Review: 'ROUGH CUT & READY DUBBED (DVD)'
Director: 'HASAN SHAH & DOM SHAW'
- Starring: 'Stiff Little Fingers, Sham 69, Purple Hearts, The Selecter, Patrik Fitzgerald, Cockney Rejects, John Peel, Charles Shaar Murray, Garry Bushell, Tony Wilson'
- Genre: 'Documentary'
- Release Date: '13th June 2005'- Catalogue No: 'DVD2666'
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Our Rating:
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Although every bit as primitive as its' title suggests, "Rough Cut & Ready Dubbed" is nonetheless a fascinating insight into post-punk Britain and the slew of youth cults springing up in the wake of punk's 1977 year zero.
Directors Hasan Shah and Dom Shaw were barely out of high school when they started shooting the documentary and clearly it became something of a labour of love for them, as the original (nearly) hour-long film actually took the best part of four years to compile, finally hitting the box office in 1982. In the DIY style of punk itself, Shah and Shaw were true independents, armed with only a couple of 8mm hand-held cameras, enthusiasm and a rudimentary knowledge. Due to their lack of affiliation with either the Beeb or ITV, the pair found access difficult to gain in places, and it's a tribute to their determination and guile that they obtained the footage they did.
We'll get to the music in a minute, but with "Rough Cut & Ready Dubbed", our two intrepid directors also managed to infiltrate the various youth movements emerging at the time and indeed, the street-level, 'talking head'-style interviews they achieved make up some of the most interesting footage here. The X-rated interview segments with the skinhead factions of the day (plenty of whom were National Front-affiliated, remember) is genuinely chilling, especially when you consider how utterly blinkered and fanatical these characters are/ were. Violence simmers tangibly below the surface and the references to "n***er lovers" etc soon makes you realise the idea of political correctness wasn't even a gleam in the eye back in the early days of Thatcher. In their 'director's interview' extra feature, Shah and Shaw reveal how difficult it proved to obtain this candid footage, with Shaw admitting his neo-skinhead crop at the time helped in encouraging these East End skins to open up on camera.
Equally intriguing are the media-related interviews the twosome undertook with the likes of the NME'S Charles Shaar Murray, "Sounds" features editor Garry Bushell and - inevitably - the late John Peel. The latter comes off best, as ever dryly playing down his own role and suggesting "my role is as super fan - or super consumer, if you want to be cynical about it." As always, Peel remains healthily distanced from the more crass, biz-based shenanigans of the day and your admiration for him can only grow once more. Murray, meanwhile, actually comes over as a bit of a pretentious twerp, while Garry Bushell is straight-talking, opinionated and forthright. Yes, I know this may offend those of you who know him purely for his dubious antics with "The Sun", but he was certainly on the ball back at the turn of the 1980s, and - regardless of his allegiance to The Cockney Rejects -it's largely down to him this writer got introduced to bands like Madness, The Chords and The Ruts so respect is belatedly due.
But like I said earlier, we would of course be getting to the music, and even allowing for the grainy quality of the filming, there's some incendiary stuff here. STIFF LITTLE FINGERS blast through apocalyptic versions of "Suspect Device" and "Alternative Ulster" from Brixton's Brockwell Park's Anti-Nazi League gig in 1979; the under-rated PURPLE HEARTS lay waste to a cracking "Millions Like Us" in the sweaty confines of Hampstead's Moonlight Club; lost 'punk poet' PATRIK FITZGERALD reminds us of his legacy's worth with the nihilistic, tragicomic "Tonight" and the directors pop up to Two-Tone's midlands hub to film THE SELECTER play a fine version of "Missing Words" from Tiffany's in Coventry. Admittedly, we also have to suffer the clueless COCKNEY REJECTS bashing through "I'm Not A Fool" (hmm) and SHAM 69 playing the distinctly non-punk "Poor Cow" in the studio, with Jimmy Pursey predictably making an arse of himself with the help of dustbin lids and a fire extinguisher. No, you really don't wanna go there for any length of time.
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Brilliantly, the directors bring it all full circle for the DVD edition, by including a further half hour or so of 'where are they now?' footage subtitled "Rough Cut & Ready Dubbed: Revisited". Put together over the last 12 months or so, this new footage predictably finds many of punk's orginal young charges to have forsaken the safety pins for sensible clothes and a career, but not exclusively. For example, the spiky-topped first generation punk gracing the DVD cover is one Dave Ferguson: a man who has stuck to his guns and still wears the leather jacket and Discharge T-shirt, even though the hairline has lit out for the hills and gone grey. Dave is now a respected punk record dealer in London and pays touching tribute to John Peel in the new footage. He's also well on the way to becoming my hero. It's comforting to realise some people really DID mean it, maan.
OK, so there's no Clash, Pistols, Jam etc, but - like Lech Kowalski's often harrowing doc "D.O.A", "Rough Cut..." widens its' net to trawl for most of the relevant musical/ youth culture developments in the wake of punk's diaspora and - taking in mod, oi, second-generation punk and ska - locates most of the important ones. Revelling in a warts'n'all style befitting the times, "Rough Cut & Ready Dubbed" is both a fascinating archeological find and intriguingly relevant 25 years on from the initial seismic shockwaves.
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author: TIM PEACOCK
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