Joe Rees

On June 13, 1978, the punk bands the Cramps and the Mutants played a free show for psychiatric patients at the Napa State Hospital in California. We Were There to Be There chronicles the people, politics, and cultural currents that led to the show and its live recording.

While this film may look rough and raw to 21st Century eyes, it is also the best representation of Iggy live during an otherwise pitifully undocumented era of his career. Fronting a crack band featuring Blondie drummer Clem Burke and future David Bowie guitarist Carlos Alomar, Pop is as unpredictable and dominant as ever (no small feat since he is sporting a mini skirt, garters and stockings for most of the show). Filmed on November 25 1981 near the end of their tour supporting his 1981 album Party, Iggy and co. are raw and ready for business. Iggy Pop Live 1981 provides a snapshot of a hungry artist at the top of his game in front of an adoring crowd.

"This lone video artifact offers indisputable evidence that in 1980 Devo had reached a turning point. We were no longer just art monsters, we were mainstream performers too. " - Gerald V. Casale (from the back of the DVD case) August 17, 1980 Phoenix Theater, Petaluma

The film details an entire live performance from Devo's 1996 reunion tour with Lollapalooza, opening for Metallica. The band performs a stripped down set consisting of songs from their first three albums, filmed at Irvine Meadows, California.

Documentation of three Survival Research Laboratories events, 1983-1984. Meet Stu, the SRL guinea pig, and see him training to operate the 4-legged Walking Machine, see 10-barrel shotguns, hear the "Stairway to Hell".

Five SST bands (SWA, Saccharine Trust, Meat Puppets, The Minutemen, & Hüsker Dü) taped live at "The Stone" in San Francisco on March 1st, 1985.

Five mechanized performances of Survival Research Laboratories, 1985-1986. 70 min. of endless pursuits, unavoidable captures, and merciless punishments.

The concert was recorded with a black-and-white video camera and a single microphone on June 13, 1978.

Recorded live at Kezar Pavilion in San Francisco on the evening of May 29th, 1981. "Throbbing Gristle have ceased to exist. They are now pursuing solo projects."

Recorded live at Kezar Pavilion in San Francisco on the evening of May 29th, 1981. "Throbbing Gristle have ceased to exist. They are now pursuing solo projects."

A selection of Survival Research Laboratories early performances, a must for those interested in how such an enterprise ever got started in the first place.

Performances by Sex Pistols, UK Decay, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Bauhaus, Young Marble Giants, Brian Brain, Black Flag w/ Dez, Ramones, No Alternative, Talking Heads, Flipper, Weirdos, Crime, and Devo

On June 13, 1978, the soon-to-be legendary rock band the Cramps went to play Napa State, a psychiatric hospital in the small town of Napa in Northern California. Opening for them was the Mutants, an eclectic septet of art school punks from nearby San Francisco. Also in the van was seminal Bay Area art collective Target Video, there to capture the show using one of the first video cameras available to the public, democratizing a medium controlled by mainstream media outlets. Target Video's 22-minute ½” open reel recording of the Mutants' opening set, previously thought to be lost, was restored by Dino Everett at the Punk Media Research Collection, University of Southern California, HMH Foundation Moving Image Archive, and released on DVD in 2023 by Grasshopper Films.

Full uncut footage from The Tour video

Throbbing Gristle performing live at the Kezar Pavillion in San Francisco, California on the evening of May 29th, 1981. This would be TG's last show until reforming in 2002.

Live in concert at the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco + bonus material.

Live in concert at the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco + bonus material.

Live performance of Diamanda Galas in 1985, released by Target Video. The performance, based on a poem by Charles Baudelaire, devotes itself to the emaraldine perversity of the life struggle in hell.

Flipper captured during two shows filmed on home turf in San Francisco. The Berkeley Square show presents the band as the headliner and the Kezar Stadium was as the opener for Throbbing Gristle's last live performance.

A documentary about California punk.