The Go-Go's (2020)

[Edgy MD]

Five likeable, relatable young women transform themselves into fearsome sociopaths to take on the LA punk scene, and then transform back into likeable, relatable young women to climb the pop charts, becoming the first (and to this day, only) all female act to hit #1 US while playing and singing all the parts.



Money is made. Backs are stabbed. Cocaine is consumed.



[fimg=450]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYmYwYTU5YmUtYmJlOS00OThmLWI3N2UtY2IwN2M3MDRlYzVmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzA1NTgxODA@._V1_.jpg[/fimg]

[whippoorwill]

The Go-Gos pleasantly remind me of minor league baseball

[Edgy MD]

This film is by Alison Ellwood, who set the standard for band docs with the very-rewatchable History of the Eagles. So it's interesting to find parallels with that film, and it's always going to be there when it's another story of LA scenesters making it big and fueling their wild ride with massive amounts of coke. But there are other story arc similarities — like the too-often-forgotten pre-breakup period where Jane had quit the band (the Go-Go's without Jane? unpossible!) mirroring the Don Felder tale in that it was precipitated by her hopig to sing lead on a song and getting rejected. Unequal shares of the $$ get under everybody's skin, and the manager who believed in them from the get-go and brought them to the top gets tossed over the side as soon as they get there.



Guitarist Charlotte Caffey, who seemed to be ahead of them as a musician and songwriter, always appeared to be more uptown than the rest of them with her hair and fashion sense. (In fact, she seemed more like a Bangle and actually later toured with the Bangs during a Vicki Peterson maternity break.) But turns out that she was anything but uptown, nursing a nasty heroin habit almost from the band's inception.



The real star of the whole thing is drummer Gina Schock, who has been through health scares and hard times, and just sardonically laughs at all the bullshit with more candor and frankness than the rest of them put together, all of whom are more interested in their own stories than the band's. Her flat-voice allows you to look at the band from her seat on the drum riser in the back, hysterically detached, if only in retrospect.



At the end, the narrative blindingly jumps from 1985 to 2000, and then 2000 to the present, skipping over a bunch of attempted relaunchings and the not-terrible God Bless the Go-Go's comeback album from 2001. The problem, as these these things tend to do, turns on the enterprise being authorized, and missing the documentarian's detachment (with most exceptions, again, being the Schock highlights), so the movie ends up (a) plugging the band's failed juke-box musical, ( lobbying for the band to be inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, and © plugging the new single they just got together to do, which is ... meh ... but you'll hear it on a Sirius station or two if you listen real hard. Their relationships with groupies, cosmetic surgeries, solo careers, Kathy Valentine's lawsuit and grudge against the rest ... are all hard to spin graciously, so they simpy get whitewashed.



Strange to hear the narrative that they really upped their game as players before the first album, and that Stewart Copeland is a big booster of theirs (and one of their RnRHoF lobbyists.) My understanding had been that their playing only picked up after Copeland tutored them all during the massive Police Around the World Tour.



Anyhow, if they put more energy into getting something more out of their partnership rather than hiring a filmmaker to inflate their story, they might well be a worthy induction. Until then, yeah, they were the first all-female act to go to #1 both singing and and playing their instruments, and that's certainly not nothing, but now, they're scarcely more than a vehicle for Belinda Carlisle's terrifying cycles of plastic surgery. (She originally seemed to be trying to turn herself into Ann-Margret, but now she's more late-stage Priscilla Presley, and I don't feel good about typing that.)



There's an interesting subplot about a grudge with Jann Wenner. And that could certainly go a long way toward explaining why they haven't even been nominated for the Hall, but there have been a lot of bands on the outside looking in despite waves of fan support, and the ones who eventually broke through — think Rush and Cheap Trick — were the ones who kept plugging in, playing, touring, making albums, and not letting the world leave them behind.



Show me, you know?



And that show me has to go for Ellwood as well, who also came up short on her Laurel Canyon film. If you're ever going to match that Eagles movie, you have to try and do this from your own initiative, instead of going to work for your own subject.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Haven't seen the flick yet but you should control C and send the review to some online music mag where people will see it

[Edgy MD]

Thanks. Any particular magazines?

[Frayed Knot]

I saw it, and you reviewed it better than I could have.



The early years story was informative. But then after the initial rounds of success not a whole lot happens that's all that interesting. Yeah, you toured, you partied, you fought,

you drugged, this one quit, that one didn't quit ... lather, rinse, repeat. Not sure that part of their story is a whole lot different from most bands. After that, entire decades were

skipped over because there wasn't enough to talk about.



As an H-o-F act they strike me as closer to Chris Sabo [RoY, couple of seasons w/back-ballot MVP votes, then pretty much done as a full-timer by age 29] than they are to some

on-the-brink toss-up. btw, does every act not in the H-o-F personally blame Jann Wenner? I know RUSH fans were sure he had it in for them right up until the moment of their

induction.

[Edgy MD]

Miles Copeland is one of the relatively few non-band members to provide commentary during this doc, and it strikes me that a filmed history of IRS Records might have been more fun.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

coming soon to a theater new you:

https://www.wewereoncerebels.com/https://www.wewereoncerebels.com/



I dunno what mag.. Pop Dose?

[Edgy MD]

Wow, I've got to use my wishing superpowers more responsibly.

[ashie62]

Charlotte Caffey made much more money than the other members. She largely wrote the tunes.

[Edgy MD]

Hey, somebody gave this five starzz!



Fun Go-Go's Fact: Gina Schock's post-breakup band, The House of Schock, was cofounded by Chris DeGeneres, brother of Ellen, the original Mr. Hands on Saturday Night Live, and bassist and co-star in this video.



[YOUTUBE]atX9mu4riqg[/YOUTUBE]

[Lefty Specialist]

I was struck by how....typical this story was. Gritty band about to break big, dumps the one who wants to stay punk rather than go pop. Early '80's levels of drugs and partying. The health scare. The loss of a private life and eternities on the road. The pressure to follow up after a blowout debut album. Going from holes in the wall to stadiums opening for the friggin Police. Betraying their manager when they became big. Fights over who's the most important band member and splitting into sides. Then the collapse and breakup. The arc just writes itself. But I'd forgotten just how many good songs they had.



It was an interesting watch. Loved the story of returning the white towels to Macy's after the first album cover shoot.

[Edgy MD]

That's well put. They also had an intraband romance go bad, lawsuits, battles over residuals, and solo projects of varying viability.



Still, Gina Schock is hilarious. I want her to become a go-to talking head for all documentaries about the eighties now. She could be the next Art Donovan.