As we first reported back in February, legendary industrial label Wax Trax! Records — home to Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Front 242 and more — is the subject of an upcoming documentary that promises to chronicle the “rise and fall” of the record store turned label via artist and employee interviews, home video clips and never-before-seen footage from the Wax Trax! vault.
Now, the production company behind the documentary, Regressive Films, is ready to give fans their first taste of the upcoming project, and have debuted a 3 1/2-minute trailer that you can watch below.
The filmmakers write:
“Regressive Films is super-psyched to be working on the Wax Trax! Records Documentary with Julia Nash. We have already conducted great interviews with Paul Barker (Ministry, RevCo), Chris Connelly (Ministry, RevCo), Richard 23 and Patrick Codenys (Front 242), En Esch (KMFDM), Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys, LARD), as well many of the store and label staff. We will be covering Wax Trax! owners/clairvoyants of cool, Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher’s early years in Kansas and Denver, to the opening of the legendary Chicago record store, the formation of the label, it’s success and eventual bankruptcy, and the lasting influence of Wax Trax! Records on the current music scene. If you have any film, video, photos, or stories you would like to contribute, please let us know. For now, check out the first trailer we’ve put together.”
Julia Nash, daughter of late Wax Trax! co-founder Jim Nash, revealed plans for the documentary on her WaxTraxChicago.com site earlier this year. The Wax Trax! film, Nash wrote, will tell the story of her father and co-founder Dannie Flesher, who died in 2010, and “their road from young music obsessed gay hillbillies to the tastemakers who gave a voice to many of us that just didn’t quite fit in.”
The filmmakers are seeking stories, photos and video footage about the Wax Trax! store in Chicago — which Nash and Flesher opened in 1978 after selling their original Wax Trax! shop in Denver — and the label they spun off, which was home to a who’s who of ’80s industrial acts, including Ministry, Front 242, RevCo, Frontline Assembly and My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult.
Check out the full trailer below:
Trailer: “Wax Trax! Records: The Documentary”
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- Chris Connelly, Paul Barker reunite as Bells Into Machines — hear 3 brand-new tracks
- Wax Trax! Records documentary to chronicle ‘rise and fall’ of legendary record label
- ‘Sound Opinions’ to salute Wax Trax! Records with RevCo’s Chris Connelly, Paul Barker
- Wax Trax! ‘Retrospectacle’: Front 242, Thrill Kill Kult, members of KMFDM, RevCo
- Dannie Flesher, co-founder of Chicago’s famed Wax Trax! Records, 1951-2010
I like John Denver though:/
it was love at first sight.
Many great memories at that amazing store on Lincoln Ave.!
it was nice talking to you Love, MOM P
The embedded video will not play and requires a password on Vimeo.
Please fix! Thanks!
Not sure why they’ve made the video private, but it’s not something we have any control over…
Oddly, I just tried typing the word “wax” without the quotes and it seemed to work as the password. Seems odd it was put behind a private wall and odder that it took me 2 tries to crack the password.
What the hell is the password???