old punks web zine
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Movies and Video, Part I

A Dirty Shame to End Of The Century: The Story Of The Ramones

BAD DIALOGUE ALERT! Chasing Amy has some of the most over-written, amateurish dialogue ever written, like a really bad off-off-Skid Row play. It's Shakespearean in the Ed Wood sense. Here's Ben Affleck's big speech-o-professed love fans find so beautiful. As I listened to it I thought of at least 12 good writers doing pinwheels in their graves, or at least the funny speech in Plan 9 From Outer Space where Dudley Manlove as Eros emotes "You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!":

I love you. And not in a friendly way, although I think we're great friends. And not in a misplaced affection, puppy-dog way, although I'm sure that's what you'll call it. And it's not because you're unattainable. I love you. Very simple, very truly. You're the epitome of every attribute and quality I've ever looked for in another person. I know you think of me as just a friend, and crossing that line is the furthest thing from an option you'd ever consider. But I had to say it. I can't take this anymore. I can't stand next to you without wanting to hold you. I can't look into your eyes without feeling that longing you only read about in trashy romance novels. I can't talk to you without wanting to express my love for everything you are. I know this will probably queer our friendship -no pun intended- but I had to say it, because I've never felt this before, and I like who I am because of it. And if bringing it to light means we can't hang out anymore, then that hurts me. But I couldn't allow another day to go by without getting it out there, regardless of the outcome, which by the look on your face is to be the inevitable shoot-down. And I'll accept that. But I know some part of you is hesitating for a moment, and if there is a moment of hesitation, that means you feel something too. All I ask is that you not dismiss that -at least for ten seconds- and try to dwell in it. Alyssa, there isn't another soul on this fugging planet who's ever made me half the person I am when I'm with you, and I would risk this friendship for the chance to take it to the next plateau. Because it's there between you and me. You can't deny that. And even if we never speak again after tonight, please know that I'm forever changed because of who you are and what you've meant to me, which -while I do appreciate it- I'd never need a painting of birds bought at a diner to remind me of. 

A Dirty Shame (DVD review): When John Waters lost Divine an era of great bad filmmaking came to an end. The Woody Allen of Baltimore, Waters manages to scrape together funds every few years to make a film that will most probably suck, yet still must be watched out of counter-culture obligation. A Dirty Shame is his best film since Serial Mom and a hundred times better than the career depths of Pecker and Cecil B. Demented, but the party ended years ago for the shock value of John Water's bad taste.

Waters has a bizarro-puritan streak that comes out in his mostly faux-shocked amazement at what people do for pleasure. He's a reserved voyeur in the cultures he embraces, and I'd say he's more like his parents than he'd admit, but he's always admitted to being a closet upper middle class square. A collector of sexual phraseology, Waters waters A Dirt Shame with every nugget he could find, and while on one level it's funny it's also less of a script than a laundry list. The best perv tidbit in the film is the "Upper Decker", rivaling "Tea Bagging" in my heart as the funniest thing in the universe.

A Dirt Shame is shocking, I guess, but not to anyone I hang around with. It's true to its camp vision but the lesson of it is known before the film even starts, so it just plays itself out and then ends. Thematically it's a lot like Hairspray but I don't envision a Broadway run for this one. Does the world need another John Water's counter-morality play?

Technically A Dirty Shame is Water's Citizen Kane. The lighting is perfect, the acting good across the board and the endless reaction shots from extras finally achieve correct timing. Nobody mangles Water's stilted dialogue, which makes me miss Edith Massey that much more.

This film proves once again that most people look good in layers and layers of clothes. Patti Hearst is either addicted to botox or face lifts. David Hasselhoff makes a weird cameo in the same year he made a strange cameo in The Spongebob Squarepants movie.

Here's some funny trivia on this NC-17 film:

"When the MPAA were asked what would needed to be cut to obtain an R rating, they replied that if everything the MPAA objected to were to be removed, the movie would only be 10 minutes long."

Tori Amos - Live From NY (video review) (Warner): When I get the itch to see what Kate Bush is up to I rent a new Tori Amos Video. I don't own any Tori Amos records but there are a few songs of hers I like. A few years ago in Las Vegas I was handed a free ticket to a Tori Amos concert and enjoyed most of it. What I remember most was; how odd it was to have a so many stuffed animals wedged amongst the speakers and instruments; that Tori strung too many slow, similar songs together, and how the crowd of mostly teen and college women reacted to every nuance of her singing and facial expressions with shrieks of ecstasy. Pretentiousness isn't a crime, and maybe Tori Amos really does speak directly to the tormented inner sanctums of intelligent, sensitive young women. Still, it's funny to see it in action.

Live From NY is a taping of her only show of 1997, a benefit for an organization she helped found, RAINN (the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network). Tori is a victim of rape, or she may just sing about rape - not even her fans agree. I hope she wasn't, and if she was I hope the guy’s dead now. That's that on that. What I do know is Tori Amos is weird, distant and the victim of something. A co-worker tells me she’s a complete loon in interviews. Live From NY spends most of its 100 minutes zoomed in on her face and either she has a problem with depth perception or she's staring into another dimension. Her eyes cross like Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl. Tori appears to be possessed by her own music yet still slightly disconnected from everything and everyone. It's all eccentric in a quaint and (I guess) harmless way.

Tori talks between songs and for the life of me I have no idea what she's getting at. There's a difference between mysterious and incoherent. Her speech pattern would be a mumble if I wasn’t able to understand each word. The female fans in the audience are shown to be either frozen in awe or reacting in joyous panic. The boyfriends look like they're making mental lists of future favors owed, and they all involve sex.

The frequent groupings of slow songs begin to sound the same. A guitarist comes out after four songs, and I'm thinking eventually it'll be an entire band like when I saw her, but, that's it and the set plods on. The only highlight for me was "Cornflake Girl". Any of the slower songs might have worked in isolation but not in an endless barrage of sameness. The oddest and funniest part of the tape was the time she left the piano to attempt dance and movement and the edge of the stage. Any more stiff and she'd be dead. I didn't expect such a total lack of coordination. All I could think of was Kate Bush spinning in her grave. Oh, Kate's not dead? Well, if he were dead she'd be twirling.

The show could have been paced better with more lively songs. That's all I found lacking. A $1.50 rental and something to review. That's my excuse.

The Anarchist Cookbook (DVD review): Any film referencing anarchy that's not unequivocally insulting and mocking is a bad one because this brand of youth idiocy and adult cretinism shouldn't be encouraged. The Anarchist Cookbook is a bad but not that bad film with decent performances but uneven writing filled with situations beyond improbable to truly impossible. I’m not the type to not like a joke because I know a dog can’t drive a car, but some of the whimsical scene endings and coincidences contrived by writer/director Jordan Susman fall so flat they should end with the sound effect “Wa wa wa waaaaaaaaaaa!”

Anarchy is about Being Against for its own sake. It’s not pro-anything because Bad Is Good overrides all their slogans and rationalizations. Anarchists always smile when they say what they’re “for” because they know they're lying. My question is this: if anarchists declare war against society, why can’t society fight back? Is it because most of them are little rich kids? Is it because people who claim to obey no laws would sue in a heartbeat if their rights were infringed? It’s funny when it’s not sad.

Puck is the central character of a film inspired by SLC Punk, Fight Club, Trainspotting and Suburbia. He’s supposed to represent the conscience of the film but all in all he’s too much of an asshole to be likeable. The film takes such a dim view of people who actually work for a living they show Puck and his rasta-Stimpy pal Double D stealing from a poor and obviously physically handicapped street vendor. This passes for wacky fun. They show yuppies from 1983 or so throughout the movie. Odd.

John (No Reasonable Offer Refused) Savage is good as a hippie but the diary thing was badly conceived. Dylan (Don't Call Me Angel) Bruno is also good as a pathological nihilist. All the major players are good, but some of the speaking and all the non-speaking extras are below amateur.

The Anarchist Cookbook annoyed me in the beginning because it presented idiot anarchist dogma as fact, spewed in excited voiceovers. It settled into a workable pattern of humanistic discourse broken up by acts of stupidity and bad storytelling. The ending sure pissed off the anarchy kids! Wa wa wa waaaaaaaaaaa!

For some real laughs read the user comments at the IMDB. Here's one now from Sammy: "I guess my missive is directed at the other people who have seen it and at the other people who DARE TO WATCH IT WITH AN OPEN MIND (a cardinal sin in this day and age)." He titled his review "Too smart for today's dumb audiences". To Sammy, and to all the kids, I say this: Smash the state/before you graduate/then you gotta get a job/and it's too late!! 

Angry Samoans - True Documentary (video review) (Triple XXX): Let's be honest. Nobody cares what the Angry Samoans recorded after 1982's Back From Samoa. Angry Samoans fans put on "They Saved Hitler's Cock" and "Lights Out", not the psychedelic- hippie "Staring At The Sun" or "STP Not LSD". Released in 1995, True Documentary shows the band with original members Mike Saunders, Gregg Turner and Bill Vockeroth, mixed with videos of various side projects and a revolving door of backing members. For years Turner and Saunders were at each other's throats and for a time there were two bands calling themselves the Angry Samoans. Turner eventually gave it up for life as a college professor but his bitterness towards Metal Mike is still evident. Once you know how much bad blood there is between the two, seeing them together on the same tape can be a bit unpleasant.

Old music videos are mixed with interviews and a late rperiod show in Los Angeles. No coherent band history is given and no master outline was followed putting this together. Metal Mike talks about sleeping in his car after L.A. gigs and Turner rambles about math theory in one of the comedy sketches filmed for the tape. The story of the Angry Samoans is more interesting than this lets on, and one day I hope it's given the treatment it deserves. It's a story of rock critics who formed a band as homage to The Dictators and then went about alienating everyone with clever yet vicious critiques of their own scene. The hole they dug for themselves with "Get Off The Air", a brutal putdown of DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, is worthy of a lot more consideration. The infighting, eventual dissolution into two bands with the same name, and Turner's hateful obsession with Metal Mike is all great material for more study. VH1 would do a good job but we don't live in a punk world.

True Documentary is decent for what it is. What the world really needs is an old live show with everything off Back From Samoa. 

The Angry Samoans 1996-1997 (video review): I bought this for five samolians directly from Metal Mike Saunders at an Angry Samoans show. He bought 99 cent blank videotapes and made copies of this twenty song collection of songs from various shows over a two year period. The cover is a typed song list secured with scotch tape. To call this hodgepodge would be like saying a crusty punk's underwear is stained. That the production values rival Mexican snuff films wouldn't be such a big deal if the contents weren't so disjointed and at times deathly dull.

The Angry Samoans were, along with Fear, hardcore’s finest early ambassadors of confrontation with vicious yet intelligent wit. Where bands before them were punk snotty The Samoans and Fear took crowd baiting and lyrical troublemaking to new highs and lows. Along with the cretin anthems of "They Saved Hitler's Cock" and "Steak Knife" were barbed insults at Rodney Bingenheimer and Posh Boy, two important figures in the early L.A. scene. Needless to say the Angry Samoans made very few friends. What had to frustrate their enemies was the greatness of the material. 1982's Back From Samoa is one of the top five hardcore albums.

Years of infighting led to Turner exiting the band, at which point Metal Mike took ownership of the Angry Samoans name. He’s stopped releasing material under the band name Metal Mike and reverted to calling himself the Angry Samoans.

When you see the Samoans live you'll see Metal Mike on guitar (and for a while on drums), original drummer Bill Vockeroth and a few recent additions. This video has scenes with Metal Mike band members playing as the Angry Samoans. Metal Mike, who looks like Radar from M.A.S.H., baits the audience and invites having small stuffed animals thrown at him. The set I saw a few months ago is the same damn set from 1996. It’s as old as vaudeville, from "The Star Spangled Banner" to the "Tequila" dance contest. It's less a concert than a small punk musical revue. You'd expect some variety in the cover songs since Mike's an expert on music history, but this tape shows that "Little Black Egg" and "Knowledge" are crazy glued onto their set list.

Mike's no Lee Ving, being small and cuddly, so when you see him baiting the crowd you want to tell him to be quiet and play another song already. In his signature sleeveless t-shirt and backwards baseball cap you might also want to call him Wally. The songs are great but the gaps in between go on forever. They really need to tighten their set and play the hits

The tape was shot with a hand held video camera by whomever was there that particular night. Edited using two home video machines, there's no production value and the picture quality is what you'd expect from a third generation copy. A number of shows are cut together so at least it's not just some yutz taping from fifty feet back at one gig. For fans only.

Another State Of Mind (video review) (Time Bomb Filmworks): I saw this in a theater in 1983 so I'm more punk than you'll ever be. Living in DC I always think of this as the movie with Minor Threat, which runs along the same line with how in Hong Kong the Green Hornet TV series was called The Kato Show even though Bruce Lee wasn't the lead.

This 78 minute videotaped movie tries to be more than your standard slice-of-life-on-the-road concert film but it comes no way near Penelope Spheeris' The Decline Of Western Civilization, punk's best documentation to date. Maybe filmmakers Peter Stuart and Adam Small missed out by traveling in their own rented truck instead of riding with the bands in their dingy school bus. The sights, the sounds, the smells! Interviews with local punk kids are decent but lack that dramatic sense of social nihilism. The poor sound also makes certain segments hard to follow.

The film's premise is a DIY tour by L.A.'s Better Youth Organization (BYO) record label, placing Youth Brigade, Social Distortion and assorted roadies into an old school bus as they play 30 to 35 shows in five weeks. Cities featured are San Francisco, Seattle, Calgary, Winnipeg, Montreal, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Washington DC and Baltimore. As the tour drags on and eleven people exist on $10 each a day tempers flare and friendships are tested. Promoters screw the bands, the bus breaks down and once again, what odors must have fermented in that bus. In Detroit two roadies call it quits. By the time the bus gives up the ghost for good in DC, everyone in Social D. except Mike Ness skips town in disgust over Mike’s alcoholism and the general lack of money and food. Like a dysfunctional family on Geraldo they detail Mike's problems for the camera and the world. Lacking a band, Ness heads home and the three Stern brothers of Youth Brigade ride back to California in the filmmaker's truck.

Some highlights: In Calgary the bands must sneak into a club through a back fire escape because fat, punk hating rednecks are waiting in front to beat them up. In Montreal we meet Marcel, who is pretty smashed up after a car crash. He says he's going to kill himself in two years because life is not worth living. I thought GG Allin owned the rights to the distant future death wish. Thee kids in Los Angeles practice stage diving in a nice backyard pool, which serves as a reminder how middle class punk is. In New York there's a religious service put on at the P.U.N.X. House. A minister says, "As far as the punk rock music, I'm not really that familiar with it. My own opinion would be that it does not bring God much glory." The scene seems rigged on both sides. The punks at the sermon don't seem too sincere and the minister doesn't have a clue about the punk culture he's preaching to. In Chicago, Brian gives a lesson on the various forms of slam dancing. Since the bus breaks down for good in DC we see Minor Threat practice in the cramped basement of the Dischord House, a bit of concert action in Baltimore and an action shot of Ian scooping ice cream at his joe job. As a side note, the man who owned that shop had a massive right forearm from scooping. His left forearm was regular size.

The film's major point appears to be that slam dancing is an artful form of expression and a healthy release of pent up personal issues. Slamming is the dumbest thing ever, right up there with graffiti. This point about how your friends are there to pick you up, and that it's really not about hatred is such crap The slow motion close-ups of the slammer's faces proves this to be a full wet diaper. All you see is caveman stomping and the deliberate use of elbows to hurt someone - anyone. You can see the hatred in eyes as lips tighten around clenched teeth.

The other major theme is that government/religion/family/school/society failed these kids. There may be some validity to this but as an issue it’s been done before, and maybe these kids fail themselves too.

On a DIY scale I rate Another State Of Mind two thumbs up. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn’t into punk already because Another State Of Mind makes us look pretty inept. 

Anything Boys Can Do.. - (video review) (1996): While not a definitive documentary on the riot grrrl movement of the mid-nineties this is a nicely done survey of nine female-fronted New York City bands and assorted local scenesters. The question of how women fit into the heavily male oriented rock scene has been addressed before. This time it's from the exclusive perspective of the NY punk scene. The answers are what you'd expect: some find sexism rampant, others don't; the skinhead chicks act like they don't notice or care. Of course when you're talking to the uber-dyke band Tribe 8, who pine to castrate men, the politics have a more radical component than even heavy metal.

At the beginning of the film the stereotyped female band is described as "folk music and victim wails". The remaining 70 minutes (of course) prove this wrong. The following bands are interviewed and filmed in concert: Thrust (bad stage theatrics), VitaPup (two guys & one girl beating the hell out of the drums), Sexpod (very intelligent, sounds like Fugazi), Homer Erotic (poetry sung over (mostly) world beat percussion), the Maul Girls, Tribe 8 (hint: they don't like boys), The Voluptuos Horror of Karen Black, Sisters Grimm (glam), and my favorites, The Wives, who are hardcore meets X.

Also interviewed is a spoken word artist who takes herself way too seriously. She talks about the reactions she gets, and based on her work here I'd say it’s along the lines of "what the hell?" Spoken word is a type of performance where you spout random opinions and stories in a manner that seems like poetry but isn't. She opens for punk shows! I remember how in the ‘70s comedians would open for rock bands and the fans threw things and screamed curses. In the PC punk 90s that's not supposed to happen but the unspoken reaction might still be the same.

Anything Boys Can Do is loosely organized around topics like nudity (plenty of it here), dykes (lots of those too), feminism (evenly rejected and accepted) and what it's like to be female in the (cock)-rock world. The Continental club puts on "PMS" nights where female bands play, and they're told that's the only night available. Guys are amazed women can play and express it in sexist terms. As a solution/reaction to this, the riot-grrrl movement is both the best and worst thing to happen. It's good to rally around a cause, put on shows, start record labels and publish zines, but when the riot-grrrl movement goes so far out of its way to alienate and exclude men not only are they setting themselves up for obsolescence, they’re being as bad as sexist men. Punk has limited appeal to start with. The number of women into punk is a fraction of that small fraction. Feminists can turn to other outlets to express riot-grrrl themes. In the film they talk about how guys could only go to Riot-Grrrl meetings if they wore a dress. What some guys will do to get laid.

The editing, sound, and cinematography are great, and the style is interesting without resorting to MTV gimmicks. I don't know, but I'd guess this was made as a film school project to be shown on NY's cable TV.

Bad Religion - Along The Way (video review): I'm so happy this was a concert film and not a disguised Gnome Crapsky lecture. The tape was filmed during a series of 1989 concerts in Germany to promote Suffer, which at the time rejuvenated the punk genre and set the tone for a few more great albums (No Control and Against The Grain), which were then followed by a number of repetitive dullards and, all media hype aside, a slide into musical irrelevance. Having started a thriving record label of their own, Bad Religion signed with Atlantic in 1993 and was rightly branded as sell-outs. Epitaph is now a leading kiddie punk label run by political pedophiles, and as we speak the guys may be on the road supporting Blink-182. Yes, Blink-182, the enemas of the state.

What makes this so laughable is that Brett Gurewitz (booze and crack fiend no longer in the band) and Greg Graffin (messiah) are full of their own DIY righteous indignation. They write dogmatic songs and lecture on the evils of government, big business, school, religion, authority and maybe even the "cross at the green, not in between" safety campaign. Ian McKaye may have regretted opening the Pandora’s Box of straight-edge, but at least he didn't end up an alcoholic, dope-addled putz who exposes his putz on the internet. Here's some promo jizz from the Atlantic Records site:

Bad Religion has spent almost two decades questioning and challenging the tacit, dogmatic structure of our society. Our methods have been non-traditional in that we have used the avenues of pop-culture and the media. But since we have always promoted questioning instead of professing to know all the answers, our process has been fundamentally scientific. Through our works, we have advanced many testable hypotheses about the world we live in.

Oh, I get it, they're destroying The System by becoming The System. Henry “Neck’ Rollins operates under the same personal exemption. I didn't realize touring with Blink-182 was that subversive. To be honest, I detest their politics but like some of their records. I stopped buying their records a long time ago. That they've become a laughing stock is not my concern. Start the revolution without me, kids.

Along The Way was filmed in fourteen cities, and for all I know each song involves edits from all fourteen shows. Possibly only one static camera was used. It's disorienting at first because it looks like there's eight guitarists and four singers with the same face and voice but different clothing. The drummer never changes because he never wears a shirt. Which reminds me, is it uncool for a band to wear their own logo t-shirts on stage? The synch editing is decent, which keeps the reality of it not being one concert not so detaching. The songs are good because Suffer is a great album. Since the crowd reaction is nil, either the German kids understood no English or they didn't care what Brett’s saying.

The interview segments are interesting, if only because they show how full of crap these guys are. Brett rationalizes his crack addiction for-ever and Greg admits "The music is the vehicle for the words." He talks about the transforming power of his own lyrics like he’s the new Moses. How egotistical to think you can dictate public policy because you sing. I'd hate to think anyone got an idea in their head because of something I wrote. I do this for poops and giggles. Bad Religion think they're secular gods and I will mock them until their fans realize how unqualified millionaire rock stars are to promote agendas. But who am I kidding. If Michael Jordan made commercials saying he only wipes his tushy with Charmin, 100 million more trees will die to help fulfill the demand for his choice of poop squeegee. To borrow a phrase from Stan Lee, "Nuff Said!" 

Big Black- Pig Pile - (Video review) (Touch and Go Video): I’ve seen two bootleg concert videos of Chicago's Big Black. They both stink. This one is Official Product and serves as a live greatest hits collection. When I saw them they played all the album tracks they could, which meant they played the filler and left out the meat. I didn’t stay long.

 Pig Pile is great. Two or three cameras were used and the sound quality is excellent. The back of the removable video box cover sheet is filled with liner notes from Steve Albini, with notes and comments familiar to anyone who owns the album notes. The comment on "Pavement Saw" reads, "The male-female relationship, as a subject for song, is thoroughly bankrupt. This attempt is noteworthy mainly for preposterously drawn-out introduction and Santiago's hummingbird-like solo at the end."

Filmed in the summer of 1987 at London’s The Hammersmith Clarendon during Big Black's last tour, this tape is a great example of what industrial punk meant before the pissed-off-white-guy disco of NIN and Prodigy. You can just smell the evil rising off "Kerosene", "Bad Penny" and "Jordan, Minnesota". Albini claims in the notes his lyrics were not part of any aesthetic plan. Since I think he’s 100% amoral to begin with this may be true. He writes, "Anybody who thinks we overstepped the playground perimeter of lyrical decency (or that the public has any right to demand ‘social responsibility’ from a goddamn punk rock band) is a pure natural dolt, and should step forward and put his tongue up my ass."

Live songs are interspersed with clips of fireworks and people setting their clothing on fire. During the show Albini's white Die Kreuzen t-shirt gets covered with his own blood, most likely from a hand injury. Guitarist Santiago Durango prowls a two foot square area while bass player Dave Riley looks off blankly into space. Roland (the drum machine) doesn't move at all.

 This is an excellent concert tape and well worth seeking out. My copy came with a clear plastic 5" single with the same song on both sides, a re-make of the bad mid-‘80s disco pop tune "In My House". Why this song, and why twice, remain two of life's great mysteries.

Big Black - The Last Blast (video review) (Black Label): This show, their last, was recorded at the Georgetown Steamplant in Chicago, a fit setting for punk's best industrial band. Most industrial is disco, and while you can argue Big Black played a morose funk, Big Black was first and foremost a heavy hardcore outfit who used a drum machine to create bludgeons, not dance tracks. While not as good as Pig Pile, The Last Blast is a sturdy collection of hits from a band that preferred not to play them live.

Steve Albini's recurring theme during the set is "I thought I told you to shut up". It's amazing how many fans look like Albini, from the pencil neck to the thick glasses. One of the most e-vile bands around, Big Black looked life's worst horrors straight in the eyes, chomped on popcorn and sometimes cracked a smile while humanity ripped itself to shreds. Big Black sang about evil that masquerades as everyday life - from racism to child swapping. The tale of Jordan, Minnesota ended up being a recovered memory scam, but as fiction the song works well. If death came in only two varieties - quick, painful, loud and bloody; or slow, deliberate, unblinking and bloody - Big Black was obsessed with the latter.

Big Black were great. Don't get me wrong. The Last Blast catches them at their best. Too bad the crowd is better amplified than the band. Here's the set list in no order: "Hammer of Love", "The Model", "Bad Penny", "Cables", "Kerosene", "Jordan, Minnesota", "Fish Fry", "Deep Six", "Big Money" and "Dead Billy". After the last song the three guitarists smash their instruments into toothpicks, an emphatic statement that both symbolizes the end of Big Black as a band and a final "12FU" to the audience that there won’t be an encore. As the band leaves a pile of firecrackers are lit at the foot of the stage. If someone lost an eye Albini would have shrugged and smirked "That's life".

Black Flag (live video review) (Jettisoundz): I consider Black Flag a hard rock band first and a hardcore band second, so this review is written in that light. This 55 minute live tape was released in 1984 in support of My War, whose cover art adorns the tape box. Kira Rossler is on bass and Henry in all his short shorts glory is vocalist. Greg Ginn, minor deity rock god guitarist, stands way out front, and I think Bill Stevenson of The Descendents is on drums.

This is a hard rock show, and not a very interesting one at that. The few audience members you see stand like lumps with their arms folded. Henry, in the band for a few years by this time, is so tone-deaf and off-time it's a marvel he's even considered a singer. He's trying to be Charles Manson doing Iggy Pop, with a few Milo (The Descendents) phrasings thrown in. I have no idea what he sounds like now, so maybe he's improved, but here he's a spectacle of ineptness. "Nervous Breakdown" and "Six Pack" are punk standards but the rest are slow hard rock jams with Henry screaming with both hands gripping the microphone like it weighed 90 lbs. Ginn's banging his head and playing hard rock as fast as he can without the buzzsaw effect of thrash-metal. On this tape Black Flag is closer to Flipper than the Bad Brains in total sound and appeal.

At the close of the tape Henry says "As much fun as you two guys make fun of us and everything, you still don't make me feel bad about myself, you know, you make... I, I still feel alright... there ain't nothing wrong with me. There's ain't nothing wrong with me. You make fun of me, you're just making fun of you, and that's OK." That he held back tears was the bravest act I’ve ever witnessed.

To the press, Henry is twice the Renaissance man Jello Biafra is only because he's so darn handsome. Henry Rollins has a romanticized view of himself and his minute by minute self-chronicled life. Many rock stars mythologize themselves. Henry's stance of tough world-weariness, though, quickly grows old. I have nothing against the guy personally since he’s a harmless speck on the landscape but I wish he could see there's more to being the real thing than just clenching your massive jaw and looking deadly serious. 

The Blank Generation (video review) (Video Arts Music): From 1976, and it might be the first punk rock documentary. Well, it is a document of the NYC scene at the time but since there are no interviews or spoken dialogue it's more like random concert footage. But since there's no correlation between the demo, album and live song fragments that accompany the bands, The Blank Generation is then more an art school concept film. The camera speed and some of the band's antics are like The Monkees but the lighting and looks on people's faces is out of The Night Of The Living Dead. Whatever the hell this is, it goes on way too long. Andy Warhol was probably the direct inspiration.

There's a beatnik feel to The Blank Generation, as if co-directors Amos Poe and Ivan Kral expect the audience to snap their fingers instead of clap their hands. Each frame has the look of an old photograph where only a blinding flash illuminates what was once a dark room. The moving picture effect is neat for about six minutes. After that I found myself fast-forwarding through most of the rest. It's nice to see The Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Wayne County, Blondie and The Heartbreakers back in 1976, but this glorified home movie is distracting and annoying. Sure, the filmmaker's budget was zilch and there's guerrilla artiness to it, but 80% of any interested audience might walk out after a bit. The rest would fall asleep.

The best use of this is as a silent film on a bar's TV screens. Then people can glance up and see Wayne County dressed in garbage and Dee Dee Ramone when he was still handsome enough to join The Monkees. The soundtrack contains rare demos and live tracks. The best of those would make a nice CD. The other bands in the film are Harry Toledo, Tuff Darts and The Marbles. They leave no impression at all. Blondie was a retro girl group. Patti Smith loved the Doors and the Stones. Wayne County played campy cabaret. The rest worshipped either the Stones or the Velvet Underground. Of all the NYC bands around of that time, the Ramones , The Talking Heads and Suicide were the only ones doing something new and interesting.

Blank Generation (DVD review) (Anchor Bay): This 1979 film is neither the 1976 collection of home movies of the same nor the 2001 film of mostly the same name. Why Anchor Bay put this out is beyond me since Richard Hell isn't famous and the movie is as watchable as Phyllis Diller in a thong bikini. I've seen worse, but nothing comes to mind - just a dull sense of dread. I watched Blank Generation in ten minute increments because it worked along like a fungus.

The film was directed by uber-hack Uli Lommel, whose claim to fame was having once worked under legendary film-cranker-outer Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The real title of the film should have been Waiting For Andy Warhol, because his short appearance is built up for a long time, and for the film's Warholian construct of alienating human interaction by constantly viewing it through the unblinking eye of a camera lens.

I found the following plot synopsis on the internet, and I reprint it here because I'm shocked anyone found the film interesting enough to present a plot as if it actually existed: "Nada, a beautiful French journalist on assignment in New York, records the life and work of an up and coming punk rock star, Billy. Soon she enters into a volatile relationship with him and must decide whether to continue with it, or return to her lover, a fellow journalist trying to track down the elusive Andy Warhol."

The star is Carole Bouquet, whose next film found her as a Bond Girl in For Your Eyes Only. Since then she's appeared in a gaggle of French films, was a Chanel spokesmodel in the 1990s, and married Gerard Depardieu. Her character in Blank Generation is flighty, PMS-driven and all around neurotic. Richard Hell puts up with it both because she's beautiful and he has the backbone of a tofu brick. Hell can't act beyond raising his eyebrows like Groucho Marx so it's hard to tell really what's going on with his character. He looks like a skinny Andrew Dice Clay with a bloated drug face and he moves it like Howie Mandel.

Richard Hell plays himself really, and his band is his real band at the time, The Voidoids. "Blank Generation" and "New Pleasure" are played endlessly throughout the soundtrack, and it’s what Hell himself puts on at the corner bar jukebox. "Love Comes In Spurts" also rears its little pink head. The use of music in this film is pathetic. It also doesn't help that The Voidoids sounded as if they never played together before. Their timing was always off, even more than usual in the punk genre.

Why is the manager crying? Why is the sink running? Why does the German guy click the lights on and off? These and many other questions will go unanswered if you watch Blank Generation, a film too inept to even feint a move toward some kind of recognizable style of filmmaking. In 1998 Lommel directed a stinker by the name of Bloodsuckers. One of its working titles was Nothing Generation. That's really bizarre because it somehow implies that Blank Generation was the director's crowing achievement. That can't be good... 

Blitzkrieg Bop (video review) (Ivy): At first I thought this was a cut & paste scam job of a few poorly recorded live songs from The Dead Boys, Blondie and the Ramones, but instead it's a poor quality copy of what might have been a real TV documentary from 1977 about the emerging "Punk Rock Cult" centering around CBGBs. What makes it interesting, besides the early footage, is how the commentary reflects tabloid-inspired fears about this horrible new menace on the cultural horizon. Thankfully it's not as stridently anti-punk as it could have been, and everyone gets a chance to either present their case well or hang themselves with their own words. The only ones who do are from the Dead Boys, a bunch not known for having two brain cells to rub together.

The narration is hysterical because the narrator’s voice is Rod Serling meets Joe Friday. If the Twilight Zone/Dragnet effect is intentional, it’s brilliant. There's great shots of CBGBs (located in "Skid Row!"), band members, managers, owner Hilly Kristal and a gaggle of long-haired music journalists brought together in a conference room to discuss this new music on the pretext of free sandwiches and beer. Robert Cristgau is nuts when he says of punk, "It is very dangerous. It could lead to fascism. All of that is really true. You laugh, all of that is really true. Yes, there is an extraordinarily dangerous energy that these people are trying to unleash..." He then saves the day by opining that in such a crappy society, "Damn right it's productive."

Everyone interviewed makes great efforts to promote punk as another phase in a long line of rock history starting with Elvis and the Beatles, which is true and to their credit. The sex and violence angle is shrugged off as being reflective of Real Life. Yes, real if you're a scumbag. Stiv Bators says it's better to vent anger in a club than on the street, so why not break bottles inside CBGBs to blow a little steam? Brilliant. Blondie is implied to be the next big thing, which they did become, but it's quaint today to hear how they went from earning $25 a show to a whopping $8,000!

Most of the 52 minutes is taken up with concert footage. The Ramones play five, Blondie two and the Dead Boys three. I knew this tape was vintage when I saw Tommy Ramone on drums. The sound quality is two tin cans and a string, and the colors bleed into each other, which shows it was recorded from the TV. At one point the horizontal hold skips. As a child I fought many ongoing battles with the horizontal hold knob involving cursing, body language and the intuitive feel of a master safe cracker.

I doubt this was titled Blitzkrieg Bop when it was produced over twenty years ago. Maybe it was called "Seduction Of The Innocent, Part II" (obscure comic book reference). Worth a view if you find the idea of opening a time capsule more fun than sex.

Border Radio (video review) (Pacific Arts): A home movie that dares you to keep watching, Border Radio is the most powerful sleep inducer you can buy without a prescription. With three screenwriters you think there’d be more plot or dialogue, but no, this is a grainy black & white Waiting For Godot, except there's no subtext. Allison Ander, Kurt Voss and Dean Lent directed. The film ends after the first ten minutes. Starring Chris D. of the Flesheaters, John Doe of X, Dave Alvin of The Blasters and Texacala Jones of Tex and the Horseheads, fans of the early L.A. scene will be able to pick out locales and personalities. The rest of the world can only wonder how this ever made it out of the can.

There's a plot about something or other about drugs, bands and a tough, independent woman surrounded by whimpering idiot men. John Doe gives the worst acting performance of being drunk, and at one point he says three guys beat him up at his place when the movie actually opens with him getting beaten up at an abandoned drive-in. Everyone makes it up as they go along but at least they don't reach Doe’s Pauley Shore plateau of bad acting. The credits read "Additional dialogue and scenarios by THE CAST." If only these people knew how to convincingly improv scratching their asses. The credits also read "Many curses to THOSE WHO TRIED TO THWART US". Thwart? Thwart is what Batman does to evildoer's nefarious schemes. Border Radio is neither bad nor good, it just is, in a numbing way. Watching it is like sitting in an empty room for ninety minutes with nothing to read, listen to or look at. At least I got to hear a Lazy Cowgirls song in the background. Yee-haw!

I turned it off at some point, I think when one guy was hitting another guy really softly because they can't do stunts, then a woman throws a guy like he weighs five pounds, and then they smiled a little and stood there because nobody knew what scenario or dialogue to conjure up. The box says Border Radio was reviewed as "One of the best movies ever made about rock and roll." That must be out of context or written by a friend of the... no, that has to be a fabrication. They're also trying to compare it to Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise. Sure, and there's also such a thing as a consenting barnyard animal.

David Bowie - The Video Collection (video review) (Ryko): Ryko could have been as big as rival Rhino Records if their prices weren't so damn high. Granted, they do a nice job packaging whatever they put out. This collection of 25 music videos runs from 1972's “Space Oddity” to “Fame 90”. Anyone who says “Space Oddity” is from 1969 can eat my poop because they know why I reference it as '72. Watching this all the way through I can say the argument for Bowie's reputation as a pioneering visual music artist can't be based on his music videos. I only found three videos to be effective and creative in the fashion Bowie is always given credit. 

I'm prejudiced because in general I hate music videos. They were once cute promotional tools and for a while it was neat to see my favorite singers moving in pictures, but thanks to MTV the music took a back seat to visuals of all things pretty and poetic. Videos are to music what movies are to books.

David Bowie has always been visual. He studied mime and incorporated it into his work. His striking androgynous look paved the way for glam, new wave, new romance and goth. He created Ziggy Stardust and Diamond Dogs as staged theatrical productions. He changed his persona and sound on a regular basis. I think Bowie's rep as visual genius was proven in his 12-15-79 appearance on Saturday Night Live. His renditions of "The Man Who Sold The World", "Boys Keep Swinging" and "TVC15" are legend but may have owed their bite to co-performer Klaus Nomi, a true space oddity.

Bowie's best videos are "Heroes", "Boys Keep Swinging" and "Ashes To Ashes". "Heroes" marks the end of his first video period, when he stood there with a guitar, lip-synching and seducing the camera. Sometimes The Spiders play behind him but it was always the Ziggy or Duke show (or maybe Angela Bowie). "Heroes" has Bowie standing alone, lit by a single rear spotlight, but it captures the Nietzschian (yet strangely uplifting, or is it fascistic) elements of the song. "Boys Keep Swinging" was his first real video in terms of production values, and it takes his legendary bisexuality to the next level by having Bowie in drag as Betty Davis, Veronica Lake and what looks like Cher with a beehive hairdoo. His Sinatra suave meets Elvis swagger is also cool to watch. Wayne County says Bowie stole the ending from a Berlin transsexual stage show, whose owner/manager Bowie was said to be in love with. "Ashes To Ashes" is his triumph, visually and conceptually. It makes an artistic yet clear statement about what he's singing about, qualities achingly lacking in most of his other video work.

Bowie's third video period begins with "Fashion". Bowie in exotic locales, Bowie surrounded by dancers and models doing whatever it is dancers and models do, Bowie playing guitar and singing at the camera. There's no theme, nothing that combines its parts into a more meaningful whole. It's sets, costumes, a few ideas and then roll tape. It also doesn't help that the music Bowie made with "Let's Dance" and beyond has been uneven. I love the guy but he should have quit while he was on top of his game and not just a legendary performer with personal wealth approaching a billion dollars.

Here's how a Bowie web site described his groundbreaking SNL appearance: "On December 15, 1979, Bowie was the featured musical performed on NBC's Saturday Night Live show in the USA. If viewers were expecting a typical Saturday Night Live performance of Bowie and a band playing as if at a concert, they were in for a rude shock. Instead, Bowie gave an extremely unusual performance, accompanied by two "drag" performers, Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias. Three songs were performed, “The Man Who Sold The World”, with Bowie carried to the front of the stage by Nomi and Arias, while wearing a man's evening dress and a large bow tie (emulating the poet Tristan Tzara). Next was “Boys Keep Swinging”. For this Bowie emulated a puppet trick (with the help of television) he had seen in German fairs. A small puppet's trunk and limbs were situated just beneath Bowie's head, giving the appearance of a marionette with a huge human head. In a trick he sneaked past the censors, the puppet took a look down Bowie's trousers right at the end of the song. Finally, for “TVC15”, Bowie wore a uniform that gave the impression of a Chinese airline stewardesses outfit. In addition, stage designer Mark Ravitz created a pink poodle with a small TV monitor in its mouth, broadcasting the song as it was performed."

David Bowie - Glass Spider (concert video review) (MPI): In 1987, as Bowie's creative career hit the skids he hit the road with the Glass Spider tour in support of Never Let Me Down, whose best track was a cover of Iggy Pop's "Bang Bang”. While not a bad set there's still things to pick on. What is great as usual is Bowie's singing and the sheer joy on his face as he performs. The man's a great crooner.

What the hell is Bowie trying to do here? The stage is topped by a huge, silly spider while the stage is cramped and nondescript. What looks like the cast of Fame prances around dance-acting to some of the songs when they're not lip-synching to dialogue that doesn't make sense. Bowie is a genius with a short attention span, and whatever effort went into the story and theme completely ignored continuity. Toni Basil of "Hey Mickey you're so fine" fame helped choreograph the dancing. Maybe campy visualization won out over coherence. The set list is a basic career retrospective, so there's no way to tell a theatrical story like they try to do here.

Musically I would call this a lite concert. Too many musicians, too many studio pros and too over-rehearsed. Peter Frampton provides guitar theatrics and everybody plays it safe. The set list includes "China Girl", "Young Americans", "Rebel Rebel", "Modern Love", "Fame", "Let's Dance", "Fashion", "Time" and the standard Iggy/Reed set of "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "White Light/White Heat". The tour may have been a low point creatively for Bowie but it's always a joy to see him perform. He always looks so damn happy to be out there.

Breaking Glass - (video review) (1980): A British new wave musical starring Hazel O'Connor, a Toyah Wilcox clone with bits of Nina Hagen and Lene Lovich mixed in. It’s a standard rise to the top and the top isn’t so hot story riddled with half-realized clichés like anarchy, 1984, police hassles, skinhead violence, drug use, censorship, selling out and greedy music execs. They even dub in "Bollocks!" with the same frequency a decent cartoon will give a "boi-oi-oi-oing!!" Credit must be given, though, for wearing a costume that foreshadowed TRON by two years. Hazel is decent - like Bette Midler without the charisma. She's always snarling, which (of course, silly) means she's punk, but at the beginning she makes it a point to say her music is neither new wave nor punk. It's inspired by punk, but "It's better". Ouch. The soundtrack is stupendously average. I love movies like this where record execs and fans hear a new song and they all go nuts with joy. Meanwhile, the song sucks but I guess that's why they call it acting. Between takes they’re all probably laughing about how little they’re being given to work with.

Breaking Glass is packed with stereotypes but I wasn't as annoyed as I thought I'd be. The script is filled with grand statements like "People don't stand still - neither does music." This is a small film that's more poorly written than poser-pretentious. Twenty minutes in I started looking for things to do, like ironing shirts. After ironing, I stuffed loose change into bankrolls.

People made a big deal about Breaking Glass when it was released, I guess because it was about new wave music. It's not bad, but if you don't know anything about the issues the film deals with you'll think the movie is about lowlife insanity, and if you do know what's going on you'll laugh at how poorly the material is handled. Even the BlockBuster Video box, normally apoplectic in its hype, describes this as a "New Wave version of the standard old rock-an-roll plot". Oh, that's gotta hurt!

The Brothers Quay Collection: Ten Astonishing Short Films (video review) (Kino): I guarantee you'll never find anything more nightmarishly beautiful than a Brothers Quay film. I can't sum it up any better than this promo blurb: "The extraordinary Brothers Quay are two of the most original filmmakers to have emerged in the past decade. These identical twins were born in Pennsylvania, but live in London in publicity-shy seclusion, making their unique and innovative animated films under the aegis of Koninck Studios. Devotees of the Czech animation maestro Jan Svankmajer, the Quays display a great passion for detail, a breathtaking command of color and texture, and a deft use of focus and camera movement. They are masters of miniaturization and on their tiny sets have created an unforgettable world, suggestive of a landscape of long-repressed childhood dreams."

Masters of stop-motion animation to say the least, their absurd and often surreal visual commentary comes directly from the works of a number of Eastern European artists, the most widely known being Franz Kafka. I mostly have no idea what Stephen and Timothy Quay are getting at but I think their work is not of horror and nightmare as much as the mendacity of politics, civil society and love.

You've probably seen the Brothers Quay’s work as they directed music videos for His Name is Alive, Michael Penn, 16 Horsepower and Peter Gabriel (creating the chicken and fruit segments for "Sledgehammer"), along with commercials for the Partnership for a Drug Free America, Coca Cola, MTV, Nikon and 7 Eleven. The videos for Tool's "Sober" and "Prison Sex" were directed by the late Fred Stuhr, who rips off the Quays' style in total.

Quay trademarks are many: weathered doll heads lopped off at odd angles; rusty screws, nails and antique engineering tools that move as if alive; miniature sets as much Dali as Esher; camera movement as unpredictable as the images they capture; long pauses of either confusion or malaise; periodic bursts of ultra-violence that seem to represent bureaucracy at work more than malicious intent; dripping meat stuffed into objects; feathers fastened to death-head puppets; unwashed glass panes and bright lighting that only intensifies the darkness and decay of what's illuminated. This isn't The Nightmare Before Christmas but children’s tv in the world of Eraserhead.

Quay puppets don't display much human personality. They move and act as if newly born into a world of senselessness. Only the screws and flying scissors seem to know exactly what they're doing.

Most of their work was paid for by England's television Channel Four. In 1995 they made one live film, The Institute Benjamenta. On one level it's hard to not sound pretentious trying to explain the art and influences of The Brothers Quay, but you can't just sum them up as weird or nightmarish. Quay animation can drag at times, and that's intentional. More than telling the occasional story they convey the moods of meaningless, helplessness and existential nothingness.

A few collections of Brothers Quay material exist, this one being the best. Rent this when your mind is open and clear. A few cups of coffee might also help. 

Kate Bush - The Single File (video review) (PMI): This collection came out around 1983. The Dreaming came out in 1982 and the last great Kate album, Hounds Of Love, was from 1985. As a child, Kate displayed a precocious musical talent, which was brought to the attention of Punk Floyd's David Gilmour. She was signed to EMI at the age of 16. Thinking long term, they had her study dance, mime and singing for a year. In 1977 her "Wuthering Heights", complete with an inhumanly high vocal register that drives dogs insane, rose to #1 in the UK. The Kick Inside from 1978 was and is a phenomenal debut from a young talent. Lionheart came next and the material was lacking. 1980's Never For Ever was Kate's first step toward the grand theatricality that would define her ‘80s work. The Dreaming is full of drama and eccentric studio wizardry. 1985's Hounds Of Love, her best and most commercially successful work, might have been written just to prove she could score on the charts if pushed. She then drifted off into babooshka music for The Sensual World, and her last was the highly stylized The Red Shoes in ‘93.

The Single File starts with "Wuthering Heights" and ends with "There Goes A Tenner" from The Dreaming. Production values rise as years go by, but what's always constant with Kate Bush is her roots in mime and interpretive dance. The result is often a kind of silent-movie overacting that's fun to watch. The dancing is stage-bound and for the most part not very well conceived. Kate paved the way for Madonna's stage shows, but with Kate it comes off a bit like a fancy school production. Kate's talents are in the studio and in her voice, not in the visuals. I love Kate Bush, but come on.

"The Man With The Child In His Eyes", which she wrote at the age of thirteen, is performed in the same gold leotard she wore on Saturday Night Live, a hard to find piece of video if there ever was one. "Army Dreamers" is a great video because the visuals are clear, Kate's not chewing the scenery, there's stunts and stuff blows up. "Sat In Your Lap", a great speedy single, is her most effective video in terms of blending music, dance and costume. Most of her videos use male dancers from the Bob Fosse school of exaggeration. "There Goes A Tenner" is nicely underdone and the sets are sweet. 

Kate Bush Live at the Hammersmith Odeon (video review) (EMI): Kate Bush is still around somewhere, but she made her mark twenty years ago as the UK prog rock alternative to Stevie Nicks. A true prodigy in every sense, by age fifteen she had written over 100 songs. At thirteen she wrote "The Man With The Child In His Eyes", still her most beautiful song. This concert is from her one real tour in 1979, The Tour Of Life, featuring seventeen costume changes, two dancers, one guy for "illusions, magic and mime", a large band and elaborate stage & lighting sets. The tape captures only half of full show. The tour had no choice but to lose money and proved so draining Kate never toured again.

Since then Kate concentrated on studio and video work, making rare public appearances to support charitable causes. Her attention to overlaying tracks in her home studio is possibly bested only by Enya. Her singing on Peter Gabriel’s "Games Without Frontiers" and (especially) "Don't Give Up" are astonishing. Kate's best album is Hounds Of Love, followed by The Kick Inside, Never Forever and The Dreaming. Her albums come out rarely but her fan base is as unshakable in their faith as a death cult.

Kate's ideas on presentation come off as high school theatrics that feature either simple interpretive movement or elaborate dance and pantomime acting. The precociousness of two dancers dressed in home-made violin costumes for the then-unreleased "Violin" made me wince the wince of the slightly embarrassed, so for a while I pondered that Kate looked like a cross between Peg Bundy and Laraine Newman. The three-penny opera of "James And The Cold Gun" made me hit the fast-forward button and it never seemed to end. She’s more effective on "Them Heavy People" where her simple grace is allowed to express itself at the same level as the music. "Wow" was much better live than on record, and the credits rolled over her encore of "Wuthering Heights", her most famous song. Why it was treated as a throwaway is a mystery. On the greatest hits disc you'll notice she re-recorded her vocal track on that, which I like better but I'm sure the fan club was pissed. To me the original sounded like Carol Kane as the Good Witch of the East.

Kate Bush Live is an eccentric show from an eccentric time in history. 

Buttcrack (video review) (Troma): If you want Troma to distribute your cheap horror comedy it helps to have decent zombie effects and meaty body part prosthetics. Buttcrack has both plus Mojo Nixon as Preacher Bob. There's no gratuitous T&A but enough buttcrack joke silliness to satisfy the average Troma fan, who often looks something like Wade, a.k.a. Buttcrack. Wade is fugly, dumb, oblivious, harmless and friendly yet socially retarded. I worked with a guy like Wade, so I know people like him exist.

Wade doesn't wear a belt and his pants ride low, exposing his butt crack. This puts the kibosh on his housemates' plans to woo his girl and pop the question. Wade dies by accident and is buried, only to be resurrected after his goth sister casts a spell. If anyone says "Buttcrack" twelve times in one breath Wade will rise from the dead and seek revenge. This never happens and the movie ends very quickly. NO! Of course Beetlejuice, I mean Buttcrack, is repeated twelve times and Carrie's arm, no, I mean Wade's arm, shoots up from the grave.

What makes this movie different, and refreshingly so, is that at this point a benign silliness takes over and it's hard not to like the film even if the acting is blasé and the script written as the cameras rolled. Wade's back from the grave but he's not changed in any way. His goth sister implores him to seek revenge, but Wade is too oblivious to hold a grudge. He's an unstoppable, unflappable geek and being a zombie doesn't change that one bit. Butt, I mean, but, his buttcrack now has the ability to turn anybody who looks at it into a rabid flesh-eating zombie. It does and the effects are well done. It's a comedy and Troma liked it so you know it has a certain charm.

Mojo Nixon, meaty in the jowls, gets to do his fast talking verbal shtick throughout as Preacher Bob. It's obvious his lines are often self-scripted or improvised. He does a funny "God is Everywhere" speech that prompts a listener to ask "Is God in Urine?" Mojo also recorded the soundtrack. Kathy Wittes plays the girlfriend and I only bring her up because she has her own web page where she asks for help in finding a certain type of twisty hairpin she likes. Buttcrack was filmed outside of Washington DC by Desert Dog Films, who are available for weddings and cable access documentaries.

Buzzcocks - Playback (video review) (IRS): This 1992 collection of videos and rare television appearances was put together to help promote the newly reformed Buzzcocks. What could have been a dull compilation is instead a well-made document of the band. The Sex Pistols and The Clash released a series of influential singles, but the Buzzcocks will always be known as punks’ first (and best) singles band. They were a ‘77 band but not a welcome member of Malcolm McClaren’s traveling dimwit jamboree, which made them peers of The Jam, and watching Playback it’s obvious The Buzzcocks were mods who rode the punk train to fame.

Playback contains videos, running commentary from members Pete Shelley & Steve Diggle and enough rare TV footage to satisfy diehard fans. I don’t think the Buzzcocks shot many videos, which helps make Playback better because I.R.S. is forced to fill it out with other, more interesting material. Playback is a promo for the reformed Buzzcocks, not a biscuit for geezers such as myself.

“I Don’t Mind” is performed on Top Of The Pops. A live “Love You More” is from The Electric Circus. From Jukebox Jury is “Harmony In My Head”. The weirdest clip is from a children’s show called Fun Factory. “Are Everything” is lip-synched on a set filled with scrambling kids and costumed characters. Some kids are even banging on the drums during the song. The old video for “What Do I get” is shot on a simple background and nobody in the band looks too happy to be there. This motif runs throughout (except for the live “Autonomy” from the 1989 reunion tour), with the drummer especially looking pissed off and bored. As a whole it’s less punk aggression than forced apathy. Other songs on the tape are “Ever Fallen In Love”, “Promises”, “Lipstick”, “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” and “Why She’s A Girl From A Chainstore”.

Note how many UK punk fans in ‘77 looked like Bay City Rollers fans. Shelley and Dingle provide a lot of good band history and the production values on this are pretty decent. If it had a vibrating attachment it’d be the best thing since…..vibrating attachments!

David Byrne Live: Between The Teeth (video review) (Warner): Since 1984's Stop Making Sense is one of the best live concert films around I thought I'd check in on David Bryne as a solo act. On this 1992 show he's backed by nine musicians -- long gone the Talking Heads. I must say this is pretty dull. Byrne hired a bunch of middle aged studio pros who may be proficient but they just don't create white funky magic like the old Talking Heads. Old tunes like "Life During Wartime" and "And She Was" lack energy and style. The new songs are uninspired samba and mambo-flavored pop. The band often sounds like they're playing a ‘70s lounge-standard TV drama theme opening.

David Byrne is the weird cousin of Paul Simon, swiping world music riffs for mass pop consumption. They're both pretty good at it, with Simon producing the better material. On this tape Byrne's listed as co-director. If he's performing a live concert, how can he direct? 

Cabaret (video review) (Fox): Of course punk created itself from scratch and wasn't influenced by anything.... IDIOT!! Cinema definitely affected the look and feel of early British punk, the most often cited examples being The Road Warrior, A Clockwork Orange, The Damned and Cabaret. Cabaret, directed by Bob Fosse and released in 1972, almost swept the Academy Awards and made stars of Liza Minelli and Joel Grey. At 124 minutes it's too long, and the love story so much less interesting than the scenes at the Cabaret, but the themes and visuals are very much what British pre-punks were seeking for inspiration.

The story opens in Berlin during 1931, as the emerging Nazi party was forging a national reputation as defenders of the Fatherland against the communists (and the Jews as the source of all German problems). The cabaret is where Liza Manelli sings and Joel Grey leads a troupe of vaudevillian performers - some women and others men in drag. The club scenes act as running commentaries on the main plot lines of Liza falling in love with Michael York, their affair with a rich Baron and of the relationship between the daughter of a rich Jewish family and a man who is not a Jew. The nazis cast long shadows over the proceedings but the film spends a surprising amount of time exploring its love story aspects.

So, what's in this for punks? In the mid ‘70s disaffected British youth loved the idea of decadence as an expression of rebellion against the stodgy British class system, with it's facades of manners and civility. Decadence, whose very definition is "decay", was a vital means of expressing disgust with the decaying empire. Dressing up and acting up to offend was to British punks the only way to rebel against a class system that kept many in their place from cradle to grave. In America, dressing weird makes you a weirdo, but in the UK such acts were direct attacks on both Queen and Country. The Sex Pistols were relative nobodies until they cursed on television and became a national scandal. Not to be confused with Camp, the decadence of the cabaret is meant to be the cruise ship entertainment of a country sinking straight to hell.

Liza Minelli's character also had major appeal in that she is a free spirit trying to redefine herself through lies and the talent of showmanship. She asks Michael York if her words and lifestyle shock him. He replies "Not a bit", and with a look of disappointment she says "I don't?" She later chooses an abortion over a boring life in the British countryside with the man who may or may not be the father of her child. She stays in Berlin while Michael York heads back to England and relative safety. Liza shakes his hand, walks away, and doesn't look back. She is, of course, doomed, but she chooses that fate over a life in England that I'm sure the audience related to as dull, boring, and more of the same.

The love story is too long and the scenes in the Cabaret too short. Joel Grey is amazing as a devilish mix of singing and dancing puppet, clown and mime. Liza chews the scenery but you have to admit she gives 120 percent. Not for those with short attention spans like myself, but an important film all the way. 

CBGB: Punk From The Bowery (DVD review): CBs is open even though they have no lease, and if you need a cause to sacrifice your life for to you can still Save CBGBs. CBGB: Punk From the Bowery came out in 2003 and retails for $9.99. All in all, you get your $9.99 worth. You can't beat it as a cheap stocking stuffer for that little crumb-bum on your Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or There Is No God Day list.

Here's the bands. In addition you get CB's owner Hilly Kristal hosting a meandering tour of the club that's so slow I will award six internet monies to anyone who can sit through the whole thing! His wheezing will stupefy and amaze you!

1. Agnostic Front - Something's Gotta Give & Believe 2. Cro-Mags - Malfunction & Hard Times 3. Madball - Lockdown & True to the Game 4. H20 - Faster Than The World & Guilty By Association 5. Poison Idea - Lifestyles & Just Get Away 6. Harley's War - Malfunction & The Regulator 7. UK Subs - I Live in a Car & Emotional Blackmail 8. The Varukers - Murder & Don't Want to be a Victim 9. Chaos UK - Selfish Jew & King For a Day 10. The Vibrators - Pure Mania & Baby Baby Baby 11. Molotov Cocktail - Kop Party & Alcohol 12. Kraut - Unemployed & Kill For Cash 13. Adrenaline OD - Suburbia & Old People Talk Loud 4. Even Worse - Major Headache 15. Furious George - Redrum

Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags and Madball are metal punk bands that call themselves hardcore. Show their clips to a civilian and they'll say they're white power bands. Just pointing that out. These bands also stalk the stage like rappers. Harley's War was straight up metal.

H20, Even Worse and Furious George were ok. Poison Idea were great, and so were the UK Subs, Chaos UK, The Vibrators, Molotov Cocktail, Kraut and Adrenalin OD.

CBGB: Punk From The Bowery is in no way a documentary. Sure Hilly reminisces, but once again, six internet monies will be yours if you can sit through the whole thing! He says punk was first called street rock and the mentally challenged Sid Vicious was an asshole to everyone. Then my head hit the counter from listening to Hilly's voice, which woke me up the first three times but then knocked me unconscious. I dreamt I was a pirate!

A Clockwork Orange (video review) (Warner Bros): British punks stole like crazy when they created their original style, and Stanley Kubrick's 1971 A Clockwork Orange was more influential than any other. Mohawks came from The Road Warrior and The Damned fed into a perverted fascination with Nazis but Kubrick's film spoke directly to the then modern day malaise, punkish violence and No Future. Based on the book by Ian Burgess, the author's view of the film's themes were at odds with what general audiences read into it. Is this a dark comedy exploring moral freedom and free will vs. predestination, or is it a violent, amoral fable that only serves to glorify violence?

Burgess elaborates on the title by saying "(Alex) has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (given this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State." Many trees have died to provide the paper for what’s been written on the many underlying themes of A Clockwork Orange, but what about what your average slob sees on the screen? Like the movie poster reads, this "Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence, and Beethoven", the first fifteen minutes are filled with unblinking acts of violence presented with hipster style. Like Alex our eyes are forced open to look directly at brutality. A Clockwork Orange is not anti-violence. Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer is equally non-judgmental and even more brutal, and you can throw Romper Stomper onto the pile of films that do glorify violence through amoral representations of violence. Literary scholars may see A Clockwork Orange as brilliant satire and commentary but any numbnut looking for glorification of criminal behavior will see this film as a wink and a nod.

I've read that Society made Alex (played brilliantly by Malcolm MCDowell) into a monster, but that's not true. He has normal parents and a nice room in their apartment. Everybody has it tough. Boo freakin’ hoo. Alex is a classic amoral psychopath - he can be polite one minute and rape or murder the next. To him it's all the same. The justice system that treats him is a combination of Kafka and Monty Python yet Alex is so screwed by choice you can't see him as a pure victim at their hands. Maybe A Clockwork Orange is nothing more than Burgess' ruminations on free will but to kids all they see is approval for everything shown on the screen. Alex is the victim and hero of the story, and he finds pleasure in rape and murder. How else can you read this?

Star Trek nerds take note: just like Trekkies teach Vulcan to their children as an alternative to having the word “geek” tattooed on their foreheads, A Clockwork Orange features its own slang known as "Nadsat", mostly Russian slang and childish gibberish. The soundtrack is great, featuring the work of Walter(is now)Wendy Carlos. Cock Sparrer wrote a song about themselves called “Droogs Don’t Run”.

Cock Sparrer - What You See... Is What You Get (DVD review): Cock Sparrer,TKO Records and Belgium filmmaker Pollet Yannick collectively produced this eight hour, two-DVD set featuring concerts, interviews and extras. The ninety minute documentary is a glorified home movie. It's a bit random and a bit much at times, and gawd knows the concert footage needs an index, but my money is my vote for the first and greatest street punk/oi band of all time, Cock Fricking Sparrer. In a genre where "real" means "real stupid", Cock Sparrer are really nice people playing real music for real reasons.

What you learn from What You See is that Cock Sparrer are absolutely free of affectation. What they believe is simply how they feel and they don't find themselves heroic. They're quite amazed people still remember them and pay to see their infrequent shows. I still have no idea what a Cock Sparrer is. The name was once Cock Sparrow if that helps.

Cock Sparrer didn't play the UK for years because they didn't want anyone getting hurt, a problem not found elsewhere. To them it wasn't worth the money. Sham 69 wanted it both ways and the crowds they incited bit them on the ass. Sparrer stayed in the pub and shook their heads. Writing on their site about the recently cancelled Wasted USA festival, they note:

It has been suggested that part of this problem has been caused by some bands demanding their money up front. We would like to state for the record that COCK SPARRER have NEVER, and never will ask, for any advance payment for any gig we do - we know how difficult cash flow can be for promoters. Anybody who knows us, or has worked with us will know this to be the case.

Cock Sparrer are working class heroes with an ingrained integrity that's not a political statement. They also look old enough to be The Rolling Stones. Do they have day jobs? I imagine they'd have to. I loved this line from an interview, "'England Belongs To Me' took 10 minutes to write and 25 years to explain."

Where was I... Cock Sparrer, the first and still the best. Bats Out, indeed.

Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind (Book & Movie Review): Unknown Comic: Is my fly open? Chuck Barris: No, it isn't. Unknown Comic: Well, it should be. I'm peein'.

The book Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind is a b-culture classic, one I'll read every few years like I do John Water's Shock Value. It's a companion piece to Lloyd Kaufman's book. Both men tell much more than you want to know about their bowl movements and embarrassing personality defects. All three men manage to be endearing and repulsive in equal measure.

Was the creator of The Gong Show and The Newlywed Game really a CIA hitman? Like the old punk song goes, "who knows, who cares, why bother." Fact, fiction or biomythography, Confessions is hilarious, action packed and if it were an actress its name would be Paige Turner. I didn't mean that, so I'm Joyce Keating.

Once again, a classic.

The movie is a mixed bag. The first time I thought it was ok. After reading the book I watched again and found it paled in comparison. Sam Rockwell does well as Chuck Barris. Director George Clooney clumsily injects politics into a non-political book. Charlie Kaufman's script has its moments but makes unnecessary changes. The last kill scene is confusing, cheap and not as good as in the book. Clooney's demise is colorful so that works. I didn't need to see Rockwell's ass the more than once the film provides. The best added character is Robert John Burke as CIA kill instructor Jenks, whose bit as an FCC agent is the best facial comedy I've seen in ages.

The Confessions Of Robert Crumb (review): 1987's The Confessions Of Robert Crumb is an odd juxtaposition to the superior 1994 documentary Crumb. Written by Crumb, financed by the BBC and logging in at 55 minutes, it's confessional as usual yet not that revealing since straight the man's too Freudian and on drugs too hallucinogenic. He doesn't hold back or lie about himself but there's something missing. He's both a cipher and the most influential, prolific and screwed up underground artist of all time, which the latter film revealed much to Crumb's regret.

The Crumb Museum is worth a long visit. My sentimental favorite is A Short History Of America while the juvenile in me will always treasure Tommy Toilet. The guy who flushes himself down the toilet is also nice.

You wouldn't think Crumb would agree to dress up and undress to act in skits about himself, but here he does. That can't be cool in anyone's book. He's a successful failure and a loser whose talent makes him a winner. He's fascinating as a man only to a point because in spite of all his talent and eccentricities he's smaller in life than in his work. The Confessions Of Robert Crumb is a diminishing dog and pony show you'd never think he'd participate in, especially as its creator.

Constantine (DVD Review): I liked Constantine. I liked it a lot. Fans of the long-running comic Hellblazer dismiss it because it barely resembles the source material. It's no masterpiece like Class of Nuke 'Em High 2: Subhumanoid Meltdown but I'll be watching this again soon.

Constantine was shot on what looks like 1970s film stock and people are lit like cadavers in a David Fincher film. It looks great. The effects are scary and the depiction of hell terrifying. Keanu Reeves aside, the acting's great, especially Rachel Weisz, Tilda Swinton and Peter Stormare as Satan, who chews the scenery in a most satisfying fashion. He's insane, sadistic and also having way too much fun being Satan.

The story makes little sense and defies its own logic but I enjoyed not having a clue what would happen next. It's thick with mythology of both the religious and comic book kind, adding to the WTF factor, but WTF. The Spear Of Destiny prop was the same one made for Hellboy, a film I love, and maybe Constantine has a similar appeal. Hey, this runs rings around End Of Days!

Keanu Reeves seems nice enough. He gets more roles than his talents dictate but good for him. He cannot express emotion through his eyes, which in a less pleasant face is creepy. He looks too young for the role of John Constantine. Bruce Willis would have been better (as long as he didn't smirk). Reeves isn't a bad actor but his face is like a mask.

Corrupt (video review) (Thorn EMI): Also released as Cop Killers, Copkiller and Order of Death (as in "Does that order of death come with fries?"), this 1983 psychological thriller was John Lydon's only serious film role. Critics generally applauded his muted performance but they might have been overly impressed by him toning down his Johnny Rotten rage to a more respectable Malcolm McDowell contempt. John isn't bad but I can't say he's really acting either. For most of the film he speaks his lines and looks personally and professionally afraid of the man he's playing against, the great Harvey Keitel. Harvey's a serious method actor and a scary physical presence, and I guarantee Lydon figured out instantly that Keitel wasn't going to take crap from a sarcastic skinny man who calls himself Mr. Rotten (update: this was confirmed by someone who just finished a Sex Pistols book). Towards the end John asserts some control over his character but the result is a greatly diluted version of his Sex Pistols persona. Joe Critic might find this to be a finely tuned acting range but I see it as a move from bland non-acting to John being barely able to resist over-acting. John's well cast in the role and he's better than you might expect, but he's no better than Sting (though he is better than Adam Ant).

Corrupt was financed by Italian television and the production credits read like a Sicily phone book. I guess since there's no police corruption in Rome they chose New York City. Filmed in the Rotten Apple, Corrupt has a dated look and is hampered by an obvious effort to make it easier to dub it into other languages, especially in the beginning where dialogue is sparse and the actors turn away from the camera when speaking. Hey, just like the Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns. Corrupt was shot in English but it looks and sounds like a foreign film.

Keitel plays a policeman who supplements his income with bribes. Lydon is a spoiled, gay, S&M obsessed, guilt ridden fancy lad with too much free time. The main plot involves a serial killer who slashes the throats of undercover cops. The subtext is the nature of guilt and violence. The relationship between Keitel and Lydon starts with violence and entrapment but shifts to a role reversal that substitutes violence with psychological manipulation. Some reviews play up the gay context of their relationship but you have to be predisposed towards that conclusion to really see it. The way they show Lydon's character is gay is by having copies of The Advocate strewn on his desk. The film's not about sex, it's a psychological thriller centered around good old fashioned Catholic guilt. It’s a post-modern morality play.

Lydon claims he's the cop killer and threatens to expose Keitel's bribe taking. Keitel takes Lydon hostage, slaps him around and makes him eat out of a dog's bowl. Is Lydon really the killer? Gosh, you'll have to see the film to find out. But wow does this go on forever. Masters level chess moves faster. Actors move like they're underwater. Maybe attention spans were longer back then, or maybe Corrupt is just boring. For Johnny Rotten fanatics and insomniacs only.

Crimewave (VHS review): In 1985, between Evil Dead and Evil Dead II, Sam Raimi directed Crimewave from a script by his friends Ethan and Joel Coen. It died quickly and it was rumored Raimi and the Coens pretended Crimewave never existed. I don't know why because it's one funny ass film.

Raimi's cut was rejected and edited by the studio to make it less extreme and more widely appealing. Raimi rated his cut a C and the final cut a D. Oh, what I'd give to see the director's cut.

Crimewave is Blood Simple meets the Three Stooges in Detroit. The IMDB description sums it up quickly, "A pair of whacked-out cartoon-like exterminator/hitmen kill the owner of a burglar-alarm company, and stalk the partner who hired them, his wife, and a nerd framed for the murder, who tells the story in flashback from the electric chair." If this sounds like your kind of fun you should seek this out.

Bruce Campbell , more god than man, was rejected by the studio for the lead and ended up in a bit part. Reed Birney plays Vic Ajax and I think he's great. I can't imagine Campbell being effective in the part because Vic is a meek, small character. Sheree J. Wilson, a staple on Dallas and Walker Texas Ranger, plays the love interest. Louise Lasser is the biggest name attached to the film and she's very game to go through all the physical abuse.

The true stars of the show are b-movie legend Brion James and man-mountain Paul L. Smith, the exterminators who "kill all sizes". James' voice is a squeak and Smith's is Kermit the Frog as a deep baritone. The cigarrettes in the glove compartment bit should be taught in film schools as a textbook example of sadistic comedy. James laughs in agony while Smith laughs in evil pleasure. The laws of comedy physics dictate it doesn't get any better than that.

Crippled Masters (VHS review): Do they still have tv like Kung Fu Action Double Feature? I spent many Saturday afternoons watching the worst of the worst Hong Kong martial arts, at or below Ocean Shores quality. In the 80s Ocean Shores Video flooded the burgeoning American video store market with cheap and worthless martial arts films, suppressing the desire for and availability of the good stuff for years. 1982's Crippled Masters would have been just another crapper if it wasn't also the most bizarre movie ever!

These two reviews will give you all you need to know: wak! bam! There's also one called Crippled Avengers but it doesn't feature a real paraplegic and a man born with no right arm and a small left flipper/hand. Oh no, it don't!

Crippled Masters has all the social cruelty, training sadism and misplaced maniacal laughter you expect, and it's definitely an unblinking exploitation of the handicapped, but these two men are also super handi-capable and working instead of feeling sorry for themselves.

When you see the one running with his hands you can't but think of Freaks, which brings up another point. Freak Shows (here's another) from the 1840s to 1950s were a travesty of cruelty but also the only way these people could both make a living and not be alone. When do-gooders shut down the shows for the sake of the performers they also took away their lives.

Crippled Masters features good fighting of the 1 stop, 2 stop, 3 stop school, which allows you to digest the techniques, and the armless guy is really good twirling a bamboo staff. The dubbing is good and nobody has an old west gunslinger accent. One villain looks like Yul Brenner and Tor Johnson and the evil master has an iron hump for a back and a rubber burn scar on his face.

The film opens with the one eventual hero getting his arms chopped off. It seems to hurt him for about twelve seconds. Don't you quickly die from a loss of blood? The other one gets his legs burned with acid. Since there were no wheelchairs (I guess) the actor had crossed his tiny legs to get them out of the way so he could walk with his arms. The scene of him choking a man with his leg is unnerving.

The best line was "You again? Hmmm. Well, you don't seem to like living very much."

In 1992 The Residents produced a major work called Freak Show, and this line applies to a film like Crippled Masters, a film you see only once and you don't know what you should be feeling while you do:

Everyone comes to the Freak Show/ To laugh at the Freaks and the Geeks/ Everyone comes to the Freak Show/ But nobody laughs when they leave.

The Cure - Staring At The Sea - The Images (video review) (Elektra): This video collection came out in 1986 and covers as far back as 1979. Lead singer Robert Smith formed his first band, the Easy Cure, in 1976. As ‘77 punk evolved into post-punk and new wave rose in popularity, the Cure fit nicely into both camps. The early hits, found conveniently on the Boys Don't Cry LP, show a talented three-piece combining moodiness and edgy guitar pop with great results. "Boys Don't Cry”, "Killing An Arab" (the title, taken from a novel, got them in trouble) and "Jumping Someone Else's Train" were new wave dance hits at a time before the genre devolved into top-40 dance crap. The Cure later recorded pap themselves but still never completely lost their ties to better times.

Robert Smith is a less self-absorbed version of Morrissey (which may not be saying much) and he looks like he lost every hair gel fight. Would someone please show him how to apply lipstick? His mouth has that "I just earned twenty bucks the hard way" look. He’s never changed his look and he might never. The Cure always did well with people who wore excessive makeup and took themselves too dramatically and artistically serious. At new wave clubs fans of the Cure would be the ones staring at themselves in the mirrors while they danced. The Cure's moodier songs and face painting antics helped usher in goth rock, and though hardcore goths might say The Cure wasn't influential, non-goth bands like The Damned, Siouxsie And The Banshees and The Cure brought the stylings to the public's attention.

I'm no expert on their catalog, because frankly I lost interest when their music became more popular and less interesting. Their early (and best) work is driven by minimalist yet choppy guitar, simple Cars-like backbeat drumming and excellent bass lines that drive the music. Listening to these seventeen songs The Cure remind me of The Cars, The Psychedelic Furs and in the worst cases a moodier Thompson Twins.

Staring At The Sea serves as a greatest hits package so songs that had no original videos are given them at minimal involvement and expense. "Killing An Arab" is basically unrelated footage of an old guy walking around doing nothing. "Jumping Someone Else's Train" is a sped up segment of film shot from the front of a train. As with all video collections from bands that started in the ‘70s, the videos move from the cheap to the expensive, the early videos mostly involving the band in the studio pretending to perform. The later videos are full blown production numbers and you have to wonder if in the MTV era a band can write music without wondering how it will translate to video. The one video that sticks out is "Boys Don't Cry", where three kids play instruments in the foreground while the band's directly behind, backlit against fabric so that it appears they're the children's shadows.

This is a decent selection from an all-around decent band. If you have no tolerance for generic Cure you can still get plenty of enjoyment out of their earliest work as one of the best pure new wave bands of the era.

Dance Craze (video review) (Oasis Firms): The rights to this 1979 2-Tone Ska classic must be in dispute because it’s very hard to find. Used VHS copies sell for up to $250 (if th