Los Angeles is a big town. It bigger than most people who don't live there probably realize. I have lived in LA my whole life and there are definitely some parts of it that I have never been to before. In the “main stream” Los Angeles is seen as this place filled with movie stars, famous musicians, beaches, surfers – you get the point. In the punk scene Los Angeles and (and the surrounding area) is known as the home of bands like Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Descendents, X, The Germs, Bad Religion, Suicidal Tendencies, Fear, Wasted Youth and ton more. Today Los Angeles’s punk scene is definitely thriving. There is not debating that, but when it comes to the more DIY shows it is pretty scattered through out the city. I wouldn’t say there is just one punk scene here. Sure many punks from all over will go to a venue maybe in Hollywood or even Santa Ana to see a “bigger” band play, but it is the DIY shows that seem pretty hidden from one another only really to be found out about through tough-to-find Facebook events unless you are active in that particular area.

The documentary Los Punks: We Are All We Have shows you the DIY punk scene in a particular part of Los Angeles and that is the East Los Angeles/Watts areas. These are definitely not anything like Malibu, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Calabasas or any of those places. These are the working-class areas of LA that you don't see on reality TV shows.

Los Punks follows several band members and show promoters who are very active in the East LA punk scene aging from their mid-teens to mid-twenties and it shows what the bands, the backyard venues, the underage drinking, the interactions with the cops, the people and the camaraderie of their scene. The main subjects of the documentary also go into their backgrounds about growing up in East LA where to survive a lot of them joined the punk scene because their only other option was to join a gang. Some of them even came from middle class suburbia and joined. Sure there is plenty of live footage of all of these DIY hardcore bands, but it also shows a system where everyone supports each other. Several of the main interviewees come from broken or abusive households so they actually create their new family with fellow fans and their band members. Just when you think this is yet another punk documentary it does take a fairly emotional turn and you see very clearly that it is the music and the shows that keep a lot of the younger kids out of trouble and later straightens them out into productive adults (Gary, one of the lead musicians in the film is headed to law school). It even mends broken relationships.

Los Punks: We Are All We Have is a really good look into a punk scene and just a part of Los Angeles in general that gets widely ignored. The characters are very interesting and it is full of heart. It ends with one of the subject’s band opening at a “legit venue” for The Casualties, which you can see is pretty big deal for them. At times it does tend to drag on a bit though. There is a good amount of filler. It is a film that though I am glad I saw once, I don't think I’ll need to watch it again. One and done. For those of you who are fans of the LA punk scene, this is a documentary that might be pretty eye opening especially for those of you who don't live here. Even I was surprised by some parts.

You can watch the trailer for the movie here.