Urgh! A Music War

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 land lock he cannot release it. If he does some day, we can look forward to a 6 hour 2 DVD special edition.

Pretty sad to say the very least. We can only hope one day (soon) that the original contracts will be found as this will make a MAJOR DVD release!! Oh, human error!!

By that time, my friends were listening to ugly music like Styx or Emerson Lake and Palmer. They thought I was kind of crazy to listen to X and the Cramps. I had also the big chance to have this film on tape. I also got the double LP of the music. Some of this stuff is still good to listen to (Wall of Voodoo, X, Fleshtones, Police, Cramps) but to see this film is also an incridible experience. See zany John Otway! But for me, the Cramps performance of Tear it up is one the greatest moment of pure rock and roll catch on film. And who was that strange girl of the Alley Cats? Who were the Alley Cats? Their song is amazing! Seems like all these people have a lot of fun back then.

From London to La, we are treated to some of rock's all-time greatest bands performing , unfortunately, one song each, during a great time in rock music: the post-punk era of the early '80s. You'll love some and you'll hate some, but you definitely won't be bored. Watch out for X, the go-gos, Echo and the Bunnymen, Oingo Boingo, Joan Jett, Cramps, Alley cats, Magazine, Au Pairs, Police, Wall of Voodoo, Fleshtones,999,XTC, Surf Punks and on and on and on. Great!

Update (written on 1st Oct '16): In late 2009 Warner Archives in the USA released a very high quality 16:9 (transferred from almost pristine film), glorious stereo, "burn on demand" single layer DVD edition of Urgh! The DVD is not quite perfect - there are just a few very minor split second, but noticeable, audio glitches. It would have been improved greatly if there were chapter marks at the start of each artist's performance (rather than every 10 minutes) and if a running order playlist was printed on the cover. The big advantage over all previous tape and LaserDisc editions is that the synch of video and audio is precise throughout (other editions had severe synch errors especially in both Pere Ubu and Devo - with the audio a full third of a second in advance of the video). The only artist missing from the Warner Archives DVD is Splodgeness Abounds, with their punk version of the Rolf Harris ditty "Two Little Boys" (no great loss). This is likely to be the only version ever released on digital and it is 99% of everything I could have hoped for. NB: because this is a 16:9 transfer from original film we get more information left and right than was shown in any of the 4:3 versions (tape or LaserDisc), and what is cropped slightly from the top and bottom of the film frame is worth the sacrifice.

My original 2003 review. comment was:

Urgh! is the finest ever collection of alternative music performance, by artists at the prime of their stage careers.

An important and lasting legacy of Urgh! was that it brought some previously unknown bands to the attention of a much broader audience than would ever have been possible otherwise. I'm referring here to acts such as Skafish, (the late) Klaus Nomi, The Alley Cats, Gang Of Four, Pere Ubu, X and The Cramps.

No-one could fail to want more of The Cramps after seeing Lux Interior deepthroat his hi-ball mic, while barely staying in his pants. Jim Skafish's "Sign Of The Cross" is another highlight - as a blasphemous anthem of epic proportions.

There are only a few performances that I really thought were so-so (Chelsea, 999, John Otway, Invisible Sex); a few more were "good", but the vast majority were amazingly good.

Even on the poor quality transfer to LaserDisc you can appreciate that Urgh! was filmed with care and with genuine respect for the performers and the viewer really feels like part of the audience.

The bands all sound great - but strangely it's in mono on the LaserDisc & VHS, while the double album on vinyl is in extremely good stereo. So when someone finally gets around to doing it, surely there's a state-of-the-art DVD just begging to be mastered and released? And if a DVD does eventuate, let's hope they make up for the major failing of the LaserDisc, and include Wall Of Voodoo's "Back In Flesh".

i remember being so impressed that someone had filmed the bands i was listening to as a kid.... i saw this movie in the theatre once and on cable about 400,000,000,000 times. I used to stay up and watch it on Night Flight (as so many others have mentioned) and it used to run on Showtime, HBO and Cinemax quite a bit back in the day. Awesome performances and a whole *@#$load of music that's all but been forgotten... like the best band and best performance in the movie (which thus far no one has mentioned): Gang of Four totally rocking out in London.

If you really want to treat yerself, i highly recommend finding a copy of this, but wait to watch it until you can go back-to-back with Decline of Western Civilization. Ah, what a great time to be alive that was :D

One of my favorite movies; I wish i could see it again (come on Rhino! save us from another pop diva and re-issue this film on DVD!)