Well, it was billed as Strike Under, but really Steve Bjorklund fronting a band playing Strike Under tunes.

Movie was pretty great. Sounded surprisingly good, lotsa great footage.

Standouts:

Effigies. Kind of obviously the kings, in terms of overall blend of command, intensity, originality, musicality. Other bands might have had them on one thing or the other, but no one else put it together the way they did.

Raygun, early. So much weirder than the latter-day stuff. Kind of startling.

Strike Under. Sharpest, most aggressive band of the bunch.

End Result. Totally odd. The little bits they showed were bewitching. I'd like very much to hear more of their music.

Big Black, not much time spent on them, but the one clip was as alien and freakish as I remember them being, which is saying something in the context of the other bands and with twenty years' hindsight.

Every time I hear the Mentally Ill, it makes me laugh. It's some of the funniest, most ridiculous music ever. I was so taken with the Jax-driven guitar sound when I first heard it, I dug up the schematic for the pedal and built one.

The hardcore bands were as boring as ever. It really flattens things out when they come into the picture.

Since it will undoubtedly filter out, I will point out that Vic Bondi calls out Steve at one point. Like, to a fight. Over, like, not liking Articles of Faith and saying unflattering things to that effect. This is in the present tense (2007), like he was saying 'let's fight...today. Over those things you said about me. Twenty years ago.' Jesus...H...Christ.

The very end is a bunch of back in the day it was so much better stuff, which gets tiresome. But Jeff Pezzati has a funny comment at the end, which redeems that entire segment. The funniest thing about this part, though, is left unsaid: the Effigies made one of their best records THIS YEAR. It was only better back in the day if you have stopped trying.

Overall, a swell film. Very nicely framed--little attention to anything from Big Black/latter-day Raygun on, since you can find out about it elsewhere.

It's called You Weren't There, and I hope you all take the time to see it or buy it or whatever.

Show was sold out by the time I got there, which was a BUMMER b/c I really wanted to see the Mentally Ill and, after seeing the flick, End Result.

Thanks Tmidgett! I heard about the Vic Bondi sillyness. He seems to be a man who takes himself entirely way too seriously. I've seen American Hardcore, and his commentary there was kinda too intense as well.

*Edited for None of my Business*

Excellent film. Tim's right about the audio track, it's surprisingly well sweetened / mastered and hits as hard as it should.

I recommend You Weren't There to anybody interested in what it looks, sounds and feels like when a naturally-occurring countercultural movement appears and persists in a hostile environment.

Saw lots of stuff that was going on when I was aged 12 and couldn't be there for, saw some stuff I was there for at COD and Exit and the Hall. Eric Nihilist and your all ages shows, bless you.

Highlights:

- a miffed Tim Powell reminding the world that The Effigies' Haunted Town wasn't recorded by Steve.

- a momentarily contrite Bill Meehan living down his song titles

- The AOF/Effigies slap-fight laid out plainly for all the world to make no sense of whatsoever

- Savage Beliefs! YES!

- Terry Nelson! WZRD! YES! YES!

- a shit ton more.

Couldn't see the live show, but I knew what was up "special guest" wise when I spotted Steve Bjorklund at the movie theatre holding a guitar case.

Great film! Smelled like old people in the lobby.

-r

i am absurdly angry i missed this. i'm in chicago 24/7 mostly all the time and this happens the one weekend i'm in NYC.

Is the movie playing anywhere this week? Is it playing again at all?

tmidgett wrote:End Result. Totally odd. The little bits they showed were bewitching. I'd like very much to hear more of their music.

Me too. So this morning I bought this on ebay. They also have a myspace page with some songs posted on it.

tommydski wrote:Vic Bondi. It sounds like he still hasn't developed his faculties to include any degree of wit, diversity or subtlety of thought. It doesn't surprise me that he still lets nonsense from "back in the day" occupy his thoughts. Maybe that's why I've never heard of you and your shitty band, Mr. Bondi.

Enough, enough. The guy has appeared on a huge screen in a dark room and clarified for the ages that he is a douche. Run up the score if you must, but really, what are you proving?

The joy and power of aggressive music doesn't need defense. Aggressive music attracted and became dominated by artlessness, so what? What hasn't?

-r

Echo most of what tmidgett and warmowski said about the film, and I actually was there for the better part of the period discussed.

Besides being genuinely nostalgic (a sentiment I don't indulge in often), it was great for the leading lights of the group of people who inspired and enlightened me regarding punk music (Pezzati, the Bjorklunds, Santiago, Camilo Gonzalez, Bill Mehan, Terry Nelson, John Kezdy, John Haggerty, Lorna Donley) to be shown to be as smart, engaging and clear-eyed about everything as I remembered them being at the time. Also crazy. Also real funny.

Many music scenes formed around charismatic but brain-dead personalities and flamboyant showmen who were otherwise without substance. An awful lot of those people are now bitter burnouts or embarrassing parodies of themselves. It was great to be reminded that Chicago really was different, and that the people who did things here were genuine, perverse, gifted and unique.

Chicago, you had a great punk rock subculture in the beginning! Salut!

I didn't see all of the show after -- I saw the "End Result" set, which was not the original three-piece, and was missing Alan Jones. Without torturing anybody with the details, End Result without Alan Jones is like the Experience without Jimi Hendrix. See if you can find their recorded material, because it is much better than I am at convincing you they were otherworldly and awesome.

I had to leave for a bit, but I got back in time to see the Mentally Ill (they used the house sound guy, who did a terrific job) who were excellent.

It would be impossible to know without being told that this was their first ever public show, or that they had been on hiatus for many years. They were furious, funny, raunchy and played really well. I was impressed far beyond the novelty of seeing a band like them.

Also, the movie did a great job of showing the cooperation and commingling of all the misfit subcultures in Chicago, especially the punks and the queers.

The first thing that struck me when I started coming to shows here was that the shows had freaks of all kinds; hustlers, dope fiends, petty criminals, queers, disaffected rockers, unstable loners, immigrants and other castoffs. The only thing they had in common was that they were unwelcome elsewhere and lived as utter misfits.

I can endorse a scene like that much easier than the solidly middle-class, solidly straight, mostly white, conformist hardcore scene that came about later. The early punk scene must have been like that in some other places, but I know it was like that here, and that's why I gravitated to it.