I know what you’re thinking: Who the hell is Bill Bartell? I was and am still wondering the same thing. Turns out, after watching his film, I’m still in the dark about a mostly obscure human who seemed to know everyone in underground music and Hollywood in the ’70s and on.
Here’s what we do know about Bartell. He was a musician, cop, record label CEO, rodeo bull rider and punk rock icon who was linked to KISS, Yoko Ono, Nirvana and the Germs, plus countless others. How this suburban kid had such an impact on modern culture is told via his friends, family and admirers—many of whom we all know.
A highly intelligent kid, as a teenager, Bartell posed as someone much older and began writing stories in magazines and doing record reviews. The Los Angeles punk scene was becoming highly influential, and in the early ’80s Bartell, who went by Pat Fear, starts the band White Flag. People aren’t really sure if White Flag are a serious band or a parody of Black Flag, but they embrace metal, which is frowned upon in the punk scene, and people are generally amused and/or perplexed.
During White Flag’s run, Bartell injects himself into every avenue of rock music. He flies to New York to see KISS and befriends their manager; he’s onstage with The Bangles; he calls every musician in the Los Angeles at all hours of the night. How he gets the money to live this life, where he works or lives and whether anything he says is a lie or truth is all shrouded in mystery. Either way, he is getting things done and forms the label Gasatanka Records.
As the ’80s go on, he gets even more iconoclastic. Bartell forms a band, Tater Totz, who play a Beatles festival and do a set of Yoko Ono music to an angry crowd; he single handedly makes the Brazilian band Os Mutantes famous in America by championing them to Kurt Cobain; other bands he “discovers” include Shonen Knife and The Muffs.
Punk in the ’80s was largely homophobic. It’s believed that Bartell was gay, which had to have made his place in the scene challenging. He either was also a cop or just really liked the idea of cops, and punk was certainly also anti-cop.
Closer to his death, Bartell became a bull rider. He seemed more at peace with himself, but after getting thrown off a bull, his life spiraled into pain pill addiction, drinking (he claimed to never drank in his early years) and uncontrolled diabetes. He died alone in his home at age 52 due to his rapidly declining health.
You have to hand it to Bill Bartell. He pestered people to the point where they gave him a chance, and he took every opportunity to mix fiction and the truth into an existence so bizarre, a decade-plus after his death, everyone is still trying to figure him out.
