More so than any of the other punk musicians in the mid-1970s, Stiv Bators was fearless about masochistically abusing his body to draw attention. With sonic reductionists The Dead Boys, he rolled on the ground, thrashed about onstage and staged mock hangings that sometimes injured him. Bators also had a predilection for car surfing, climbing atop moving vehicles, as recounted in writer-director Danny Garcia's fascinating if bittersweet new documentary, Stiv: The Life and Times of a Dead Boy. Throughout his garage-rock solo recordings and his momentous hard-rock passages with The Lords of the New Church, Bators remained an irrepressibly exciting, visceral and ruthlessly witty showman who embodied the feral spirit of real rock & roll.

The Regent Theater, 448 S. Main St., downtown; Sun., April 7, 7 p.m.; $12. (323) 934-2944, spacelandpresents.com.

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