Yes, the man once known for “Achy Breaky Heart,” a song that was released a year before as “Don’t Tell My Heart” by The Marcy Brothers, and then known more for his daughter’s music once ruled the pop culture world for a very limited time. This is the outgrowth. Or afterbirth. Or painful reminder.
Ever since his wife died on a mission, CIA agent and former Navy SEAL Jack Reynolds (Cyrus) has lost interest in life. Seriously — do you know how hard it is to do either of those jobs? Jack — Radical Jack to you and me — did both.
Now he’s in Vermont, where he’s gone undercover at a local bar, where he battles George “Buck” Flowers because, well, look I watch way too many movies. There’s a great emptiness in my heart sometimes and I try and fill it with films in the hope that I find some level of inspiration within them. Why I chose a Billy Ray Cyrus vehicle made 17 minutes into his 15 minutes of fame is beyond me. God, if He exists, they say, works in mysterious ways. Perhaps this is where I would find my moment. The dream that I’ve been searching for. The answer.
No.
Dedee Pfeiffer, the younger sister of Michelle, is the love interest. Perhaps you remember her from The Allnighter, a teen comedy that everyone went to see in case Susanna Hoffs would show some skin and then they realized that her mother directed it. I’ll forgive you if you never saw it.
I really don’t have anything else to say at this point.
Directed by Mario Bava under the name John M. Old, this film — known as What! and Night Is the Phantom in the U.S. — was removed from Italian theaters due to its BDSM themes, with censors claiming “several sequences refer to degenerations and anomalies of sexual life.”
It was written by Ernesto Gastaldi (billed as Julian Berry), Ugo Guerra (Robert Hugo) and Luciano Martino (Martin Hardy), after Gastaldi was shown The Pit and the Pendulum.
Within an isolated castle, the prodigal son Kurt (Christopher Lee) has returned. He once pledged to marry Nevenka (Daliah Lavi, Some Girls Do), but had an affair with Tania, the daughter of their servant which ended in her suicide. He left in disgrace while his fiancee instead married Cristiano (Tony Kendall, who was in the Kommissar X movies), the younger son of the Menliff family.
Supposedly, Kurt is back to celebrate their marriage, but really he’s just here to take Nevenka to the beach where he whips her. And here’s the part that upset people. She loves it.
Kurt is soon killed by the same knife that his illicit lover used to take her own life. But then his ghost remains, ready to ruin the lives of everyone in the crumbling manor.
Lee had hoped to work with Bava on another movie, but their busy schedules kept them from ever working together again. Upon seeing A Bay of Blood, he was so upset by its gore that he left the theater.
Phew! We did it! Sam and I set out to spend a week reviewing rock n’ roll flicks for the week of July 19th to the 25th and went overboard – as is the B&S About Movies modus operandi — with 55 films. Things got so nuts — why do I let Sam’s brilliant ideas for “theme weeks” get me into these messes — that we also did a special “Drive-In Saturday” featurette to go with our usual “Drive-In Friday” weekly feature.
And we still didn’t get to them all!
So be on the lookout for our “Rock ‘n’ Roll Week II” rolling out the week of September 20th to the 26th with another 50-plus films.
Drive-In Friday: Movie Punks La Venganza de Los Punks (1987) Ladies and Gentleman, The Fabulous Stains (1982) Return of the Living Dead (1985) Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)
WHAT? MORE ROCK? Don’t forget that there is a “Rock ‘n’ Roll Week II” to jam on! And there’s a third installment week coming in the last week of August. We’re crazy that way.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Moviesand publishes short stories and music reviews on Medium.
Is it better that a band that was supposed to be big never made it — often via their own drunken design — and instead inspired everyone else, never really getting to the point that people thought they started to sell out and suck? That’s the romantic ideal, I guess. I mean, most bands would kill to get on Saturday Night Live. The Replacements got in a fistfight on stage and were banned.
Beyond the fans that still love them, this movie features Hüsker Dü, the Goo Goo Dolls, the Hold Steady, the Gaslight Anthem and more, all bands that pretty much take their heart and soul from the Minneapolis group.
Director Gorman Bechard also made Psychos In Love and Cemetery High. He took over the project after Hansi Oppenheimer started the movie. He used none of her footage and started over again, keeping only the film’s name concept of fans telling the story.
There is no music, photos or clips of the band. Bechard wanted none in the film, instead creating a music doc without music that is really about how the right band can change your life.
Uh-oh. The studio copywriters are name dropping hit films on the VHS sleeves again. This can’t be good. Wayne’s World? This is Spinal Tap? The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Say what? Bill & Ted’ s Excellent Adventure? The Blues Brothers? Repo Man? Monty friggin’ Python? Surely, you jest, ye stoned public relations copywriter.
Yeah, I fear this is going be Zoo Radio all over again, with its claims of “. . . if you like Porky’s and Animal House. . . .” Yeah, you better strap in, Elwood. This review is going off the friggin’ rails, B&S About Movies style! It’s time for everything you wanted to know about It’s a Complex World . . . but were afraid to ask. . . .
VHS image courtesy of mcknight138/eBay
So, did you know there were two rock ‘n’ roll flicks shot in Providence, Rhode Island? True story.
The first was A Matter of Degrees (1990)—a movie that, courtesy of the oft-seen Prism Video imprint (and Atlantic Records involvement in its production), received decent distribution and was somewhat easy to find on home video shelves. We say “somewhat” because, even with multiple (in my case, three) mom n’ pop video store memberships stuffed in the wallet (and yes, three more from the mega and regional chains of Blockbuster Video, 10,0001 Monster Video, and Video Ave.), most of us didn’t see that beloved (but failed) college radio drama as a rental during its initial year of release—but as an alt-rock artifact excavated by-chance during one of our triangulating-by-phone book home video store excursions on the asphalt rivers. (I eventually came to score two used copies: one I kept; the other was birthday-gifted—along with a CD copy of the soundtrack.)
By then, that John Doe-starring flick (backed by the college rock sounds of Firehose and Miracle Legion) was a forgotten, dusty analog tchotchke stuffed on the shelf of an out-of-way video store sandwiched between a Target and smoothie joint that I happened upon that was having a going-out-business sale. To say I was the proverbial “kid in the candy store” that day is an understatement: I also scored copies of the “No False Metal” classics (but saw them as multiple-rentals) of Hard Rock Zombies, Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare, Rocktober Blood, Shock ‘em Dead, and Terror on Tour—and a copy of the never-seen, second “rock” film shot in Providence: It’s a Complex World.
As with that first Providence-shot flick, It’s a Complex World was a highly coveted rock ‘n’ roll tale lost in a morass of production and distribution snafus; a highly-sought after analog rumored-fable by VHS loving rock dogs (such as myself). Did this movie really exist, or was this another Rock ‘N’ Roll Hotel (1983): just another 3/4” inch tease that was never finished, never made it to home video shelves, and never aired on cable courtesy of USA Network (where all VHS B-Movie schlock went to die) and HBO?
Sadly, this “Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel” fable (okay, it’s a nightclub, but you get the idea) was a rock joint rife with anticipation that, once found, was a letdown (at least for me; some, in other quarters, love it . . . and so it goes).
Instead of those previously mentioned VHS rock ditties that lent themselves to multiple viewings (add The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Cannon’s wacked rock fable, The Apple, and Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise to the list), we ended up with another musical-snoozer ala Playing for Keeps, Scenes from the Goldmine, and Suffering Bastards (all rock club shenanigans flicks). Alas, I didn’t “check-in” to the FM Hilton: this was another Zoo Radio. I wasn’t staying at the hotel Breaking Glass: this was another piss-stained motel Splitz (1984; Robin Johnson from Times Square fronting an all-girl band) . . . or Joey (1985; about the comeback of faux ‘60s rocker Joey King and the Delsonics) or Immortal (1998; boring North Carolina rock-vampire horror). You know what I mean: Allan Moyle’s Pump Up the Volume (1990) was pirate radio gold; Ferd Sebastian’s On the Air Live with Captain Midnight (1979) was a dented, tarnished pewter ale stein crusted in barnacles. . . .
Snork—yes, that’s me yawning; shocking awake to a VCR blue screen, shaking the popcorn dust from my t-shirt and going to take a piss. . . .
Sorry, no offense is intended to the denizens of Providence who have (justified) fond memories of the film’s production and local theatre screenings. For me, It’s a Complex World was one of those chipped VHS Bric-à-bracs that you watch once for the anticipated-curiosity value—fooled into hoping you’re getting an inversion of Allan Arkush’s rock club flick, Get Crazy—and it’s shelved back into the collection as a dust magnet for the next pass of the Swiffer.
So, how did this movie come into being . . . and where did it go wrong?
Well, like most indie movies: out of desperation to make “something.” And it took five cooks to clankin’ the pasta pots. Five writers: screenwriter Dennis Maloney, along with director Jim Wolpaw, club owner Rich Lupo, producer Geoff Adams, and actor-musician-star Stanley Matis each offering their own ingredients to an all-too spicy, starchy pot. And the film had an additional, fifth producer, Charles Thompson, who probably dropped some bardin’ as well.
Anyway, in 1987, Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, a legendary, real life Providence rock club, was in danger of closing (to make way for a condo development). So owner Rich Lupo came up with an idea: let’s make a movie to commemorate the club’s demise and trash the joint!
And as luck would have it: Lupo’s head bartender and club manager, his ex-Brown University roommate, Jim Wolpaw, was a budding filmmaker who received a “Best Documentary, Short Subjects” Oscar nomination for his 1986 short Keats and His Nightingale: A Blind Date (several of his shorts and documentaries have since won prizes at a dozen film festivals worldwide). So the duo organized a benefit concert in July of 1987, booked the Young Adults, filmed it (thus creating their own, original stock footage; take that, Roger Corman!), then scripted “a plot” around the last night shenanigans of a club closing (just like Allan Arkush’s earlier Get Crazy from 1983 commemorating the closing of NYC’s Fillmore East).
The completed film—which took two-and-a-half months to shoot in 1987, then went through two years of post-production, reshoots, and legal wrangling—had an unprecedented four month run at Providence’s Cable Car Theatre, along with a two-month run in Boston and a one week run in New York City—garnering good reviews from the city’s local film critics.
Then its planned, national theatrical distribution with Hemdale (The Who’s Tommy, Escape from the Bronx, Turkey Shoot, River’s Edge, The Terminator, back-to-back Academy Award winners Platoon and The Last Emperor, The Terminator) went sour. While Wolpaw won the case and received a miniscule settlement, the film’s chances for a national release were over.
At that point, the film was turned over to Prism for a home video release. A film that would have programmed nicely amid the USA Network’s “Night Flight” rock programming block alongside Breaking Glass and Ladies and Gentleman: The Fabulous Stains, wasn’t forthcoming—and no HBO or Showtime showings, either. The last public theatre showing of the film was a 20th anniversary screening in 2010 on November 5 and 6 (four sold out showings) for a charity event held at Cable Car Theatre (Carolyn Forest for the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Foundation and in the name of producer Charlie Thompson for Advocates in Action). At that point, Wolpaw vanity-pressed a small lot of DVDs (with two cuts of the film; the rough cut and the video/theatrical cut) for sale through a since defunct website (that also benefited the same charities). But that was ten years ago and those limited-run DVDs are long since out of print.
Courtesy of the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame
For years, it was believed that (in the VHS wastelands outside of Providence, natch) the Young Adults were a faux band scripted for the movie; it turned out they were a real band, real enough that—it’s been said in the annals of Young Adults wikidom—at one time TV producer Lorne Michaels had the Rhode Island rock hopefuls on the short-list to be the house band for Saturday Night Live. Other YA factoids: future Talking Heads founder, David Byrne, auditioned for them. And Charles Rocket, who became a Saturday Night Live cast members and starred in the Farrelly’s Dumb and Dumber, was the lead singer in an early ’70s embryonic version of the Young Adults, the Fabulous Motels. And director Jim Wolpaw and the Young Adults worked together before: Showtime aired their 1978 half-hour documentary, Cobra Snake For A Necktie, with the band backing rock ‘n’ roll legend Bo Diddley. The nine-day sold-out stint was recorded on the Heartbreak’s stage during Diddley’s tour for his 1974 album, Big Bad Bo. (Of course it’s on You Tube! Isn’t everything on You Tube?)
Based on the Young Adults wacked out stage wares and the cheeky brand of Catskills-vaudevillian shtick by comically-dubbed co-lead singers Ruby Cheeks and Sport Fisher, it’s easy to believe that SNL rock-factoid. In fact, comparing the Young Adults to the ’70s San Francisco-era, pre-MTV stardom days of Fee Waybill and the Tubes is not far off the mark. One may say, because of the costuming, Adam and the Ants; but the Ants never recorded songs like “Christmas in Japan in July,” “Do the Heimlich,” “I Wanna Throw Up in the Back of a Limo-sine,” “Kill Yourself,” and “Meat Rampage,” did they? The Young Adults’ lone indie album recorded live at Lupo’s, 1987’s Helping Others, served as the film’s pseudo-soundtrack. Sadly, unlike with A Matter of Degrees, there was never an official soundtrack released to also showcase the music of the also appearing Beat Legends, Roomful of Blues, and Stanley Matis.
The plot, such as it is (less narrative story and more a series of variety show-styled vignettes), is another one of those dads-disappointed-with-his-rock-son flicks. In this case, Jeff Burgess is the manager of a Providence rock joint, The Heartbreak Hotel. A disappointment to his conservative, ex-CIA agent father-cum-Senator now running for the Presidency, Robert Burgess feels his son’s rock club will negatively affect his presidential campaign ambitions. (Hey, isn’t that the plot of 2003’s Malibu’s Most Wanted starring Jamie Kennedy?) So the future “Mr. President” hires revolutionaries to stage a terrorist bombing at the club . . . and his son dying in the chaos will garner him the sympathy vote. That’s politics.
Meanwhile, Providence’s corrupt Mayor (Rich Lupo himself), unaware that the Senator has his own nefarious plans, hires a Civil War-obsessed biker gang (led by wrestling legend Captain Lou Albano; the rock n’ wrestling flick Body Slam) to bust up the club and drive it out of business for a land deal. That’s politics.
Then there’s the disenfranchised Morris Brock (Providence comedian-musician Stanley Matis), an angry, disillusioned geeky singer of angry folk songs who desperately wants to get out from under his successful dead brother’s shadow. So he joins up with the terrorists. That’s proving those parents wrong—even if you gotta blow up the joint “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” style.
Hey! Elvis isn’t going to let his namesake rock club be destroyed! So, from beyond the grave (by voice only; he’s not actually in the film, like in Quentin Tarantino’s True Romance; he doesn’t show up like Hendrix did in the the doppelganger Rock ‘N’ Roll Hotel) “The King” reaches out by phone to Beatlegends, a Beatles tribute band on the bill, and discloses some secrets about John Lennon—and warnings of what’s about to happen to the club.
The rock ‘n’ roll is also provided by blues rockers NRBQ (“12 Bar Blues” and their new wave radio hit “Me and the Boys” appear in the film), who do coke in the bathroom (they also appeared on the soundtracks to Tuff Turfand Sean S. Cunningham’s Spring Break). Also appearing on screen and the “soundtrack” are the New England bands (why Providence’s rock denizens love this movie) Roomful of Blues and Beat Legends. And get this: New Jersey neighbors the Smithereens (appeared on the soundtrack to Albert Pyun’s 1987 juvenile delinquency flick Dangerously Close with “Blood and Roses”) worked as extras getting snookered at the bar (but none of their songs are in the film).
VHS image courtesy of mcknight138/eBay
And proving that all actors have to start somewhere: Peter Gerty and Becca Lish, who starred as part of Lou Albano’s biker gang, are still thespin’ in 2020. You’ve seen Gerty as a regular and guest star in Dick Wolf’s NBC-TV productions Homicide: Life on the Street and the Law & Order franchise. HBO and Showtime subscribers seen him as a cast member on The Wire and Brotherhood, and most recently on Ray Donovan (starring Liev Schreiber), but you’ll definitely remember Gerty as Mall Security Chief Brooks from Paul Mart: Mall Cop among his hundred-plus credits. Providence-based actor Becca Lish got her start in A Matter of Degrees and worked her way up to recent roles in TV’s Law & Order, Younger, and the rebooted Murphy Brown, in addition to voice work on several Disney series.
Cinematographer Denis Maloney is also still going strong in 2020; among his hundred-plus credits are the Witchcraft series (based on the 1988 original; remember the witch with six-breasts? Or was it eight!), Cyber Bandits (1995; Adam Ant), Liberty Stands Still (2002; Wesley Snipes), the Farrelly Brother’s There’s Something About Mary, as well as several, recent Lifetime movies (none with our beloved Eric Roberts, at least not yet!).
The Young Adults’ Ruby Cheeks went on to have a cameo in the Farrelly Brothers’ later Rhode Island-based picture, Jim Carrey’s Me, Myself and Irene.
. . . Now, let’s clear up the Seinfeld rumors that one of “George Costanza’s bosses” appeared in the film: it’s true! Daniel von Bargen (Mr. Kruger from Kruger Industrial Smoothing) stars as the terrorist group’s leader, Malcom.
Say what? There’s no freebie online VHS rips? Oh, well. And since those 2010 DVDs are out-of-print and there’s no official streams (not even as a with-ads stream on TubiTV?), all we have to share with you are the trailer, along with the opening title credits sequence and a clip of the Young Adults on stage in the film.
Ugh, this really is Rock ‘N’ Roll Hotel all over again! When will we ever see the full film?
You can learn more about the catalog of the Young Adults on their Discogs page and a wealth of their tunes are preserved on the You Tube page of Flamingo Land. We’ve also found three of Stanley Matis’s “geek folk” tunes: “New Jersey” (which he performed in the film), and three later tunes: “Buster Christ,” “Empire Review,” and “Frugal Duck.” And the Roomful of Blues album that I remember the most—that got some notice on the more adventurous new wave-oriented radio stations—was their second album, 1979’s Let’s Have a Party, which is on You Tube. (Remember Jack Mack and the Heart Attack in Tuff Turf? Well, it’s cool like that.) You can also learn more about the Rhode Island music scene via the Rhode Island Music Hall of FameYou Tube page and website.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Special thanks to Dangerous Minds.net, Dr. Bristol’s Prescription blog, Providence Daily Dose, Providence Monthly Online, Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame, and Spectacle Theatre NY for their efforts in preserving this rock flick obscurity, which assisted in the preparation of this review.
After the death of GG Allin — covered in Hated — what happened to his brother Merle? And did he leave behind any family? How would you feel if you were the mother of the rocker who left behind a trail of feces, blood, vomit and noise? Originally airing on Showtime, this documentary by Sami Saif attempts to answer that question.
This is probably. the most heartwarming story I’ve ever seen that has a scene here someone takes a dump and uses it as paint.
The strangest thing for me was seeing the life of GG, as he grew up and was in young bands. The image burned into my mind of him is his almost inhuman visage by the time of Hated, distorted by multiple VHS bootlegs, to the point where he almost seems like a demon. To see what he looked like before all the self-destruction and to hear his mother’s pain is pretty intense.
By the way, GG’s mom’s best male friend just hanging out and being supportive is my favorite part. I can only imagine the stories that that poor man has had to listen to.
You can watch this on Tubi. You can also buy it from MVD.
In the ’80s The Knack hit it big . . . and the record companies went looking for the next “My Sharona” . . . and signed the likes of The Plimsouls (“A Million Miles Away”), Translator (“Everywhere That I’m Not”), and Wire Train (“A Chamber of Hellos”). Later on, along came some kid named Kurt Cobain . . . and the record companies searched for instant chart nirvana in the grooves of Bush, Pearl Jam, and Silverchair.
And in between, there was a little ‘ol band out of Ireland called U2. And the record companies gave us the likes of Big Country (remember their guitars “sounded” like bag pipes) from Scotland, along with Ėire Isle’s An Emotional Fish and Hothouse Flowers (both oh, so “Bono”), and Silent Running (imagine Brian Adams writing songs for Bad Company fronted by Bono). But the ones that looked and sounded the most like U2 was a band out of Wales known as The Alarm. Their label, IRS Records (home to another set of U2 hopefuls out of Athens, Georgia, R.E.M), even went as far as booking the Welsh lads on U2’s 1983 groundbreaking “War Tour.” The Irish assist gave the Welsh rockers international success with the songs “The Stand,” “Where Were You Hiding When the Storm Broke?,” “68 Guns,” and “Strength.”
But by the advent of the ’90s — with that kid out of the Pacific Northwest changing the musical landscape — The Alarm was finished. And the record companies wouldn’t give lead vocalist Mike Peters’s new band The Poets Of Justice or his solo endeavors the time of day. He was “too old” and his music was “out of style,” they told him.
So Peters pulled a Milli Vanilli, so to speak.
After writing a new song, “45 RPM,” he recruited an unknown band by the name of the Wayriders to lipsync the song’s promotional video — under the name the Poppy Fields. And the scam worked: the song hit the British Top 30 in 2004 and became the Alarm’s first significant hit in 20 years.
In the frames of this fun, low-budget film loosely based those events, Mike Peters and the Alarm are portrayed by down-on-his luck punk rocker Johnny Jones (Phil Daniels from Breaking Glass and Quadrophenia), the leader of the once glorious Weapons of Happiness. After attending a funeral for one of his old mates, Johnny runs into his old band (as well as Steve Diggle from the Buzzcocks and Peters from the Alarm in cameos) and decides to get the band back together.
. . . And the record companies couldn’t be more disinterested in the “new music” from these ‘ol sods and codgers. So Johnny hires a bunch of fresh-faced youngins to mime his music in a promotional video. The gig — well, jig — is up when the Johnny’s hired guns — the Single Shots — decide they want to be a “real band” and receive more recognition for their work. (Cue Don Kirshner and his Beatles wannabes, the Monkees. Be sure to check out our Exploring: The Movies of Don Kirshner featurette.)
Meanwhile, back in the real world: Mike Peters gave it all up in a Radio 1 interview during a 2004 chart countdown show — and the story was picked up by the international press. After the U.K. and European success of the film and its accompanying soundtrack in 2012, Mike Peters and the Alarm embarked on The Vinyl Tour 2013 to packed venues.
. . . And Peters and the Alarm are still recording. They released their most recent album, Sigma, and its hit single, “Brighter Than the Sun,” in 2019. Ironically, in 2021, the band released the effort, War. You can learn more about that album in this piece by the Los Angeles Daily News.
Yeah, Peters made his point: you’re never too old to rock ‘n’ roll. Amen!
As for director Sara Sugarman — who got her start as an actress in Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy (1986) and a variety of British television series — she’s been named as the new director of the production beleaguered Midas Man (2023), concerned with the relationship between the Beatles and Brian Epstein. We discuss that film — and thirty-three more — as part of our three-part series regarding speculative biographical flicks on the Beatles, the films using the legend of the “Fab Four” as plot fodder, and the historical sidebars to their careers — both as a band and solo artists.
You can stream Vinyl as a free with ads on TubiTv. If you’d prefer an ad-free experience, you can stream it on You Tube Movies.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Week at B&S About Movies was a smashing success . . . one that can’t be contained in just one Drive In Friday* featurette! So, for this week only, we’ve opened up the Drive In for a special Saturday edition for you old punk codgers n’ sods. You know who you are . . . you were in middle school or high school during the advent of the cable TV boom and a fan of the USA Network’s “Night Flight” Friday night video programming block, channel surfing HBO and, later on, haunting the shelves of your local video store . . . so you’ll remember seeing these four punkumentaries. It’s been years since I’ve watched these gems myself, so this’ll be a fun night for all.
Oi! Hey, ho! Let’s go! All Aboardfor Punk Night!
1. Punk In London (1977)
Director Wolfgang Büld bounced around the Germany film and TV industry since the early ’70s and made his English language debut with this German-produced documentary that accompanied the release of a coffee table book of the same name. The film features live performances — some of the footage and sound is of questionable quality — from some of the scene’s top bands, such as the Adverts, the Boomtown Rats, the Clash, the Lurkers, the Jam, Killjoys, the Sex Pistols, Sham 69, the Stranglers, and X-Ray Spex.
Büld followed up this document on the rise of punk rock with a sequel on “the fall” of punk rock, 1980’s Punk and Its Aftershocks, which featured the rise of the new, more commercial crop of ska, new wave, and mod bands that pushed out the punks, such as Madness, Secret Affair, Selector, and the Specials. As with any old VHS reissued to DVD, the reissues company had to tinker with the sequel and give it a new title (the lame “British Rock”) and edit out some footage from the original cut. Ugh!
The restored DVD digital rip of Punk in London currently streams on a variety of VOD platforms, but you can watch it for free on Flick Vaults’ You Tube channel. You can view a complete track listing of the bands and songs that appear in the film on Discogs.
Büld’s other punk documents include the hour-long 1980 TV document Women in Rock (leftovers not used in Punk In London), which centers on the German tours of British metalers Girlschool, along with Brit punkers the Slits, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Nina Hagen (Cha Cha), along 1978’s with Reggae in Babylon centered on the career of English reggae pioneers Steel Pulse. Büld made his narrative, dramatic debut with the German language (dubbed into English) film debut of Nena (of “99 Luftballoons” fame) in Gib Gas – Ich will Spaß! (Hangin’ Out).
2. The Punk Rock Movie (1978)
And you thought the footage featured in Punk In London was rough . . . the grainy, shaky images and muddy sound of this debut film by British punk scenester and club DJ Don Letts makes Büld’s works look like award winners . . . but we thank Letts for gearing up that Super-8 camera to chronicle those 100 glorious days in 1977 when Neal Street’s fashionable disco The Roxy booked punk bands in the venue where Letts spun records.
The live acts and backstage interviews include Alternative TV, the Clash, Generation X (Billy Idol), Eater, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Slaughter and the Dogs, the Slits, Subway Sect, and X-Ray Spex. So, regardless of its home movie quality, the film serves as a vital document of London’s then burgeoning punk rock scene.
Letts went onto form Big Audio Dynamite with Mick Jones (after his firing from the Clash) and directed a number of short-form music videos (the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah”) and long-form TV and DVD documentaries, such as 2005’s Punk: Attitude (Euro TV/U.S. DVD) and Westway to the World, his 2003 Grammy Award-winning documentary on the Clash.
The Punk Rock Movie is available on a few VOD streaming platforms, such as Amazon Prime (region dependent), but there’s a VHS rip available on You Tube. You can review the film’s full track listing on Discogs.
Intermission: Punktoons!
. . . And Back to the Show!
3. D.O.A (1980)
London-born Polish documentarian Lech Kowalski’s feature film debut (he made a few shorts and TV films) centers around the 16-mm footage he shot during the Sex Pistols’ 1978 seven-city club ‘n’ bars tour of the United States — their only U.S tour — that ended with the band’s demise. The behind-the-scenes interview footage features the now infamous “John and Yoko” bed-inspired interview of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen (You Tube). To fill out the short running time, Kowalski cut in performances and interviews with Iggy Pop, along with the Clash, the Dead Boys, Generation X, the Rich Kids (featuring ex-Pistols bassist Glen Matlock), Sham 69, and X-Ray Spex.
Lech’s other rock documents are 2002’s Hey! Is Dee Dee Home, about the life and times of Ramones bassist Dee Dee Ramone (1952-2002), and 1999’s Born to Loose: The Last Rock ‘n Roll Movie, concerned with the life and career of Johnny Thunders (1952-1991) of the New York Dolls and the Heartbreakers (the second, at one time featured, Richard Hell from Blank Generation). Meanwhile, footage from D.O.A appeared in Julien Temple’s 2000 Sex Pistols document The Filth and the Fury (which I went to see in a U.S art house theatre setting).
This one’s not streaming as VOD, but we found two VHS rips on You Tube HERE and HERE to enjoy. You can view the full track listing of the film on Discogs.
4. Urgh! A Music War (1981)
. . . And we saved the best-produced documentary for last: this one dispenses with the backstage tomfoolery and goes right to the stage with professionally-shot footage compiled from a variety of 1980-era shows held in England, France, and the United States. And there’s a couple of reasons why the Police spearhead Urgh! A Music War: Not only were they the most commercially radio-successful “new wave” band of the groups featured; Derek Burbidge, the director, helmed several videos (the famous “Roxanne”) for the Police (he also did Gary Numan’s “Cars”), while Miles Copeland, the brother of the Police’s drummer, Stewart Copeland, managed the Police and operated IRS Records, which produced the film. The film briefly appeared in U.S. theatres via Filmways Pictures (seen it in an art house theatre, natch), but gained its cult status due to its frequent airings on HBO and the USA Network’s “Night Flight” video block.
Beginning in 2009, Warner Archive (the successor-in-interest to Lorimar Pictures, who co-produced with IRS) released an official DVD-R of the movie — burned on a made-to-order basis. As result, this one’s not available as a cable PPV or VOD online stream and the freebie You Tube and Vimeo rips don’t last long. However, searching “Urgh! A Music War” on You Tube populates numerous concert clips from the film. The bands you know in those clips are the mainstream MTV video bands the Police, Devo, Echo & the Bunnymen, the Go-Go’s, Joan Jett, Gary Numan, Oingo Boingo, Wall of Voodoo, X, and XTC. The lesser known bands featured — that some know and most don’t — include L.A.’s the Alley Cats, the Dead Kennedys (Terminal City Ricochet), Magazine (off-shoot of the Buzzcocks), the Fleshtones (Peter Zaremba hosted IRS: The Cutting Edge for MTV), Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, 999, Pere Ubu, the Surf Punks, and Toyah Wilcox (Breaking Glass).
You can view the film’s full track listing on Discogs while you listen to the soundtrack in its entirety on You Tube: Side A/B and Side C/D.
All images of the ’80s original issue VHS covers — the cover arts I remember when I rented them — are courtesy of Discogs.
1993 was a weird time. I mean, 2020 is a weird time too, but I’ve often discussed the pre-millennial tension that the world was suffering from, as well as the pre-WWW explosion of zines and the output of Feral House, whose Apocalypse Culture was a bible for the many behaviors and trends of the coming end of the world. Little did we know we’d all be sitting in our houses watching TV and wearing paper masks. The armageddon that James Shelby Downard was leading to seemed a lot cooler, to be honest.
Jesus Christ Allin was given that named because his mother claimed that the Son of God visited her and said that he would be a great man. His brother Merle couldn’t pronounce that name, but could say it phonetically. Hence, GG Allin.
The boys’ father was, to be charitable, a maniac and an abusive religious nut who continually promised to kill them, even digging a grave for the family in the cellar. This makes more sense when you think of all the times that GG promised that he would kill himself on stage.
Oh man. I’m writing this in a bubble thinking that everyone knows who he is. And then I realize that Allin died 27 years ago, in a time where there was no true-crime culture and only weirdos were obsessed with John Wayne Gacy.
This is an oversimplification, but Allin’s stage shows were mainly him attempting a song and then terrorizing the audience. Sometimes that involved baiting them with words or threats of violence. Other times, he’d shit all over the stage, put the microphone up his ass and throw feces at people.
You know. Rock and roll.
Somehow, Todd Phillips — yes, the man who directed Joker— made this at NYU before a career that includes Old School, Starsky & Hutch and three The Hangover movies. I don’t say that in an elitist way. It’s just interesting to go from GG bloody and scat-strewn on stage screaming to yuks.
There’s no real point of view in this, but you’re either going in knowing who Allin was, or as a fan, or as someone with preconceived notions of whether or not what he was doing was art. In today’s culture, the lyrics and actions of Allin wouldn’t have made him the underground counterculture force that he was. He’d have been canceled long before. Yet for a time, there he was, literally screaming, pissing and shitting into the wind.
I’ve always been obsessed with desert rock (Desolation Center), which I first discovered thanks to Kyuss and all the bands that spun off from that influential time. You’d probably know Queens of the Stone Age if you don’t know this scene, but I’d also recommend any of their Desert Session group albums if you want to hear some fuzzy, lo-fi magic. This film unites the leaders of the desert bands and shows why this style of music could only emerge from the Coachella Valley.
Where grunge blew up fast and destroyed the Sunset Strip hair metal era, whatever was getting played under the wide open skies miles away was completely different. Rougher. Sexier. Groovier Druggier? Well, more mellow drugs maybe.
Joerg Steineck also put together a doc about Truckfighters, which if you know this kinda music, you’re already hunting down. And if you don’t, you’re like, huh?
This is the kind of music that most hits my soul, as it combines punk, metal and even doom into its own thing, noodling out and getting weird. This movie features tons of people discussing this genre, but it never comes off as braggy as some other music interview docs get. It feels inclusive and welcoming of differences, which, if you think about it, is the main strength of the desert.
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