Customer Reviews

Urgh! A Music War

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I Found out why there's no Urgh! DVD yet...(here's why)

Because of an exclusive contract to publish this movie on a now dead format (CED), the contracts for the individual artists are missing. Because you can't renegotiate a contract without the original to amend, no one can touch this. Its currently owned by its original producer, Miles Copeland (founder of IRS records), and he has the film of THREE songs from each band in storage, but because of the legal landlock he cannot release it. If he does some day, we can look forward to a 6 hour 2 dvd special edition.

I've seen The Cramps three songs (Human Fly/I Was A Teenage Werewolf/Tear It Up) and they rock. Of course they used the most
"outrageously" performed song for the film - while "Human Fly" was the better performance.

The XTC performance alone would make me buy this amazing film.
It's a sad that the original contracts are lost and I can only hope one day that they are found. Oh, human error!

I am surprised to see a vacuum of reviews on this great video. This is an outstanding event with a variety of bands playing in different cities in the US and England roughly at the same time, presented in a festival format. By the time this video was captured, punk had already matured a number of years and new-wave had long been on board, but the bands were still young. The list of bands captures the spectrum of known bands from the early days through to its filming, including Dead Kennedies, X, Devo, Cramps, Klaus Nomi, Oingo Boingo, Orchestal Maneuvers, Surf Punks, Romeo Void, Gary Neuman, and a number of others. The variety of styles was fascinating at the time and remains so to this day as almost a documentary of the era. I recall flicking on the TV while on travel when it first came out, not knowing what I was in for, but immediately and thoroughly hooked from performance to performance. Each gave their all, even the bizarre Nomi and the downright low-life Cramps. A very satifying evening of music. Fascinating. I do hope that there is a DVD on this one some day.

This is a fantastic compilation from what must have been a monstrous series of concerts. "Night Flight" on the USA Network used to broadcast it often on Friday and Saturday night in the late eighties. Dead Kennedys playing "Bleed For Me", Devo ("Uncontrollable Urge") Pere Ubu, Gang of Four, Gary Numan, the Cramps, and many many others, plus two songs by the Police, who organized and sponsored the event. An essential document of the 1980s New Wave/punk scene.

I had the privilege of viewing this film at a bar in Brooklyn less than a year ago and was floored! Between The Police, Klaus Nomi, Toyah Wilcox, Oingo Boingo, and Dead Kennedys, how could any fan of punk and new wave pass this up?

The highlight for me is seeing XTC peform "Respectable Street". Most XTC should know that the band never toured again after 1982, which makes this clip that much more worth picking up!

Well...what are you waiting for???

Found this by accident a couple of years after it came out. We played this through the stereo at parties (with the TV off, just the music). This is what early 80's radio should have been, instead of the corporate AOR crap.

Dead Kennedy's, Gary Numan, Wall of Voodoo and Pere Ubu are my personal faveorites, but all but about 3 songs are great!

If you know about this historical video, I don't need to tell you how groundbreaking and radical it was back in the day. A video that MUST be seen by fans of punk and new wave. THE best video of the genre. Watch and feel the need to rebel.

This is the coolest concert video I've ever seen. I've had the VHS version for years, but am afraid to play it too often for fear of wearing out the tape. It's chock-full of live performances from numerous punk and new-wave bands. Most performances are awesome, with only a few stinkers. What great bands! The Police, Dead Kennedys, Oingo Boingo, XTC, Go-Go's, Wall Of Voodoo, Devo, Joan Jett, and much more. A virtual endless parade of wonderful late 70's and early 80's music. This is an extremely important historical document. For example, to my knowledge it is the only place you can see the Go-Go's original bass player on video. I don't understand how this amazing video has been allowed to sink into obscurity. Someone in the recording industry needs to get their act together and put this on DVD. I don't care if they charge $250.00 for the DVD, I would buy it! IT'S THAT GOOD!

If anyone reading this review knows the best way to petition the music industry to get a DVD made, please, please inform us via another review.

I (unfortunately) have this rare gem of a classic on beta (yes BETA!) and since my old betamax machine hasn't worked in about 15 to 20 years I haven't been able to watch it since, nor have I been able to find any VHS copies of it (let alone a DVD version.)

This was an amazing compilation of original bands from the 70's punk/new wave scene. A must at least for historical reasons and someone, somewhere, NEEDS to make this on DVD; If not to educate the kids of today that Green Day is not really punk, then to at least give some of us older folk who were actually there something to relive the moments by!

I was actually at two of the concerts that were filmed for the URGH! documentary. On two consecutive nights at the Santa Monica Civic, I saw X, The Cramps, The Dead Kennedys, Chelsea, The Members, Wall of Voodoo, Magazine, Pere Ubu, and I think the Dead Boys.

Anyway, the performances were pretty uniformly great (The Cramps were awful, but they were performing for the first time without Bryan Gregory, who'd just left the band) and there has got to be hours and hours of amazing footage that didn't make the final cut of the film. Each band did around a half-hour or so on average, but only one song from each band made it into the final edit, so let's all pray for a really big box set someday.

Well at 42 years of age I was blessed to have seen some of these bands in their prime back in the day. Having seen the "edited" version on VH1 classic (left out 1/2 hour of footage -Surf Punks, Gary and the Cramps) someone needs to tell Miles Copeland to get this out on DVD. A true gem of a classic for the New-Wave era. The music was so original then. It is not hard to see where all of today's bands in the Indie- Alt world get their influence. Some great footage of Wall of Voodoo, Police, Magazine, Gang of Four, Echo & the Bunneymen and Devo. Also some great footage by some bands that never made the big-time like the Alley Cats. I would love to see A & M re-release the "complete" soundtrack on even CD. C'mon music companies, Rhino needs to strike a deal with Miles... A true desert island gem!!