Many thanks to Angela for dragging me to a random screening at the Anthology Film Achives of Urgh! A Music War, which is far and away the best concert movie I've seen, and maybe the best time I've had at the movies all year. Cinematically, there isn't much to be said for it, but there doesn't need to be: it's a low-budget, scorchingly energetic record of thirty-odd (and I do mean odd) concerts by a grab-bag of punk, post-punk, and New Wave bands shot on three continents in 1981, and it's pure joy. For someone who was born twenty years too late, it contains revelation after revelation. You'll be completely transfixed by Toyah Wilcox or Oingo Boingo, say, and then whacked upside the head by a fucked-up brilliant set that makes Spinal Tap look cautious and conservative: Klaus Nomi's incredible tenor-mime drag, for example, or Gary Numan, who mutters catatonically into a microphone while driving a little sci-fi car around the stage. And The Police? Wow. You know, Sting used to be kind of cool once.

Urgh! is hard to find these days (there are copies selling on eBay for over $100), but it's worth prowling the Sundance Channel or your local video store to see if you can track this movie down. And if I send you a mix CD for Christmas leading off with "Enola Gay" by Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark, well, you'll know the reason why.