Between 1985 and 1988, a teenager named Sohrab Habibion lugged a bulky Betamax camera into punk and post-punk shows around Washington, DC. What he captured wasn’t slick production—it was sweaty clubs, blown-out sound, and raw energy. Decades later, his 60+ tapes have been digitized and uploaded to YouTube thanks to Roswell Films and the DC Public Library’s Punk Archive.
The collection is a time capsule: Fugazi tearing through songs a year before their first EP, the Descendents at their peak, the Lemonheads in their scrappy punk days, a feral GWAR in 1988, and even Dave Grohl behind the kit in Dain Bramage, years before Nirvana and Foo Fighters.
Habibion admits the footage is rough, shot by a teenager with no lighting and zero sound engineering—but that’s what makes it so authentic. It’s the kind of archival project that makes you wonder: how much of music history is still sitting in basements and closets, waiting to be rediscovered?
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