Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I was watching some old video tapes this weekend. I've got a recording of Urgh! A Music War. Anyone heard of it? A bunch of bands from the early 80's. Anyway, The Members is the name of a band on there and they play Ric guitars. Not sure where they are now or if they ever released anything worthwhile. They had a great sound on the video though. Kind of reggae meets punk.

I remember hearing them, never saw a photo or video though. The singer was Nicky Tesco. They were around from '77 to maybe '83.

Urgh was a popular fund raising movie during my junior and senior years of college (about '79 through '81); I saw it several times in various stages of, shall we say, distraction. It was great to see the bands that our college radio station was playing at the time; this was in the pre MTV days (not that many of those bands would have made the MTV play list- anyone seen a Klaus Nomi video?).

I have a copy of it at home, I'll check it out.

Ole Klaus had it goin' on back then. "Tooootal eclipse it's a tooootal eclipse...." Crazy lookin' dude.

He certainly caught the eye (and ears). I should revise my first post by changing "distraction" to "inebriation"; I just checked, Urgh wasn't released until 1981, so it must have been 1982 that I saw it so many times..."those times I'll never forget if only I could remember 'em". It's a great video, though, lots of excellent bands, the late Herr Nomi not withstanding.

If I'm not mistaken, The Go-Go's are on there, in their punk days, pre-pop. XTC is on there too. Which is very rare considering how Collin has stage fright so bad they stopped touring in '84 around the time of Skylarking, I think. Then there's 999 doing my favorite by them, "Homicide".

I don;t think it's Colin that has stage rfight, its andy. But I could be mistaken.

You are correct. Andy Partridge has stage fright. You wouldn't know it from the Urgh! video though. He looked totally into it. Other bands on there: The Police, Dead Kennedys, Surf Punks, yes the Go Go's, Oingo Boingo, Jules Holland, Pere Ubu, UB40, Magazine, Wall of Voodoo, Echo and the Bunnymen, Devo, Steel Pulse, Joan Jett, and a bunch of others I know I'm forgetting. If you can get your hands on a copy you should grab it. The vids and cds cost a small fortune on eBay.

You're Right, now that I recall it's Andy Partridge, and he didn't seem to have a problem in the video, he was bouncing all over the place.
There were a lot of great performances on that video, I wish it would be released on DVD.

XTC is one of the highlights of the film for me; as I recall Andy and Sting sing together on the last track. I gather that Urgh is out of print, here is some more information:
http://www.mindspring.com/~jes_james/urgh/

My copy is a tape of a tape, it would be great to have it out on DVD. No jumping guys with 3/4 length pants, stocking caps, and Ibanez seven strings on this one!

An excellent XTC related site is Dave Gregory's:
http://www.guitargonauts.com/entry.html
I really enjoy his guitar comments under "Pick of the Month". RIC twelve strings were/are a big part of his sound.

I've got a pretty decent recording of it. Sometime in 1983 Showtime was showing it on cable and that is when I recorded it. Yes Andy Partridge sings with Sting. All of the musicians who played at Frejus (I think it's in France) during that show performed together at the end.

FYI. I recently purchased a DVD of Urgh! A Music War. I found a website where the guy burns it on a DVD from a recording. The quality is pretty good. He is reasonably priced as well. http://www.antisoshal.com $22 and he gives you the DVD and the soundtrack.