Another State of Mind is a 1984 American documentary film written, produced, and directed by Adam Small and Peter Stuart, following the punk rock bands Youth Brigade and Social Distortion on their summer 1982 North American tour. They spend several weeks travelling across the United States and Canada, but the tour ends prematurely when the used school bus they are driving breaks down in Washington, D.C. There they spend time with the band Minor Threat, who are also featured.
Synopsis
In the summer of 1982, two southern California punk rock bands — Youth Brigade from Hollywood and Social Distortion from Fullerton — prepare to embark together on their first North American tour, planning to play over 30 shows in 35 days on a meager budget. Youth Brigade consists of brothers Shawn (vocals, guitar), Adam (bass), and Mark Stern (drums), while Social Distortion consists of Mike Ness (vocals, guitar), Dennis Danell (guitar), Brent Liles (bass), Derek O'Brien (drums), and their manager Mark "Monk" Wilson. The tour is financed by the Better Youth Organization, run by Shawn and Mark Stern, who have purchased a used school bus to serve as the touring vehicle. The band members, Wilson, and roadies Mike Brinson, Louis Dufau, and Marlon Whitfield convert the bus' interior to fit all 11 people plus the instruments and gear.
The tour begins on August 18, with its first stop in San Francisco where the bands have to pressure the club owner for their agreed-upon pay and are given rolls of pennies. They continue to Seattle, Calgary, and Winnipeg. By the time they reach Montreal, morale is declining as the bus has mechanical issues, money is running low, and the bands are kicked out of a café by the police. In their third week on the road they reach Chicago, then Detroit, where the bus breaks down. Dufau and Whitfield quit, catching a Greyhound bus back to California. With the bus repaired, the bands push on to New York City in the fourth week of the tour.
Along the way, interviews with the touring party, fans, and fellow musicians including Keith Morris discuss punk philosophies, fashions, social dynamics, local scenes, slam dancing, and stage diving. The dynamic between punk rock and religion is touched on, including a group trying to "save" punks by preaching Christianity to them. Throughout the tour, Ness works on a new song titled "Another State of Mind", which he continues to develop and teaches to his bandmates.
In Washington, D.C. the bus breaks down again. Danell, Liles, and Brinson go to stay with a friend of Brinson's, while the others go to stay at the "Dischord House", home of Dischord Records. They hang out with the band Minor Threat, whose vocalist Ian MacKaye discusses his reasons for joining the punk scene and following a straight edge lifestyle. A Minor Threat performance in Baltimore is featured. After a week in D.C. with the bus still inoperable, Danell, Liles, and O'Brien abandon the tour and head back to California. Left without his band, Ness takes a flight home himself.
Youth Brigade stays through what would have been the tour's final night, and leaves the broken-down bus behind; Adam and Mark Stern fly back to Los Angeles, while Shawn Stern, Wilson, and Brinson make the two-day ride in the back of the film crew's box truck. Once home, Shawn reflects that while the tour was a financial failure, they accomplished their goals by spreading their music and message and meeting like-minded people. The completed Social Distortion recording of "Another State of Mind" plays over the end credits.
Cast
;Youth Brigade
- Adam Stern – bass
- Mark Stern – drums
- Shawn Stern – guitar, lead vocals
;Social Distortion
- Mike Ness – vocals, lead guitar
- Dennis Danell – rhythm guitar
- Brent Liles (credited as Brent Lyle) – bass
- Derek O'Brien – drums
- Mark "Monk" Wilson – band manager
;Road crew
- Mike Brinson
- Louis Dufau
- Marlon Whitfield
Background
thumb|right|Shawn (center) and Mark Stern (right) of Youth Brigade in 2011.
Shawn and Mark Stern, then in their late teens, started the Better Youth Organization (BYO) in late 1979 as a quasi-collective concert promotion company with the aim of putting on punk rock shows in Los Angeles and spreading humanist ideals within the punk community. The brothers, who had previously played together in a punk band called the Extremes, formed Youth Brigade in the summer of 1980, initially as a six-piece group trying to blend punk and swing music but soon re-tooled as a hardcore punk trio with their younger brother Adam on bass guitar. Meanwhile, in nearby Orange County, Mike Ness had formed Social Distortion in late 1978 in his home town of Fullerton.
Between December 1981 and February 1982 BYO put on shows at Godzilla's, a former supermarket in Sun Valley which they converted into a concert space. Music journalist Michael Azerrad, in his 2001 book Our Band Could Be Your Life, called the film an "essential hardcore documentary". Writing in 2009, Mark Stern said that "Another State of Mind became a sort of cult classic in the punk world. It captured a time and a place that was only known to those involved. It opened up the idea that it was possible to do something like that on your own, without the help of the industry and it gave other bands an incentive to take their music and their message and make things happen." He felt that it contained too much propaganda for BYO, and noted that although it had interview segments with Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks, it failed to mention his importance to the Los Angeles punk scene and did not even say what band he was in (Morris is credited on-screen simply as "Keith").