So Wrong They're Right (1995)

Russ Forster’s own narration or onscreen introduction, not only offering a clever social commentary, but also giving a refreshingly personal touch to these diary-like narratives.

From 1990 to 2000, Russ Forster published the magazine “8 Track Mind”, for and about 8-Track tape enthusiasts.  The magazine received a warm response from people, having somewhat been validated in their particular fascination, and for the most part, having their own strain of pop culture recognized.  His film So Wrong They're Right is the result of his 1994 10,000 mile, $20,000 cross-country crusade to put faces to the names of those enthusiasts who supported his magazine in print, creating a document in film about people with a unique fascination.

At the start, one gets the impression that this assembly of 8-Track collectors has a more socio-political agenda.. Gen X Situationism, if you like.  Forster's  own narration introduces the film as “a statement of active outrage and rebellion from a group of people who have opted out of a disposable consumer culture laid out for them to embrace in the spirit of growth and progress.”  Or if you like, these people cling to the 8-Track, “the vanguard of the analog revolution”, out of protest against the “orchestrated demise” of one format, for the conglomerates to sell you back something you already had, however in a new format.

While I partially agree with this, perhaps the statements made by Phil Milstein, who also coined the film’s title, are more telling: referring to 8-Tracks as “the dumbest form of music… totally dumb and that’s what I love about them… big dumb and sweet.”  Because the sound quality may or may not be inferior to CD, a KA-CHUNK sound is heard in the middle of long songs as the tape continues to the next track, and people like Jeff Economy wonder “if this is the last time I’ll be able to hear this” before the cassette falls apart,  I think the film’s central question is why people will still hang on to obsolete formats. 

For instance, let us remember the boom of vinyl nostalgia right at the point in which CD’s became more affordable.  Will DVD and Blu-Ray be the next 8-track with the proliferation of Netflix? 

One remark in So Wrong They're Right resonates: people falsely believe that the new medium has the definitive catalog of anything ever released.  Quick, when did you last see Telly Savalas’ “Who Love’s Ya, Baby” on CD?  You may rightly ask, who would want to?  But uttering that statement is also to play into what is precisely a point of this movie:  anything seemingly throwaway is heartfelt by someone.

But it’s still even more surprising that a marketplace for this format still exists.  (Hmmm, maybe I’d better hang on to my pet rock.)  We see Sparks, Nevada enterpreneu Tim Hunter on the phone taking an order for Iron Butterfly’s “Heavy” on 8-Track, and even more elaborately, “Big Bucks’ Burnett in Texas telling us about his sale of “Never Mind the Bollocks” for 100 bucks.  And we have to admire his sensibility: Why listen to The Beatles for the fifty millionth time when you can listen to Tiny Tim on 8-Track?  It’s cultural snobbery in reverse.  When Corey Greenburg wrote something on 8-Tracks in the highbrow publication “Stereophile”, that further broke the stigma—suddenly it became all right for readers to talk about something as “common” as this medium.  But still, they’re not necessarily retro cool, as 8-Track DJ’s never have to worry about having their tapes stolen. 

So Wrong They're Right would be enjoyable alone for the aspects of people sharing the most offbeat selections in their collections, like the Rudy Ray Moore comedy albums, or Grand Funk’s “Shinin’ On” (with the 3D cover!)  We see how these cassettes work their therapeutic ways into their lives. Jeff Economy listened to Lou Reed’s “Berlin” one summer while he was depressed.  (In fact, Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground are staples in people’s collections here, which does make sense, because they’ve always spoken to the fringe dwellers.)  One humorous example features the band Gumball emanating the virtues of their great big mountain of 30,000 tapes as inspiration (and they always pack a bunch with them for spiritual purposes while on tour.)  Perhaps more revealing, one enthusiast drove down the street blaring Reed’s infamous “Metal Machine Music” (nothing but 80 minutes of feedback)- a more anarchist rebuttal to mainstream consumerism cannot be imagined.

But Russ Forster stretches the parameters even more.  Throughout the enthusiastic bubbling about “TNT” shaped tape players, we get little glimpses of their lives- how this hobby is a representative overall of their lifestyles   This film is perhaps less made for music-collecting enthusiasts, more for people in the fanzine nation (which of course makes sense because many of these subjects contributed to the magazine). The handmade title cards, introducing the next city or speaker, even the rubbery “home movie” kind of sound, and wonky easy listening music (which warbles like a broken cassette) all add to the “Do-It-Yourself” appeal- the mantra of the underground publishing world.  Indeed, the colourful people in this film mirror those who wander past my table at all these zine fairs.

And for some, these sequences may be over-indulgent.  For instance, Doug Von Hoppe’s “8-track delivery boy” sequence is like an educational film gone awry.  The scene of librarian-by-day, “ Swingin’ 8 Track Chick” Abgail Levine, all decked in her go-go boots, calling the Library of Congress to get “8 Track Mind” an ISSN number, is shot with all the lurid colour and cheesy lounge music of a late 60’s counterculture flick.  Yet, they do add an extra, unexpected dimension to the narrative- all representative ways in which people carve out a little corner for themselves in a corporately bland world.