Shiny Object

Released in 1981 as a feature-length film and companion double lp, Urgh! A Music War contains live performances of some of  the more influential bands of the punk and new wave era. In the summer of 1982, the Dallas-Ft Worth PBS affiliate aired the film with a stereo simulcast on its sister-radio station. My older brother and I flipped when we learned of the broadcast. We were well-versed in the catalogs of the more popular new wave acts on the lineup like Devo, The Police and Wall of Voodoo. But we lived in the suburbs and were too young to drive to the good record stores in Dallas.

Our parents left town the night of the broadcast, a rare occasion. To enjoy Urgh! in all of its splendor we cranked up all of the radios throughout the house and tuned to the simulcast. What followed was 2-hours of mind-altering music and performance – Gary Numan powering a tiny electric car while singing “Down In The Park”, Lux Interior of The Cramps swallowing his microphone in what appeared to us to be a nervous breakdown, Klaus Nomi dressed in Kabuki makeup and a deco spacesuit singing falsetto. Too many strange and great moments to recount here. Seeing these bands making music their way was more than an expansion in our musical vocabularies. But more importantly the realization that beyond our narrow borders was a world filled with chaos and surprise worth looking into.