The punk characters, hangers-on, and musicians in Stephanie’s film do seem free in a deep sense, displaying a personal style that can only be crafted so winningly by the young. Liberated from the bonds of their parents and rejecting the status quo, they invented themselves by embracing the societal discards and junk that were on hand in Pittsburgh, even though the scene was more than a bit squalid and, for most of the kids, quite temporary.

In 1978, as an art major fresh out of college, I returned to Pittsburgh to work as a film programmer, first at the Mattress Factory and then at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. I got deeply involved in the scene, a motley array of artists, musicians, filmmakers, and photographers. Stephanie had been the film programmer at Filmmakers (1972–76) and was known on the avant-garde film circuit for her film Valley Fever (1979). It’s important to note, especially in our current political climate, the incredible importance that Filmmakers held as an equipment-access cooperative and a hub for local filmmakers. It was also a gathering place for creative exchange and discussion. Stephanie took advantage of those resources to make her films, as did I and many others.

Personal Aside #1: Anybody remember the Ramones concert at The Decade in 1979 or 1980? The regulars from The Decade were a different sort of crowd from the punks who frequented the Electric Banana up on Bigelow, and I don’t think the concert had a particularly good vibe, but the band was spectacular. I was forced up onto the stage at one point and the band just kept on playing, lunging forward with their guitars as was their style. One guy, I can’t remember who, fell in the mosh pit and broke his arm. Since I was one of the few people with a car, I took him to the emergency room.

Debt Begins at Twenty opens with the drummer Bill Bored. He talks candidly about his band experience while going about his daily routine—listening to records, reading comic books, and making a trip to the record store. As a musician, this is his work and research, although he obviously is not punching anyone’s time clock. Bored’s droll, understated performance is a perfect vehicle for the boredom we felt in Pittsburgh at the time. Looking back, he is so young and seemingly naïve, but he takes a strong political stance about not having any musical skills. Without pretention, Bill and the others draw the viewer into the rich detail of thrift-store costumes, dyed hair jobs, and graffiti-covered walls.

Bill says dispassionately, “It’s just that I would say anything new is intrinsically better that something old simply because it’s new.”

As this is spoken, the words “punk philosophy” pop up on the screen. The filmmaker is sharing her irony and sense of humor with us, indicating how to “read through” the film’s multi-layered form. At a number of points in the film, in a nod to European art films of the 1960s, Stephanie uses these techniques to puncture the illusion of cinema and offer commentary on the action (in addition to compensating for marginal sound quality). She is telling us that not only are the music makers having fun “breaking the rules” but so, too, is the film.

The structure is a lively version of what is now common in contemporary storytelling: documentary/improvised or semi-staged scenes intercut with staged/acted ones. The ambiguous space between documentary and fiction calls into question the authenticity of the screen and generates good dramatic tension. It is also a reflection of the musicians who have reinvented themselves for the stage with cool personas and, in the Cardboards’ case, funny made-up names. The captions, asides, and “subtitles” add an extra voice to the conversation.

In the movie and in real life Bill lives at 4620 Forbes, then a well-known address for parties and shows (Black Flag!) above a gay bar called the Holiday, now defunct. He drums with the Cardboards and Hans Brinker and the Dykes, who perform several of their classic songs for the film. Another band, the Shakes, the most melodious of the featured bands, also give a strong performance. There are several TV-talk-show-type interviews done at the party with various scenesters and, in a flashback, a goofy romantic interlude between Bill and Sesame Spinelli.

Personal Aside #2: In 1979 I lived in an amazing apartment [for $75/month] at the corner of Carson and 18th Streets, directly across the street from a burned-out building. For some reason we volunteered to host one of the regular Saturday-night rotating parties. Two hundred or so people showed up, a couple of bands played, and almost on cue, the police came at midnight and broke it up, sending everyone scattering into the night. I’m not sure what I had expected, but my party planning was quite pathetic—I had baked two apple cobblers to serve, which of course disappeared in a split second. Luckily other people brought beer to sustain themselves through the evening.

The Cardboards are fantastic in their white shirts and skinny ties, as if they came to the show directly from their jobs at the bank. A band without guitar or bass, they used an array of synthesizers and a beat box, musically positioned somewhere between kraut rock and synth pop. Max Haste was the front man and wrote the lyrics and contributed his fiendish laughter, but the noisy mix of the synth, (human) drums, and sax created a hypnotic vibe through manic repetition.

Watching Stephanie shoot at one of the events, I noticed her unhurried style, with smooth camera moves and nice slow pans. Her cinematic control managed to stay calmly on track amid the angular dance moves and chaos in front of her. This is not a punk movie but a movie about punk. Many of us at the time were filming in Super 8 and making more gestural, body-oriented films using much smaller cameras; Stephanie, with her 16mm double-system setup, proved to be more of a grown-up.

Personal Aside #3: I wonder who did that painting of Maya Deren at the top of the stairs at the old Pittsburgh Filmmakers venue on Oakland Avenue? It is taken from her 1943 film Meshes of the Afternoon , a portrait of Deren gazing out a window with her hands gently placed on the glass, her image merging with the reflections of distant trees. It was the founding mother of American avant-garde cinema who greeted us as we trudged up the stairs to the screening room.

I want to improve things for everyone.

I want Pittsburgh to be fun.

And if it doesn’t happen soon,

I might pull out a gun.

Because I’m bored, bored, bored.

—lyrics from “Bored” by Hans Brinker and the Dykes

Bored with what? Bored with the mainstream, rock and roll’s endgame, the mall culture in the zombie suburbs—The Dykes decided to do something about it, to go on the offensive with their life and style.

The punk scene was overflowing with talented women, fearless in their public performances and enjoying full expression through the music. Sesame Spinelli is spellbinding as the lead singer of Hans Brinker and the Dykes, singing off-key in a beautiful ear-splitting screech their original songs “Bored,” “Two Fingers Wide,” and “Hysterectomy.” She is so cute in her cheap plastic raincoat, sunglasses, and dog collar when she arrives for a romantic rendezvous with the affable Bill Bored.