Music Documentaries # 7
With my Music Documentaries posts my aim is to highlight certain scenes, music genres or just in general music history that in my opinion matters and the world should know more about. In today’s installment you get three documentaries from the North East of the United States and Canada. The three cities of Toronto/Ontario, Niagara Falls/New York and Cleveland/Ohio are dotted along the Great Lakes of Erie and Ontario and the distance between Cleveland and Toronto is about 300 miles with Niagara Falls being situated practically in the middle of the two and right on the American/Canadian border along the Falls. All three cities and its surrounding areas have their own punk rock and hardcore punk histories to tell, but as it goes with cities and places outside of where the media and the music industry are located the history of those places is often underreported as there aren’t a wealth of books and movies around. I hope you enjoy a wild ride about places and cities that are all dear to me for various personal reasons.
The first movie has actually been officially released just a few weeks back by Shepherd Moon Studios in cooperation with 1120 Press from Buffalo, NY. Before moving to Buffalo from Brooklyn some five years ago I have never heard of Virus X from Niagara Falls, NY, which lies just a few miles north of the city. I would imagine the same will apply to most of you out there reading this, but don’t you worry as this heart warming documentary tells you all about these friends who came together in the early ‘80s for the love of punk rock and by the way are still going strong to this day. I shall make sure to catch Virus X soon before it’s too late. Great watch!
In the next documentary we take a trip to the south of Buffalo along Lake Erie to the state of Ohio and the cities of Cleveland and Akron. In the early ‘80s these cities boasted some wild and out of tune hardcore punk acts like Zero Defex, The Dark, The Guns and many more. Brad Warner, who was the bass player for Zero Defex, is responsible for the production of this entertaining and equally interesting movie which had come out in 2007. In my opinion this documentary is very unique in the sense that it focuses on a scene that took very little influence from the outside and made things happen literally from scratch and from seemingly nothing.
The last documentary in this installment is a truly compelling watch and is sometimes referred to as Toronto’s “Decline of Western Civilization”. I can see why that would be the case as the style of the movie with live footage interspersed with punks talking is indeed similar. I’d say it’s a rare glimpse into how Hardcore Punk manifested itself in Toronto around 83/84 around bands like Direct Action, Chronic Submission, Bunchofuckingoofs and others that appeared on the originally on tape only released Hardcore 83 compilation. I enjoy the fast moving pace of the documentary and the many hilarious as well as serious comments made by the punks. I hope you enjoy this trip in hardcore punk history from Cleveland to Toronto with a stop in Niagara Falls. Until next time!
