Today’s Vinyl: Repo Man
Alex Cox’s Repo Man is one of those movies – like Blazing Saddles or Dr. Strangelove – that you probably wouldn’t enjoy watching with me. Whatever I don’t recite directly, I laugh at prematurely in anticipation, ruining any sense of surprise or wonder that you could otherwise experience. Maybe the off-key, dystopian take on white punk ennui appealed to a confused late-teen cracker recently transplanted from the weird air of southern California to the stifling suburban backwater of Plano, Texas. Then again, maybe it was just because the soundtrack was badass.
Cox was obsessed with music and punk in particular; his nearly unwatchable 1987 Western, Straight to Hell, showcased the acting skills (or lack thereof) of musicians like Joe Strummer and Shane McGowan, while 1986’s feel-good romcom Sid and Nancy chronicled the downfall of Sex Pistols bassist and all-around upstanding citizen Sid Vicious. For Repo Man, Cox hired the LA Mexican-American punk act The Plugz for the original instrumental music and then filled out the soundtrack with a stable of West Coast punk stalwarts like Black Flag, Circle Jerks and Fear (Cox must have had Penelope Spheeris’ The Decline of Western Civilization stuck in his VCR for years).
The title track on the record is an Iggy Pop original for the movie; the charging, raucous Repo Man is worth the price of admission alone, with the Pistols’ Steve Jones and Blondie’s rhythm section banging out an arid, spooky jam behind Iggy’s nonsensical rants. Between the classic LA punk and the reverb-laden Mexi-surf of The Plugz, Cox built a soundtrack that was probably more cohesive than the movie itself, though he threw a few curveballs into the mix, including MTV one-hit wonder Burning Sensations’ cover of Jonathan Richman’s Pablo Picasso. Pick up the CD at Amazon
