When the musicians in Green Day were ready to produce a movie about the band’s early days and the history of the famed East Bay punk scene, who do you think they hired as director?
Martin Scorsese? Cameron Crowe?
How about Corbett Redford of Pinole?
Redford knew Green Day members Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt from when they attended Pinole Valley High School together, and from hanging out on the local music scene in the 1990s, but he never expected that connection would lead to the opportunity of a lifetime.
“I got a message from Billie Joe one day, and he asked if I could find some old footage, within the scene, of Green Day,” Redford says from his home in Pinole. “And I did know where to find footage. I had a bunch of friends who had been collecting over the years. I gave him a hard drive with like 20 or 30 different live shows from their past — backyard parties, small clubs, things like that.
“He said, ‘Hey, yeah, we’re thinking about doing a movie about our early years. Do you know anybody who can direct it?’ I said, ‘Yeah. Me.’”
The band took his advice, and the result is “Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk,” Redford’s documentary that celebrates not just Green Day, but many of the other players behind one of the country’s most vital music scenes.
The film, which is narrated by Iggy Pop and executive produced by Green Day, gets its world premiere May 31 at SF Doc Fest, then opens June 2 at the Alamo Drafthouse in San Francisco, with more locations to follow.
Green Day Stars in New East Bay Punk Scene Doc: Trailer Premiere | Billboard https://t.co/HRFRqMt2Vi
— Green Day (@GreenDay) May 25, 2017
“They could’ve went with some well-known director in Hollywood,” says Redford, who previously had helmed music videos but nothing like a feature-length movie. “But they got some guy in Pinole. And I’m grateful for it.”
But Armstrong says he knew Redford was the guy for the job.
“Corbett comes from the East Bay scene for well over 20 years. We went to high school together,” the band’s frontman said. “He’s a punk. He’s DIY to his core. And he understands all the personality disorders that come along with such a dynamic scene we come from. It’s a matter of trust. He was perfect as a director.
“And no one else could have pulled this off.”
Redford began frequenting the already-thriving East Bay punk scene in the ’90s, and the friendships he made proved invaluable in making the film. He was able to find rare archival footage — including some stunning videos of Green Day in its infancy — as well as secure interviews with Armstrong, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, Michael Franti, The Mr. T Experience’s Dr. Frank and dozens of other insiders.
The film chronicles how the Bay Area punk explosion started in San Francisco in the late ’70s with the likes of the Avengers and the Dead Kennedys, before spreading by the end of the decade into Berkeley and Oakland and other less-punk-friendly suburban areas.
“To me, the beauty of punk when it happened in ‘77 was it marked the rebirth of the spirit of rock ’n’ roll,” former Dead Kennedys leader Jello Biafra says in the film. “We loved it because it was something new, fresh that wasn’t the Eagles, Led Zeppelin or ‘Saturday Night Fever.’”
But in those years, not everyone loved the new scene.
“One of the big downsides of looking weird or anything in Pinole or El Sobrante was being chased by white supremacists,” Primus’ Larry LaLonde remembers in the film.
Yet, that threat of violence against punk rockers — which certainly existed across the Bay Area and beyond — had a transformative impact on the East Bay scene. It was first felt in the actual music, as bands like The Mr. T Experience pioneered a tuneful, even romantic, pop-influenced sound that was in stark contrast to the ultra-aggressive punk of the day.
The film documents an even bigger breakthrough made at 924 Gilman, the now-legendary collectively run Berkeley music club that opened in 1986. With its strict rules — no drugs, alcohol, violence, racism, sexism, homophobia and (more recently) transphobia — Gilman was an all-ages safe haven for fans.
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“That is where everything changed,” “Metal” Mike Saunders of the Angry Samoans says of 924 Gilman, which is still operating. “The vibe at Gilman Street spread across America — at least, we like to think it did — where punk rock became safe for little kids and girls.”
The film is something of a love letter to 924 Gilman, a venue that helped put Green Day, Rancid, Operation Ivy, AFI and many other notable acts on the map and touched the lives of many others, including music fans who volunteered and worked there.
“We both came out in that scene,” says Anthony Marchitiello, who co-wrote “Turn It Around” with Redford. “It’s the only place that ever really accepted us and nurtured us.”
And if 924 Gilman was the focal point of the East Bay scene, Green Day was its brightest star, turning the blend of pop and punk into a national sound.
“Before they blew up, they were already big news locally. We all knew who Green Day was, and we’d go see them,” remembers Redford, who is also in the Pinole folk-rock duo Bobby Joe Ebola. “Due to them, myself and thousands more became lifers in the culture. Before you knew it, I immediately started a band and went to go volunteer at Gilman.”
Follow Jim Harrington at twitter.com/jimthecritic and www.facebook.com/jim.bayareanews.
‘TURN IT AROUND: THE STORY OF EAST BAY PUNK’
World premiere: 7 p.m. May 31 during SF DocFest at Alamo Drafthouse, San Francisco; sfindie.com/festivals/sf-docfest
Opens: June 2 at Alamo Drafthouse, drafthouse.com/sf
Note: More screening locations are expected to follow.
