Italy."

And it's like, "How?"

(screaming)

- [Voiceover] I'm super grateful for that.

And to me, that's success,

that's huge success.

(rock music)

* And I feel ashamed when you work so hard

* Yeah I feel ashamed when I see you work so hard *

- It's not...

Usual that a father and son will play...

In the same band.

- [Voiceover] Look at Mario

and look at Herb, both of them play

in bands with their sons.

That's pretty bitchin.

When I see that, it makes me wish I woulda

had a kid 19 years ago.

- My son's in another band called Nuclear Youth,

which is, you know, early 20s, teenage guys.

And I think there's really another scene kind of happening.

(crowd shouting)

- They play like parties and stuff

and it's like a punk band playing a party

and like where we live it's like

dj's and like techno music.

So, punk and metal is still alive in the desert.

- And maybe even tonight, you know,

some high school party, some kids parents are out

and there's a rad band in high school.

I'm sure it's happening.

(heavy metal music)

- They're still singing about the desert and 7/11

and stuff like that,

but they're just doing it...(growls)

(laughs)

- They're playing all the time.

There's parties on Coachella, Thermal,

you know, at ranches and stuff.

And that's really kind of what it was for us

back then at that age.

- I wish I'd been around when all that stuff happened

'cause it sounds so much better than what goes down now.

(feedback and yelling)

- [Voiceover] Another generation will go through it,

and it'll be a good thing.

(electronic guitar sound building up)

- It didn't matter what you were on

or what you aren't on,

it's still a surreal environment.

(lap slide guitar song)

(tuning guitar)

(rhythmic guitar music)

- You think about going out there

in the middle of the desert and playing music for nobody,

and there's something kind of romantic about that in a way.

You know?

And I like that.

- Such wide, open space,

that I think a lot of the bands from around have that.

- What is unique about the desert

was the desert, you know,

that's what is different than everywhere else.

- Beautiful mountains and lots of palm trees,

but there's also elements of the desert

that's not so physical, that are just like...

Eternal.

- [Voiceover] It's weird and it's cool

that there's attention paid to it

from people that are not from there.

- Basically, golf and old people and daydreamers.

- And Swedish people looking for something special.

(laughter)

- If it will fit into what they might think it is,

if they think that it's a bunch of bands that are heavy,

that sound like Kyuss,

then no, that's not what it's about.

That's never been what it's about.

But if they think about it in the beauty of the desert

and the purity of the music

and the bands that played down there,

then I think that is true.

("Is This Love" by Life Leone)

* Bring me three poison arrows

* Long, straight, and narrow

* I found bad advice

* Way down here on the water

* Words get forgotten

* Can say what we like

* Is this love?

* Can we start again?

* Comes crashing in

* Lord knows what truth to tell the liar

* The brothers in the fire

* Turning lies into life

* To a life of all the lessons

* Till you still don't know what's right

* Is this love?

* Can we start again?

* Comes crashing in

* Is this love?

* Can we start again?

* Comes crashing in

* Bring me three poison arrows

* Long, straight, and narrow

* I found bad advice

* I'm the way down here on the bottom

* Words get forgotten

* We say what we like

* Is this love?

* Can we start again?

* Comes crashing in

- Are you rolling?

Wanna roll a joint?

("Fortune Finder" by War Drum)

- [Voiceover] So there's a saying

I've heard from old India friends of mine,

"You have sand in your blood."

"Your family, my family, we got sand in our blood."