Nostalgia Kinky

A fantastic feature-length documentary portrait of an American Alternative Music legend, The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell (2025) is a fascinating and moving look at a true one of a kind iconoclast. Directed by the celebrated David Markey, The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell has recently been released as a special edition Blu-ray and DVD by We Got Power Films through MVD and is highly recommended for documentary and music fans, plus anyone at all interested in popular culture.

The thing about Bill Bartell is that even if you don’t know of Bill Bartell, you most likely still know of Bill Bartell. A couple of the artists in The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell refer to him as the ‘Punk Rock Zelig’ and that indeed sort of fits, as Bartell had a habit of seemingly popping up everywhere while knowing literally everyone. By the end of The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell, you could have told me he’d discovered Madonna and been best friends with the Pope and I’d believe it.

I’ve known of Bartell as Pat Fear since my teenage years in the eighties when I first discovered the L.A. Punk scene. While his band White Flag never found their way to my youthful collection, it was impossible to be a fan of bands like X, The Germs and Black Flag plus underground mags like Flipside without at least knowing of them. Bartell really came on my radar when Kurt Cobain started namedropping him and I guarantee that any fellow Gen-X refugee from the nineties has him somewhere in their collection, whether as producer, guest player or inspiration.
Dude
Was
Everywhere.

The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell does a wonderful job chronically Bartell’s incredible life from his early years to his final days before he died, due to complications from diabetes at the age of just 52 years old. A closeted gay man who sadly felt he had to keep his sexuality a secret from even his closest friends, there is tragedy in the story of Bill Bartell but there is more importantly much joy, much life-lived and a hell of a lot of great art.

The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell is both a vibrant portrait of an endlessly adventurous life and numerous legendary ‘scenes’ throughout the eighties and nineties. From the roar of the Redd Kross records he produced to home videos of friends Drew Barrymore and Eric Erlandson, The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell is a love letter to the alternative-culture from the early eighties to the mid-nineties. Bartell seems a particular product of this period, as his life indeed became more and more difficult as the 2000s progressed and corporate control became more predominant.

Markey packs his film with a who’s-who of the underground culture of the eighties and nineties from filmmaker Allison Anders to Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore. All, whether they knew Bartell intimately or had just collaborated with him musically, have something of value to contribute making The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell amongst the most interesting recently released talking heads style documentaries.

Even better than all of the interviews Markey conducted for the film, the big-selling point of The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell is the amazing archival footage, which helps send the audience back in time to this much-missed and dreamed about period. The film is just packed with prime vintage footage and one interesting story after another about the only man who was ever able to call himself a punk legend, a cop and a professional bull-rider.

Of all of the stories there is none I enjoyed more than the time Bill formed a ferocious Yoko Ono cover-band to play at a nineties ‘Beatles Fest’, all of which was captured on tape and is included here. The image of a smiling Bartell absolutely wailing on John Lennon’s savage lead guitar runs while being booed and pelted with bottles is a great Rock moment and it says much about Bartell’s anarchic spirit.

The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell arrives on Blu-ray with some intriguing extras, including 45 minutes of deleted scenes (presented as an alternate feature) and a 15 minute panel from Slamdance 2025 featuring Markey. The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell is a tremendous film about a real one-of-a-kind artist and man in every respect.
I liked this immensely.

-Jeremy Richey, March, 2026-

Information on The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell available from We Got Power Films and the Blu-ray can be ordered from MVD.