“Rock star” is a phrase steeped in contradiction. It implies celebrity and popularity, but also independence and outsiderness. It connotes wealth and success, “making it”, but also sticking it to the man. The early 1980s cult film Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, is finally out on DVD, thanks to Rhino Entertainment, and unpacks these divergent meanings through the meteoric rise and semi-fall of the fictional punk trio the Stains.
The Stains are comprised of teenagers Corinne Burns (Diane Lane), her sister, Tracy (Marin Kanter), on bass, and cousin, Jessica, AKA “Peg”, McNeil (Laura Dern), on guitar. Even before forming the band as its manager and lead singer, Corinne had achieved minor celebrity after being tempestuously fired from her on-camera job for a story broadcast by a 60 Minutes-type show. On the heels of her mother’s death, she announces the Stains to the world during a follow up interview with the show’s host, Harley Dennis (Peter Donat), and leverages that exposure into a tour spot with a has-been metal band, the Metal Corpses, and a small-time English punk group, the Looters.