va - Urgh! A Music War The Album

Soundtrack to the classic concert film from 1981, with live recordings of XTC, Echo & the Bunnymen, Oingo Boingo, Pere Ubu, Dead Kennedys, 999, Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark, Gang of Four, Fleshtones, Toyah Wilcox, Wall of Voodoo, Skafish, the Au-Pairs, Devo, a not-great showing from Gary Numan, too much by The Police (because the movie's director and IRS Records' CEO Miles Copeland is Police drummer Stewart's brother), and lots more. Of particular note is the incendiary performance by The Cramps, which to me is a career highlight for its manic, drooling lunacy. Same for Klaus Nomi's blinding turn on "Total Eclipse", which doubles as a painful reminder that he passed away far too soon. Due to legal whatnot, it's highly unlikely that the movie will be remastered and made available though any above-board channels, but bits have popped up on YouTube. Better than nothing.






va - Urgh! A Music War The Album

6 comments:

Roz 16 March 2018 at 12:03  

Very cool, thanks! Love this movie: the Alley Cats performance of "Nothing Means Nothing Anymore" is red hot

W. 16 March 2018 at 17:46  

Thank you - I love this one. There are lots of highlights - for me it's The Cramps.

badgerstump 16 March 2018 at 17:56  

If anybody want's to trawl through some of the undoubted dross to find the true gems ... here's a rather good rip of the 1983 UK VHS (it's in two parts so you'll have to combine them when you extract):

http://www15.zippyshare.com/v/mCummF0z/file.html
http://www15.zippyshare.com/v/lS2QNBaL/file.html

Also, there was this 4CD set released last year in an edition of only 50 copies that may grab your attention:

https://www.discogs.com/The-Cramps-OFF-AIR/release/11013555

http://www15.zippyshare.com/v/x17THATt/file.html
http://www15.zippyshare.com/v/QMGe0rfe/file.html


Anonymous,  17 March 2018 at 13:09  

Caligari:
thanks budge!

kingpossum,  17 March 2018 at 17:34  

Urgh indeed. This brings back memories of bumping into this seemingly every time I trawled the used record stores. Seemed like every bin contained a copy, regardless of music genre or artist named on the plastic divider. They must have pressed 10 million copies and sold 2,409 of them.

Hearty thanks for the post.

Plague 17 March 2018 at 20:56  

thanks much for the extra Cramps action.
Lux is missed.