This Sunday, 80’s punk is invading the Byrd.
This Sunday, 80’s punk is invading the Byrd.
That’s when “Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington, DC” will be presented at a special screening planned by Plan 9 Records.
Both the director of the documentary, Scott Crawford, and the director of photography, Jim Saah, will be present to answer questions following the screening.
“Salad Days” is a documentary about the heyday of DC’s underground music scene. The bands involved in that “golden era” from 1980-1990 include such seminal punk acts as Fugazi, Minor Threat and Government Issue.
Salad Days Official Trailer from Scott Crawford on Vimeo.
Those bands’ success was mirrored by the smaller but equally successful Richmond scene.
“Richmond had quite a scene going on itself during that time and a lot of those bands from DC played here,” Jim Bland, owner and co-founder of Plan 9, said. “There was quite a lot going here on at the same time.”
Bland said that many Richmond bands played in DC at the time and visa versa. Many Richmonders who were participants in the scene at that time are expected to attend the screening.
Plan 9’s involvement began when Bland saw that there was a screening of the documentary in DC and he contacted the director to put together a screening in Richmond.
“I love to do something that really connects with our customers, our long time customers in this case,” Bland said. “Its a lot of fun. I look forward to seeing the documentary with the guys going back and talking about what was going on at the time, what they were experiencing.”
The documentary includes interviews with those involved directly with the scene in DC in that time frame, like Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye, those involved indirectly, like Black Flag’s Henry Rollins and those inspired by those bands, like Nirvana/Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl.
In conjunction with the screening, Plan 9 has created an exhibition of flyers, records and photos from the period in Richmond. The exhibit will be on the walls of the shop just a block from the Byrd.
“That was how you got the word out- you stapled [the flyers] to the telephone poles, you put them up in stores and galleries and places that let you put them up,” Bland said. “A lot of people kept things they’d done over the years- I kept some of the things we did.”
These flyers and posters are unexpected works of art- remnants of a time before band’s promotion focused on Facebook and email.
“Some of them are quite well done,” Bland said. “A lot of paste-up and things you had to do then.”
Proceeds from the screening will benefit WRIR and the James River Film Society. Advance tickets are on sale at Plan 9 for $9. Tickets will be $12 at the door.
