THE OUTHOUSE THE FILM 1985-1997

MARCH 31 & APRIL 1
OFS CINEMUSIC PRESENTS:
THE OUTHOUSE THE FILM 1985-1997
In the mid-1980s outside this college town, home of the Kansas Jayhawks, punk rock history was being made in the middle of a cornfield. Where the pavement turned to gravel, in a small, primitive cinder block building, bands like Fugazi, the Melvins, Rollins Band, Gwar, the Circle Jerks, Body Count, Social Distortion, Bad Brains, White Zombie, Descendents, Sonic Youth, Green Day, Fishbone, the Meat Puppets, Helmet and Nirvana played to all-ages crowds, a raucous scene of misfits and anarchists on the margins of youth culture. This was The Outhouse. Small, dark and sometimes dangerous, it quickly gained a reputation as a haven for the bands other venues were afraid of, and the kids who loved them.

“The Outhouse” tells the story of this legendary, lawless punk venue (1985-1997) in the voices of the musicians, the fans, the promoters, the local sheriff and the pissed-off neighbors. Independent filmmaker Brad Norman, an Outhouse regular who later booked bands there, spent five years tracking down amateur footage, grainy photos and show flyers, and interviewing regulars and musicians, including Ice T, Henry Rollins, Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye and Gwar frontman Dave Brockie. “It’s been thirty years, but when you ask people about The Outhouse, they can remember it clearly,” Norman says, ”It was amazing.” The film is an unflinching snapshot of a place and time, during alternative music’s heyday, before it went mainstream.
Dir. Bradley Norman / 2017 / US / 120 min

“Why did people come to The Outhouse? There was no authority, people you could relate to, plus everyone could walk next the bands they loved in the crowd. It was a time when you may have heard the band’s music but have no idea what they look like. All of a sudden the guy you were standing next to gets on stage and is in the headlining band. There were no rock stars in punk, at least in the earlier days. Every show was like a festival atmosphere for punks before they became giant commercial events like today. If you have 300-600 people wondering around the Outhouse, inside and out, it was a giant party.” – Brad Norman, the filmmaker

SCREENING: SAT 3/31 9:00PM; SUN 4/1 7:30PM
Tickets available at the box office 30 minutes prior to showtime.