In the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, Baton Rouge’s West Chimes Street and the surrounding North Gates area was home to a small, yet devoted punk rock scene.
Author and former punk-rocker Tim Parrish, State Librarian of Louisiana Rebecca Hamilton and filmmaker Bennet Rhodes have decided this almost 30-year period needs to be preserved as a document of one of the city’s most colorful subcultures.
All former members of the punk community, the three are creating “Red Stick Punkumentary,” a documentary film covering the punk scene of Baton Rouge. Hamilton said, as the State Librarian of Louisiana, the project is an opportunity to turn the obscure scene into a permanent part of history.
“Part of what we do here is collect Louisiana’s history,” she said. “It’s a Baton Rogue thing, but it’s also a Louisiana thing. I feel that it’s appropriate to have it at the State Library, and I feel like I can speak to it, because I grew up in it. That little scene was really meaningful.”
Punk rock arrived in Baton Rouge in the wake of the Sex Pistols’ Jan. 9, 1978 concert at a former Baton Rouge music venue known as the Kingfish Club. The gig inspired those in attendance, such as former Lower Chakras lead singer Parrish, to start punk bands and create the scene that would be characterized by other notable groups like the Shitdogs and the U.S. Times.
Rhodes and Hamilton characterize the former scene as being a diverse group of free-thinking outsiders. The two said they think a real sense of community and acceptance existed within the scene.
“Our scene was anybody underground and alternative, with a revolutionary mind,” Rhodes said. “They all came together, and that was the scene. It shifted their perspective of life and really opened them up to lots of things. It’s the root of their
identity.”
This passion felt by members of the scene was reflected in the enthusiastic response the team has seen after publicly announcing the project. The “Red Stick Punkumentary” Facebook group, which was made to connect the community back together and share memories and artifacts from the time, rapidly filled with users upon its creation, said Rhodes and Hamilton. People also started donating to the project’s GoFundMe account almost immediately after its creation.
The documentary couldn’t be more timely with the talks of West Chimes Street possibly seeing a redevelopment in the near future. Many of the area’s landmarks like the Bayou, Jacy’s and the Kingfish Club have shut down, causing part of the scene’s history to disappear and possibly die out without any physical trace.
“Everything’s disappearing quick,” Rhodes said. “Now that Chimes Street is in the equation, that makes it that much more important why we have to do this right now. Anything cool or underground in Baton Rouge started from this area. That’s why it’s so important to keep that alive, that spirit. It’s the most progressive thing that Baton Rouge has ever had, but there’s always been this counter-scene trying to kill it. That story and all these things that we can use to tell it will be gone.”
For Hamilton, this scene is not only important to Baton Rouge’s history, but also to the University’s.
She said the University’s on-campus music events, as well as the radio stations surrounding the campus, were directly responsible for much of the success and spread of the scene’s music. She, along with Rhodes, said they hope “Red Stick Punkumentary” will not only preserve this special community for posterity, but also inspire a new generation of punk around LSU.
“It is the coolest thing Baton Rouge ever had,” she said. “When it’s done, I think it’ll show that there was something here that was nowhere else in the country.”
“Red Stick Punkumentary” is currently in its development stages and is raising money for its production through the project’s GoFundMe account.