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| Images courtesy of MVD Visual |
While documentary filmmaker Bryan Crain doesn’t have a huge
resume to his name, starting in 2014 with the short documentary Woodturning
with Tim Yoder before shooting a documentary on the Wes Craven film Red
Eye, in 2018 he made a significant contribution to the punk rock community with
his documentary film Oil Capital Underground. With the subtitle The Genisis and
Evolution of Punk Rock in Tulsa Late 70s – Mid 90s, the two hour
documentary is a little bit of a disorganized and meandering smorgasbord which
manages to give an overview of the Tulsa, Oklahoma underground punk rock
scene.
Featuring interviews and performances from a number of bands
including but not limited to the Circle Jerks, Los Reactors, NOTA,
Brother Inferior, Bunnies of Doom, Pitbulls on Crack and
more with the quality of the footage varying across mediums. Though the image quality isn’t always the
strongest and the editing of the thing is kind of hyperkinetic ala Natural
Born Killers, it gives a broad picture of the Tulsa scene before and after
the underground punk scene came and went.
Homegrown from the ground up, this is as independent as of a documentary
film as they come and some of the video effects used in the editing process
feel somewhat dated but I digress.
Circa 2026, VCI Entertainment and MVD Visual sought to
release this unorthodox but nevertheless entertaining and engaging hangout
documentary film a DVD release with an outtake reel, director commentary and
some behind-the-scenes photos. There’s
also during the end credits an outtake reel featuring offshoots from interviews
that needed secondary takes or went off the rails. Co-produced by Bryan Crain and Dave Cantrell,
the largely 4K digital video shot and edited piece looks and sounds fine on DVD
though some streamer users will likely purchase the digital copy for the 1080p
video.
One area of interest in the documentary are the flyers which
they talk extensively about in pre-internet world wide web times when the only
way to find out about a new band was if you caught them at a local bar in
Tulsa. Its curious to think about what
the world of promoting music was like then versus now and how word of mouth
spreading truly was the way of the game.
There’s also an aside where they talk about Ben Stiller being a roadie
for one of the bands and there’s a particular club manager from Beirut who was
one of the longest running club managers in Tulsa which was fascinating.
Less about the punk rock scene itself and more about its
specificity to Tulsa and how a small American town became a benchmark for the
emerging controversial punk rock scene in the United States, Oil Capital
Underground doesn’t quite top the grandeur of, say, The Decline of
Western Civilization but it absolutely touches on the same kind of tense
relationship between the bookers, bands, patronage and the rule of law
itself. The new DVD of the 2018 documentary,
though a few years late, will make a nice addition to any punk rock enthusiast’s
shelf while for newcomers being an introductory eye opener of the least likely
of places to find a raging punk rock scene.
Sure it runs a bit long and jumps around a lot but for what its worth it
shed some light on areas of the punk scene I was previously blind to.
--Andrew Kotwicki
