Bloodied But Unbowed is a highly entertaining documentary movie by Susanne Tabata, chronicling the Vancouver punk scene of the late 70's /early 80's. And now it's available on DVD!! For $10.00!!! Go to www.thepunkmovie.com. Excellent product for a cheap price. The collectors 3-DVD version is sold out; they only made 150 of them, unfortunately. I held out and found myself out of luck last month. Luckily I managed to win one on Ebay. The single disc is still worth double what they are asking. If this project is successful, maybe more film makers will be encouraged to make more films like this.
This is a white hot, intelligent, humorous look at a special scene that like a lot of punk scenes, came and went in a short short period. And while things that happened there paralleled the trials and tribulations of other scenes, as in the early days places like Vancouver were islands in a mainstream ocean. Hell, they were an island in their own city! These days all bands are alternative, so this is something a lot of people probably don't understand. That punks had to travel in groups in order to risk getting mauled by complete strangers.
But the Vancouver had its own unique qualities, and that had to do with the unique personalities of the musicians.
A big part of this movie of course is D.O.A. and the Subhumans, excellent bands who are more hardcore punk. But the documentary includes a variety of bands, showing the diversity and experimental nature of the scene. In other words there was a high level of musical tolerance in those days. It wasn't like certain styles were considered verboten then.
One of the biggest problems was finding venues where punk rock was accepted, one of which was the Smiling Buddha, which seemed to be a bit of a dump but nonetheless a haven for the new sounds. Of course one of the problems was that places got wrecked, so there was not going to be a second booking. There is a lot of historic footage in the film, plus loads of contemporary interviews with many of the Vancouver groups and also American musicians of the era who performed in Vancouver and were fans of the music. San Francisco and Vancouver were very much kindred scenes with a lot of similarities. Dead Kennedy's Jello Biafra and The Avengers' Penelope Houston have a lot of insight on the subject, as do Southern Californians like Black Flag's Henry Rollins and Circle Jerk's Keith Morris.
In addition to the above mentioned bands, there are interviews with Pointed Sticks, the amazing pop punks, Tim Ray, Jade Blade of the Dishrags. You have interviews with Buck Cherry and Mary Jo Kopechne of the Modernettes. Kopechne speaks with a great deal of candor about her punk experience. On the one hand, getting involved got her into a community, because she was going in a bad direction earlier. On the other hand, some of the things that happened to her in that period are absolutely harrowing. It's no wonder that she is disillusioned about the old days. As tough as it was to a punk rocker in those days, it was triply tough to be a female punker. You also have an interview with Art Bergmann of the K-Tels/Young Canadians, one of the most talented artists of the era, who unfortunately did not find the success his ability merited.
One of the most intelligent, engaging interviewees is Gerry Hannah of the Subhumans. Later on you find out that he was an extreme environmental activist, one of the Squamish Five, who did some pretty serious stuff. They blew up a factory building parts for cruise missiles and also a power plant. He did five years hard time out of a possible 10. Today he still holds strong convictions, but is contrite about how you go about achieving goals. Another one of the cautionary parts of this movie is the destructiveness of hard drug use. A lot of people who could have been in this were not around to do it.
I highly recommend this movie. By viewing this movie, you get a good idea of what things were like in those days. And the interviews are insightful and funny. It puts a face on the great music we listen to today. A lot of the recordings of these bands can be found on Joe Keithley of D.O.A.'s music label, Sudden Death Records. It's great that classic Canadian punk music like The Modernettes, D.O.A.,K-Tels/Young Canadians, and Pointed Sticks and the landmark Vancouver Complication comp are readily available today. But check out this documentary sooner than later. I think you will really enjoy this. Kudos to Susanne Tabata and all involved in the making this important movie.
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