Sunday Slashers returns with punk documentary, rock show
For many years, Justin Savage produced a free movie and show event at the former Discoteca club and later at Sluggo’s. He’s bringing the monthly film screening and music shows back beginning tonight at the Palace Theater on Georgia Avenue.
“For a mere $5, you get an in-your-face movie and in-your-face rock show and beer,” Savage says.
The featured film this month will be “The Damned: Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead,” which will be followed by music by local group The Ghetto Blasters, featuring Savage, Terry Clouse, Patrick Wilkey and Buddha.
Savage says the events will take place the last Sunday of each month and “will feature something cool each time. It might be music or a double feature or something. We just want people to come out and have a good time.”
The film was made by Wes Orshoski and chronicles the history of British punk-rock pioneers The Damned.
Orshoski met the band while making the documentary “Lemmy” about the late Lemmy Kilmister, a member of The Damned who was best known as the legendary frontman for Motörhead. The Damned still occasionally tour, and they asked Orshoski to film one of the tours in hopes of putting out a DVD.
“I wasn’t really interested in that,” he says.
Instead, he spent more than three years talking with many of the nearly 35 musicians who cycled
through the band over the years. What he wanted to do with his film was document what he felt was an underappreciated pioneering group.
“The more I learn about all the other punk bands, and maybe it’s a kind of bias I have, but the more I learned, the more it seemed that they were the most punk of the punk bands,” he says.
The Damned is recognized by most people as having released the first punk-rock single, “New Rose,” in the United Kingdom in October of 1977. Punk rock was a reaction to the growth and popularity of bands that put out heavily produced records and even grander arena rock shows.
Punk bands often featured members who couldn’t play an instrument and were proud of it. The Damned, while also famous for their raucous and often volatile live shows, could actually play. They also preferred to remain as independent as possible, choosing for example to go with small DIY record labels over the larger, more “corporate” labels. Members such as Captain Sensible, Rat Scabies and David Vanian acknowledge that might have cost them some money.
The film includes comments from Chrissie Hynde, Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode), Billy Idol, Mick Jones (The Clash), Kilmister and members of Pink Floyd, Black Flag, the Sex Pistols, Blondie, Buzzcocks and others.
Orshoski says telling the band’s story was made difficult because there have been so many incarnations of the band. He didn’t try to speak to every former band member.
“I was originally attracted to this band because they were there at the dawn of punk, and they never got their due. I wanted to shine a little light on them.”
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6354.