It takes a great sales pitch to impress someone who’s earned a good living in the advertising and marketing world for decades. So believe me when I tell you that John Jew Jr., Adam Salinas and J. Budro Partida truly know how to sell.
Admittedly, they didn’t have to push very hard when we met a few years back to gauge my interest in the documentary “Bloody & Bruised: The Untold Story of The Back Room” and see if I’d be willing to take the leap with them in helping to make the movie a reality. I’d spent over a decade of my formative young adult years in Austin helping to promote and run the infamous music venue, and survived that era with plenty of music business war stories. So it was easy to see I had some attachment to the subject matter.
When Jew and Salinas, already producers on the movie, and Partida the director took me to lunch to explore how I could assist and be involved, they came armed with a credits sequence that listed me as executive producer. That bait in the water was all it took for me to take a bite and say “Let’s go.”
The four-year journey of helping to bring “Bloody & Bruised” into existence has been one of the most demanding and rewarding projects I’ve been involved with. And that’s saying something for a guy who’s been through decades of music and radio life and already had a hand in TV and film production.
The thing about the Back Room story is its history is filled with some of the most colorful, amazing and memorable people who have ever occupied the Austin music scene. Those folks alone would’ve been enough to carry a great documentary. When you pile on three decades of debauchery, drugs and legendary appearances from bands like Pantera, Pearl Jam, Marilyn Manson and Public Enemy (among hundreds of others) the result is a guaranteed must-watch for any fan of Austin music, or great clubs in general.
Striking that balance between the people who made the Back Room a one-of-a-kind place, and the many tales of excess was a tough task for anyone, especially since Partida and his crew shot interviews with more than 70 people. The first cut of the movie ran over four hours long, but the final cut at under two hours gives the audience plenty of the blood and guts sizzle, with the steak being the human stories of beloved artists like Sims Ellison that stay with you long after the screen goes dark.
It’s a story I’m proud and grateful to have had a part in, and my deep burning hope is that “Bloody & Bruised” can elevate the club’s place in Austin live music lore so it can rightfully stand next to the Antone’s and Armadillo World Headquarters that are known all over the world.
We’ll see if that day comes, but in these early days of limited private screenings and trips on the film festival circuit it’s been fun to feel love from crowds who already know the Back Room and lived to talk about it.
Our recent screening at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin was two-plus hours of a theater full of die hard music fans taking a time warp back to when a dirty stretch of Riverside Drive in East Austin was all they needed to get their fix of musical madness.
There’s much more of that to come for film and music fans all over this country, and I can’t wait to see and hear their reactions to the filth and awesomeness I was fortunate enough to experience in the flesh.