…said question being "Does the recently released Warner Archive disc of the intriguing 1981 doc Urgh! A Music War feature the performances by Magazine, Skafish, and most importantly, Pere Ubu that seem to have been excised from the repertory prints of the film now in circulation?"
As a matter of fact, it does.
Oh happy day. Also, the disc looks and sounds better than the print I saw at BAM last fall, so if you're a fan of this pic—which I was rather disappointed with when it first came out, but now adore, not least for its time-capsule qualities—you ought to scarf this up.
Also: how much did Gang of Four completely and utterly rule, anyway?
The answer: quite a bit actually.
I had the good fortune to see Gang of Four in concert in a small club with Pylon opening. URGH! captures just a smidgen of what I was witness to that night. Unforgettable. My only problem with URGH! is that whenever I watch it, I can’t get XTC’s “Respectable Street” out of my head for DAYS.
yes XTC rips it up big time in this film!!
Is the Gary Numan footage in? It was cut out when IFC showed it a couple years ago.
I always felt sorry for the singer who had to use the microphone after Lux Interior.
Yes, the Gary Numan number—perhaps the most inadvertently funny piece of concert footage ever put on film—in in this. Thing runs a full two hours!
dude, that little car.