Some of my most treasured personal objects are punk and new wave 45s I bought at the old Wax Trax! Records in the early 80s, so reviewing Industrial Accident—The Story of Wax Trax! Records, which screens Wednesday in two sold-out shows at the 25th Chicago Underground Film Festival, may tax my powers of objectivity. Located next to the Biograph Theater in Lincoln Park, Wax Trax! was one of the first places I went in the city when I could venture in from the suburbs on my own, and along with a few other things I encountered (the elevated system, the art house cinemas, this newspaper), it suggested that adult life might have more to offer than Reaganomics and the Moral Majority. The documentary’s photos and brief video footage showing the store’s wild interior struck a powerful chord when I saw them, and made me realize how many other rock record shops in Chicago have aspired to the magic of that one, like that old saw about everyone who saw the Velvet Underground starting his or her own band.
I never met Jim Nash or Dannie Flesher except as a customer, so I have no reference point for them aside from what’s in the documentary. Julia’s mother, Jean Payne, recalls the day Jim broke down in tears, came out of the closet, and told her that he was in love with Dannie. Steve Knutson, an employee at the Chicago store, remembered Nash and Flesher as proudly gay: “They didn’t apologize for it, they didn’t hide from it, they didn’t give a shit.” Jim was the volatile one, Dannie the calming influence; they were “like an old married couple,” recalls Andy Wombwell, who worked for the record label. “What Jim had, Dannie didn’t, and what Dannie had, Jim didn’t,” explains photographer Patty Hefler, a habitue of the Lincoln Park store. Bill Mainey, a close friend of the couple, offers the most provocative take on their relationship: “You definitely got the sense that they really loved each other, but they had some amazing ways of showing it, which included beating the shit out of each other.”
Directed by Julia Nash. 83 min.
