Strictly Sacred is a documentary about Seattle band Girl Trouble. Girl Trouble has been a Seattle institution for about twenty-five years, but have never received the notoriety they so deserve. That is until now. Isaac Olsen (who is the nephew of two of the members of Girl Trouble) directed this excellent introspective on the life and times of this legendary band.
The film begins with drummer Bon Von Wheelie (Bon Henderson) talking about her family life and growing up in Tacoma, Washington. What is depicted is a very close knit, supportive, yet unique family. At age eleven, she and her younger sister got a baby brother, Bill (guitarist in the band). She claims she fell in love with him right away.
Bill Henderson talks of his growing up in Tacoma and never feeling like he fit in anywhere. He was a nerd and a punk rocker and felt so alienated from everyone in school he seriously considered dropping out.
The film goes on to explain how they met up with the other two members, front man, Kurt (KP)Kendall and bass player Dale Phillips. This is not only a band that played together (and still does), but they all worked at the same printing press. People wondered how a band could spend all day working a day job with each other and still hang out both as a band and as friends, but the chemistry amongst the band members was and is such that it worked. None of the members has ever married or had children and are convinced they’ll all be buried in one tomb with the epitaph, Here Lies Girl Trouble.
The movie also tells of Bon going up against corporate big wigs in order to expose the pay for play shows that only allowed bands to play if they sold tickets for the shows. Bon went on a campaign to educate bands that they didn’t have to agree to do this and ended up being sued by the company doing the pay to play. She hired a a lawyer and won!
Then there was the telling of Kurt’s brief exit from the band and his triumphant return after having a change of heart, the band’s issues with Sub Pop’s lack of support when they were on that label and not considered “grunge” enough by the Sub Pop gurus (Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman). There was their relationship with Granny Go-Go, with a lot of footage of The film blends archival footage of the iconic dancer.
Many celebrity interviews are included in this film including David Duet (who took Kurt’s place during his brief departure) and Neko Case and this is blended beautifully with archival photographs and recent footage of Girl Trouble concerts.
Director Isaac Olsen is shown as a baby in a crib a couple times. There are testimonials from family members as well. The members of Girl Trouble still reside in Tacoma and still perform in clubs from Olympia to Seattle regularly.
This film gets five stars from me.
