Archive post-punk documentary classic buried in a vault for twenty years, now digitally re-mastered and re-released for a new generation to enjoy.
FEATURING: STIFF LITTLE FINGERS, COCKNEY REJECTS, THE SELECTER, PATRIK FITZGERALD, PURPLE HEARTS, SHAM 69, JOHN PEEL, A CERTAIN RATIO, TONY WILSON, GARRY BUSHELL
DVD EXTRAS: Rough Cut & Ready Dubbed Re-Visited featuring the original cast twenty five years on and an interview with the directors.
Fabulous long unseen movie of the post punk period between 1978 and 1981 that is more than just a music record, featuring as it does the looks, the poses, the rucks, the riots and the slaggings of bands and their fans. Filmed by a bunch of spit covered teenagers, this is not so much a documentary as a series of forays into the opinions of the protagonists of Punk, Mod, Oi, Dance and Ska; the kids on the street, the music, press and of course, the bands themselves. Originally, shot on Super 8 and blown up to 16mm, the film retains it’s rough and ready cut to produce a gem of street level cinema. Also has some cracking performances from exponents of punk, mod, oi and ska all filmed in the same DIY ethic that spawned punk itself!
PRODUCTION NOTES
Shot on Super 8 then stretched printed to 16mm for post production which took nearly a year to complete. At the time it used the latest technology for picture and sound to transfer onto 16mm and director Derek Jarman used some of the techniques on his own Super 8 epics. The British Film Institute who had co-financed the post production brought in a brilliant film editor, Alan Mackay, to work with Dom & Hasan. After many months and over 23 hours of footage, the one hour documentary was created and released around the world.
In 1982 ‘Rough Cut and Ready Dubbed’ won The Grierson Award for Best UK documentary. Later it was followed by awards in Melbourne (Silver Boomerang), Los Angeles Filmex, Chicago, and Toronto. After its release and a brief period on VHS in the eighties, ‘Rough Cut and Ready Dubbed’ finally came to rest in the National Film Archive vaults.
In 2003, Hasan & Dom decided to bring it back to life. With help from facilities company ‘The Machine Room’, the negative was cleaned, re-graded and transferred to High Definition. Once on HD, digital cleaning and scratch removal begun. Then it was the turn of the sound. Digital sound cleaning, mixing, remixing from Mayflower Studios, Goldcrest, and veteran record producer Mick Glossop, created a stereo and surround mix. Once again, the latest technology of the day, this time digital, was used to help restore and enhance the original movie.
The entire digital post production process took over a year and was completed in early 2005. A short follow up film ‘Rough Cut & Ready Dubbed Re-visited’ was completed during the year using the cheap medium of compact DV cameras to reproduce the same low tech feel of the original.
PRESS QUOTES PAST & PRESENT
1981/1982 REVIEWS
‘Rough Cut takes big cuts out of all the tastiest rock cakes around and spits out a frenetic and funny collage which manages to splice together all the chaotic contradictions of the music scene – its men, its women, its passions. This may well be a rough cut, but its sharp edges slice through to the nitty gritty without the distraction of hyper-polished dazzle.’
Anne Billson – EVENT MAGAZINE
Many of the performers (most notably the Cockney Rejects) are bright as berries and totally self-aware. Most of the fans are tribals, conforming not just to their obligatory uniforms as skins or mods or punks but also to group attitudes on race, authority and riot. There is a startling glimpse of the power of the performer as demagogue: a musician recalls how a word to the mod supporters at a concert was enough to launch a sharp military fashion mop-up of hostile skins in the audience. As lively and intimate a view as we have seen of punk bands and their followers. A funny, amiable, truthful and finally disquieting ethnographical study of the lost tribes of London. ‘
David Robinson - THE TIMES
It’s ironic that two twenty year old directors with a Super 8 camera can improve on over twenty years of plodding ‘rock’ cinema.’
James Manning – RAM MAGAZINE
The film’s title is an honest appraisal of its cinematic qualities, but it’s worth striving to catch the words of the street gurus and their aggressive counterparts, the Cockney Rejects, if only to bear out Charles Shaar Murray’s defensive but ironic statement: ‘Nothing I write is to be taken as gospel’.
Fiona Ferguson - CITY LIMITS MAGAZINE
‘Best to avoid this film until at least 1995 when it can be viewed by amnesiac sociologists with dewy eyed nostalgia’.
‘TIME OUT MAGAZINE’ (Well, there’s always one…)
2005/2006 REVIEWS
‘The movie is never less than naturalistic. With fantastic sound and picture quality, Rough Cut is unique. No other film bears witness to punk’s aftermath in such an engaging way’
MOJO MAGAZINE
‘Shot and directed by Dom Shaw and Hasan Shah between 1978 and 1981, it delivers a genuine social record of the post-punk period. The film cuts from the views of the established and emerging artists to journalists and punters, and tells a frank and remarkable story of youth subcultures paradoxically threatened and excited by the thought that punk could ever be dead or , God forbid, sold out. ‘
DAZED & CONFUSED MAGAZINE
‘A vital snapshot of subcultures at war. With Green Day taking punk into stadiums, The Ordinary Boys flirting with Fred Perrys and Hard-Fi skanking up the summer, this reissue couldn’t be more timely. Just don’t let anyone kid you the streets were safer then. ‘
NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS
‘Well away from the whiff of seared tuna in the corporate hospitality area, comes Rough Cut & Ready Dubbed, an intriguing documentary shot on Super 8 three minute cassettes. The interviews with Garry Bushell, Tony Wilson and John Peel at the time are fascinating. What’s even more interesting is the fact that they’ve gone back and spoken to as many of them as possible again. It seems like a postcard from a world as vanished as the Edwardian Age’.
WORD MAGAZINE
‘This doc captures the anarchic spirit of the punks, skins and mods in London on the cusp of the ’80s. It’s crackling with energy, there’s nothing slick about it. An archive nugget.
RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
‘Lovingly restored with a High Definition transfer and 5.1 audio, it stands as one of the most compelling documents of the most vital and volatile era in British youth culture. From ‘no-sell-out’ purists like UK Subs to the boneheaded pugnacity of the Garry Bushell championed ‘Oi’ sound (Sham 69, Cockney Rejects); the racially mixed soundclash of 2 Tone’s ska revivalists to the polyrhythmic experiments of Manchester’s A Certain Ratio, the post-punk musical landscape is perpetually shifting and tribal but marred by a sinister undercurrent of violence, captured via un-sanitised live footage. ‘
DVD REVIEW MAGAZINE
‘The post-punk UK music scene captured perfectly.’
RECORD COLLECTOR MAGAZINE
QUOTES FROM THE MOVIE
'Anyone who says we've sold out, will get a smack in the mouth. I mean I wanna be on Swapshop.'
Stinky Turner - 15 year old singer with the Cockney Rejects
'Nothing I write is to be taken as gospel. Nothing any rock critic writes should be taken as gospel. Nothing anybody writes should be taken as gospel.'
Charles Shaar Murray - Music Journalist NME
‘I just try to write honestly, I think, and avoid all the bribery’.
Garry Bushell – Music Journalist SOUNDS
'Someone from the Radio Times has just asked me to predict what will happen in music in the nineteen eighties and I just avoided the question. It’s the not knowing that gives you the most pleasure.'
John Peel - Disc Jockey
'What do the fans mean by selling out? Making a living out of it probably.'
Jake Burns - Stiff Little Fingers
‘I like really sort of early raw punk. Badly played stuff, y’know’
Dave Ferguson – Punk
‘What’s going to happen now is that there’ll be second and third generation punk bands and all the younger kids will copy their big brothers who are into the Oi! bands. Then it will all be shit, then there’ll be another revolution and it will all start all over again.’
Tony Wilson – Factory Records
‘The only real punk bands there ever were, were the Sex Pistols and The Damned. The Clash were always a bit too sensible.’
Jake Burns – Stiff Little Fingers
I think the way your Wellers, your Strummers, your Geldofs behave, is infinitely preferable to the way your Jaggers, your Zeppelins or Rod Stewart behaves.’
Charles Shaar Murray – Music Journalist NME
‘I want a dressing room, I want a roadie, a great big mixing desk. Then I’ll be a star’.
Johnny G
SONGS FEATURED
‘Suspect Device’ Stiff Little Fingers
Alternative Ulster’ Stiff Little Fingers
‘I’m not a Fool’ Cockney Rejects
‘Missing Words’ Selecter
‘Skip Scada’ A Certain Ratio
Tonight’ Patrik Fitzgerald
‘Can’t Catch Every Train’ Johnny G
‘Millions Like Us’ Purple Hearts
‘Poor Cow’ Sham 69
