Bloodied But Unbowed chronicles the Vancouver punk rock scene from 1978 to 1982, an underground music movement smaller than similar scenes in Los Angeles, London and New York, but every bit as important.

“The Vancouver scene was such an underappreciated gem,” says filmmaker Susanne Tabata, 52. “What Vancouver had going for it was that it was off the radar, because for English speaking Canada the record markets were in Toronto. Because Vancouver wasn’t given much attention or taken seriously, people got to play, write, perform and be original before they started becoming aware of themselves. As soon as you develop an awareness of yourself and take yourself seriously, dressing for the record company or whatever, that’s usually when the magic is over as far as a scene goes.”

Tabata knows a thing or two about the Vancouver scene. While punk rock pioneers D.O.A., the Subhumans, Pointed Sticks and the Modernettes were making their mark on Terminal City, a young Tabata was involved with local late-night live cable music show Nite Dreems and DJing at University of British Columbia radio station CiTR. Still, despite her connections to the scene, Tabata was surprised by much of what she unearthed.

“As a sideline observer of the scene, I was in no means an expert of the lifestyle,” Tabata says. “I loved the music, but I didn’t live in those houses (many Vancouver punk rockers inhabited decrepit party places). I was definitely outside of it. The interesting thing I got out of this film was how tight some of these people were connected with one another. A lot had roomed together in those houses. Also, I wasn’t aware of how deep the schism went in terms of the tragedy and the drug use. I had heard about it, but didn’t realize how deep it went.”

Despite the drugs/disaster, most of Bloodied But Unbowed is good-natured and very funny. Rough and tumble as they may be, Van City punk rockers like Joe Kiethley, Randy Rampage, Buck Cherry, Zippy Pinhead, Mary Armstrong and Art Bergmann are extremely endearing characters. 

“One of the things that distinguishes Vancouver from other scenes of that era is the humour, absolutely silly self-effacing Canadian humour at its best,” Tabata says.