A concert film that once featured more than two dozen punk, post-punk, and new wave bands — and spent decades tangled up in licensing limbo — gets a rare big-screen airing in Boston this Friday, October 9, with a twist: one of its stars will be in the room. Gang of Four drummer Hugo Burnham, who has lived and worked in Massachusetts for years, is set to join a conversation following the 7 p.m. screening of “Urgh! A Music War” at MassArt's Tower Auditorium.
The film, a 1982 concert documentary capturing performances by more than two dozen acts including Devo, the Go-Go's, the Police, Dead Kennedys, Wall of Voodoo, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Steel Pulse, Oingo Boingo, and Echo & the Bunnymen, has long been a hard-to-find cult object, according to The Boston Globe. Shot over a two-month period in 1980 at venues across Los Angeles, New York, England, and France, the movie never received a proper theatrical release, per the same report. Gang of Four is among the acts featured, with Burnham appearing on screen as the band's original drummer.
The screening is being hosted by Chris Slusarenko, a Portland, Oregon-based musician who has played with Eyelids and Guided by Voices, alongside his touring partner Chaki. Slusarenko told the Globe that “Urgh! A Music War” totally changed his life, and said he's happy to finally see it with an audience. The pair run A Very Opinionated Look at ‘Urgh! A Music War,’ a podcast devoted entirely to the film, and have produced 57 episodes exploring its origins and influence, according to the Globe.
A Soundtrack to a Vanishing Era
Slusarenko pointed out to the Globe that the film also captured acts like XTC, the Cramps, Gary Numan, Pere Ubu, Gang of Four, and the Au Pairs, offering a snapshot of a scene that existed just before new wave fully crossed into the mainstream — the Globe notes that Survivor's “Eye of the Tiger” was sitting at No. 1 for six weeks the same year the film was completed. The podcast, a Patreon spinoff of Slusarenko's broader Revolutions Per Movie project, digs into exactly that kind of context episode by episode.
Filming relied on mobile multitrack audio trucks to capture authentic live sound, and the finished cut, running 122 minutes, contains no voiceover narration or backstage interviews — just continuous concert footage, according to Screen Slate. That same account notes the film also preserved a performance by the short-lived synth-punk project Invisible Sex playing “Valium,” widely regarded as the band's only documented public performance — a detail that underscores how the movie doubles as an archive for obscure acts alongside its arena headliners.
Director Derek Burbidge, who had previously directed prominent promotional videos for the Police including “Roxanne,” helmed the project with creative input from Miles Copeland III, founder of I.R.S. Records and manager of the Police, according to B&S About Movies. Copeland's label co-produced the film with Lorimar Productions, which helps explain why the Police loom so large across the documentary's lineup.
Decades in Licensing Limbo
A&M Records issued a 28-track double-LP soundtrack in 1981, roughly a year before the film reached a limited U.S. theatrical release through Filmways Pictures in May 1982, per Discogs. The movie's complicated web of licensing rights across more than 30 independent acts kept it out of physical home media and streaming for years, according to Wikipedia. Warner Bros. eventually released it on made-to-order DVD-R through its Warner Archive Collection in August 2009, though that version omitted a performance by the British punk band Splodgenessabounds, Wikipedia notes.
A Post-Punk Legacy, Now Teaching in Beverly
Burnham's presence at the screening carries its own local resonance. He has served as an Assistant Professor of Experiential Learning at Endicott College in Beverly since 2008, following a 25-year career in the music industry as an artist manager and A&R executive, according to Endicott College. He transitioned into higher education in 2000 after decades working with labels including Island and Qwest Records, per the same source.
Burnham played drums on Gang of Four's 1979 debut album “Entertainment!,” a Leeds-born fusion of Marxist political commentary and danceable funk-punk rhythms that Rolling Stone ranked No. 273 on its 2020 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, according to Wikipedia. That record's enduring reputation gives Friday's post-screening conversation added weight for fans tracing the roots of the post-punk sound captured in “Urgh!”
Slusarenko's co-presenter Chaki is a Los Angeles-based electro-funk musician who has toured with Fishbone and El Vez and created the Punk Rock Graveyard Tour at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, according to the Roxie Theatre. The two travel together presenting live commentary screenings of the film around the country, with Boston marking one stop on that circuit.
Where and When to Catch It
The screening takes place at Tower Auditorium, located at 621 Huntington Ave. on the campus of Massachusetts College of Art and Design, the nation's only freestanding public college of art and design, established in 1873. Tickets start at $20, with the show starting at 7 p.m. Friday and the conversation with Burnham, Slusarenko, and Chaki following the film.
