In the documentary Urban Struggle: The Battle of the Cuckoo's Nest, the Costa Mesa club's owner, Jerry Roach, says of punk during an on-camera interview from 30 years ago or so, “I liked the attitude, you know . . . Fuck you. I'll do what I want.” Well, here's Roach at Sunday night's premiere of a new Cuckoo's Nest documentary, obviously liking the fuck-you attitude of Duane Peters, who cut his teeth as a 16-year-old punker at the Nest before going on to his own music and pro-skateboarding glory.
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John Gilhooley got the shot and many others in this slideshow from the We Were Feared world premiere.
It was one of those rare assignments where a photographer would actually pay us to be there. Besides Peters (of U.S. Bombs, Die Hunns, Gunfight), Roach posed with members of D.I., the
Adolescents, the Vandals, TSOL, China White and the Chiefs, among others.
There was no police action, as hinted at here, only good vibes gooey enough to make a punk puke.
“Great night at the We Were Feared movie premiere at NBFF with some old
school punks/fans and families there to see and remember the old days
at the Cuckoo's Nest,” Gilhooley reports. “Everyone had a story about their time at 'The Nest,' as Duane Peters referred to it.”
As for We Were Feared itself, Gilhooley gave two shutterbugged thumbs up, saying he especially liked the way Jonathan W.C. Mills' film tied the old schoolers in with today's punks, particularly the band the Diffs, “who gave their own take on what it means to be
an individual and the kind of attitude it takes to be a punk.”
What kind of attitude was that again, Jerry?
There's a repeat screening of We Were Feared at 9 p.m. Tuesday at Edwards Island Cinemas.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.