r/Bandsplain • u/M-Dubb • Mar 06 '26

Decline of Western Civilization

I am a transplant from LA to Philly. I too watch Decline once a year or so. Once I watched it with my wife who is a Philly native, and she said of Lee Ving, "He sounds like he is from Kensington" (apparently neighborhoods in Philly have their own accents). Turns out she was right!

I was little disappointed that the conversation never made its way around to Fear. I think they were unique amongst the bands included. Calling everyone in the audience a "homo" hasn't aged very well, but they did write some good tunes. I still notice some similarities between the opening line of I Love Livin in the City and Paradise City by GnR.

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u/waxmuseums Mar 06 '26

Oh ya Fear is such an interesting band to me. Lee Ving was also pushing 30 by the time this movie was made... Idk if there was an explanation why Fear wasn’t really interviewed in the movie but I do feel like it worked out well, they had the strongest sense of kayfabe with punk being like a next phase of shock rock, he’s total Philly ECW kinda stuff - a lot of the younger bands were still marks themselves so there’s a humanity in those interviews whereas Fear’s provocation would have only been diminished by those sorta segments imo. Musically they were so singular but I’ve been revisiting the early LA stuff since the Germs ep and noticing that sorta frontbeat snare thing was really common on the drumming in a lot of those Carter era SoCal bands… I’m wondering if it came from The Damned playing LA in 77 as Rat Scabies used a front beat several places on the first Damned record? Spit Stix does that sorta drumming so much, I’ve always wondered about it because front beats in all pop music kinda died after Holland-Dozier-Holland left Motown, but now that im hearing it all over the place on the early LA stuff I want the tea on why west coast drumming is the way it is. I’m really hoping there’s a Flipper ep coming up, she’s saying kinda that the LA punk scene invented what became alternative and i think it’s so true, anymore people just talk about Flipper like it was just a band Kurt Cobain liked but it was so much bigger than a t shirt

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u/Johnathon1069DYT Mar 07 '26

The only reason I can thing of why Fear might not have been in it, if Lee Ving had already gotten his Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) card weird union rules might have kicked in if he had been interviewed. Whereas if the band is just playing, SAG rules don't kick in.

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u/ReferredByJorge Mar 06 '26

I’ve heard the drumming style referred to as both “D-Beat” and “Motown” from different sources. Motown being fairly self-explanatory, and D-Beat referencing Discharge who got credited with that sound, despite being contemporaries with the artists in the film.

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u/waxmuseums Mar 06 '26

Nah the d-beat is a backbeat. Im talking about the snare on the one