Prepare for a 1991 rock redux.
Yesterday, We Got Power Films announced the overdue DVD release of 1991, The Year Punk Broke, a cult-favorite concert movie that follows Nirvana and Sonic Youth on that year’s European club and festival tour. It will be released this fall, with specific date TBD.
Directed by Dave Markey and released in 1992, the film also includes footage of from punk-rock icons the Ramones, Dinosaur Jr., Mudhoney, Babes in Toyland, and more. Its VHS incarnations are popular collectibles for grunge fans and are now out of print.
Special features for the 1991, The Year Punk Broke DVD include (per We Got Power):
• 42 minute Bonus Movie entitled "(This Is Known As) The Blues Scale" with previously unseen mind-blowing Sonic & Nirvana performances (including "Inhuman", "White Kross", "Orange Rolls/Angel's Spit", "Eric's Trip", "Chapel Hill", and "In Bloom") and plenty of revelatory and rockin' (and hilarious) never before seen off-stage and on-stage material
• Running audio commentary track by Thurston Moore & Dave Markey
• Rough Edits of performance material
• 2003 Panel Discussion (on the film) at the Arclight in Hollywood, with Thurston Moore, Dave Markey, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley, and J. Mascis
• A photo slide show
The film has enjoyed some media attention in recent years, as Markey screened the original cut at the 2008 All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Monticello, NY. At that showing, he told the crowd that the working title for the documentary was Tooth or Hair, a spoof on Madonna’s tour doc Truth or Dare. Sounds about right.
