Here's a rough trailer for Invisible Bands, an in-the-works documentary of Miami's late '70s/early '80s rock scene by a guy who lived it: Greg McLaughlin. Back in those days, McLaughlin was the lead man for the Front, an amazing local post-punk/new wave act that took a few pages from the Devo and Buzzcocks playbooks and recontextualized them for our banana republic. (Seriously, archival post-punk nerds -- you need to click here to visit the Front's MySpace and listen to all the tracks.)
Of course, the era produced its typical almost-made-it stories, and with Invisible Bands, McLaughlin will attempt to trace these, while putting the scene in historical context. The early '80s were, of course, a time of great unrest here -- there was the Mariel boatlift, the Miami riots, Florida's reinstatement of the death penalty....
All ripe topics for punk rock, and out of this morass came excellent
bands like Charlie Pickett and the Eat, and the lesser-known Screaming
Sneakers and the Bobs. All of these will be featured in the
documentary, which, McLaughlin says, hopes to examine this time with
lots of humor and love.
The clip above features Rob Elba, of the Holy
Terrors (and of the Front's current incarnation), commenting on it all.
Stay tuned to Crossfade for more information soon about Invisible Bands.
