Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

As everyone has already mentioned, you get over 30 performances, and at least half of them are classics. There are a few gems in the ones you've never heard of, and at least 5 or 10 you'll be wishing you had it on DVD so you could hit skip.The highlights- Oingo Boingo does "Ain't This The Life" from their first EP. The song itself is kinda rare (unavailable on CD except for their live Farewell album), and I've never seen Elfman so manic. (Coked-up?) Wall Of Voodoo does "Back In Flesh" and gets a tiny skit as well. Gary Numan does "Down In The Park" while driving a neon tank. Devo does the always great "Uncontrollable Urge". XTC performs- well I can't remember, but it's rare enough just seeing them perform. Dead Kennedy's whip through "Bleed For Me", complete with typical Jello Biafra opening rant. Joan Jett SMOKES "Bad Reputation". Surf Punks do an amusing "My Beach". Lux Interior of the Cramps wears a nearly-criminal pair of leather pants and deep throats a microphone during- I forget what song, but it's good. Klaus Nomi is, well Klaus Nomi- you may hate it, but it sure isn't boring. And of the bands you've never heard of, you'll never forget Skafish's "Sign Of The Cross".There are also good performances by Echo & The Bunnymen, OMD, The Police, Gang Of Four, X, Go-Go's, Magazine and a few others, but they never really stood out to me. I thought Pere Ubu's performance was substandard- I'm not a big fan, but I saw them once in the early 90's and they were great. Most of the unknown bands are just kind of dull, a few prove why they're unknown, like Athletico Spizz (or something like that- the one with the Silly String.) This is hard to find, but there are a lot of rental copies still floating around out there. I think it was on CBS/Fox video, so I don't know why it hasn't been put out on DVD.

I am now 36 years old and grew up during the disco era, a time formerly considered to be the worst ever in popular music. Since I couldn't deal with the constant disco, I turned to '50's oldies and the emerging punk/new wave scene to save my musical sanity. During that time, I bought the soundtrack album to URGH! and loved nearly every second of it. However, the film itself never played near me, even at the local "oddball" theater and so I assumed that it was doomed to languish in obscurity.Skip ahead to 1985 and the late, lamented NIGHT FLIGHT program that ran on the USA network on weekend late-nights. NIGHT FLIGHT ran tons of off the wall movies and music shows that were clearly geared for a late-high school and college age audience who more than likely did a lot of drugs. They surprised the hell out of me and my stoner pals by announcing "Up next: the strange world of the punk and new wave scene with URGH! A MUSIC WAR!" I took off like a shot (knocking over the bong and royally pissing off my dorm mates) for the campus store to obtain a blank video tape, and made it back with about two minutes to spare. The trip was worth it, as I witnessed live performances of 32 (!!!) different bands, quite a few of whom I already loved and several more that I discovered that night.The film chronicles performances from the US and Europe during 1980/81 and though fun, the results are wildly uneven. Here's the bottom line on acts you should not miss: Devo (turning in a kickass version of "Uncontrollable Urge" which really captures how hard they rocked in those days), the Go-Gos (before their first album came out, and when Belinda Carlisle was still chunky doing "We Got the Beat"), Joan Jett (burning up the screen with "Bad Reputation" in her pre-weight loss, pre- "I Love Rock 'N' Roll" days), The Cramps (will Lux Interior's johnson flop out of his silver stretch-pants while performing "Tear It Up"?), Oingo Boingo (turning in an absolutely electrifying version of "Ain't This the Life?" in which Danny Elfmman looks both insane and possessed), Skafish (doing "Sign of the Cross" and featuring Jim Skafish, perhaps the ugliest frontman ever), the Dead Kennedys ( a great rendition of "Bleed For Me"), Klaus Nomi (hands-down the strangest act in this flick, and that's really saying something. He performs "Total Eclipse" in a shattering falsetto, complete with Teutonic accent, and a spaceman/mime/drag queen outfit), XTC ("Respectable Street" as it was truly meant to be heard), X ("Beyond and Back"), 999 ("Homicide"), Magazine ("Model Worker"), Steel Pulse ("Ku Klux Klan") and UB40 (doing the unjustly forgotten "Madame Medusa").There is a lot of filler and crap, but that may just be my opinion; you may dig the the stuff I hate, so who knows? If you can find this, rent it and sit back for a unique time capsule of the early '80's when pop music made it's last stand to be interesting.

An excellent picture of what the punk/new wave scene was before the sound got co-opted by the mainstream. The Devo live performance really rocks, and you get to see many smaller artists that got overlooked when this genre took over the top 40. It really shows you how much fun and interesting music can be when it isn't being pushed by big labels and a band's sound can be created naturally without pressure to meet a certain standard. Last I saw it aired on the Sundance Channel.

It aired on the late, great, NIGHT FLIGHT on USA back in the 80's. It's fun to watch and see who is still kicking around. The highlight is the Go Go's with a very young Belinda Carlisle looking all chubby and tough with her peroxided short punk hair. I recommend it to anyone interested in punk and early 80's music. Well worth searching for.