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DocFest: Punk Like Me
This is such a brilliant idea. So the 36-year-old star (and writer) of this documentary, Rich Wilkes, had the genius idea to sneak his band onto a major national rock tour -- by posing as a freelance writer for Rolling Stone and telling the guy who runs the Vans Warped Tour that he wanted to cover the scene "undercover." Unfortunately, about a month before the tour was set to begin, his band broke up. So what did he do? He sent out an email to all his friends, asking them if they'd pretend to be in a band with him.
Never mind that Wilkes was a new dad with a lucrative day job: he immediately found four other friends, decided to start a "punk-rock mariachi band" called Carne Asada, did four rehearsals, and hit the road. Living the dream! Groupies! Drugs! Rock and roll!
Well, it's not quite so easy -- turns out Wilkes' wife Amy (who's the producer of the movie) refused to stay at home while her husband was shaking his maracas on the road, and signed on as their tour manager -- so no groupies. And it turned out to be harder to tour without their baby than they'd thought -- so the baby and her grandparents (Wilkes' in-laws) came along for the ride too. Plus -- did we mention that Carne Asada had only rehearsed four times before hitting the road? Hilarious!
After the jump: Our free Carne Asada CD, Rich's excellent in-laws, and we're still laughing at the scenes of Carne Asada performing live. Punk Like Me screens again at the Li'l Roxie on Thursday May 18 at 9 p.m.
The movie's pretty, you know, heartwarming -- it's all about living your dreams, being true to yourself -- like a John Hughes movie, only punk rock. And all the guys seemed nice, and Amy was cool, and their baby is adorable, and we loved Rich's in-laws (the fake nose ring! Ha!). And did we mention the band only did four rehearsals before hitting the road? Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! We laughed so hard during the concert scenes we pulled a stomach muscle.
That's not to say that anyone could go off and do this -- you'd have to be, say, the screenwriter of Triple-X, to be able to afford the ginormous tour bus they took, or to take the summer off to tour with a fake band, or to be able to scam your way onto the Warped Tour in the first place. Rich had also performed in bands since college, and at least two of his band members had musical experience on their instruments of choice, so it's not like he just sort of stumbled on a stage and started belting out a punk rock version of La Cucaracha on his own. But still! Hilarious!
The band, Amy, and Amy's parents were in the audience, hooting and hollering -- and, as an audience member said, "This is the best home vacation movie I've ever seen." And, in a testament to the power of rock and roll dreams, another audience member called out, "Do you need a bassist?" All attendees also got a free copy of the Carne Asada CD, which we must admit we're kind of frightened to play at home.
The Wilkeses are still trying to get a distribution deal for the movie: see it now, contribute to the buzz!