Continued from last post
8) The Devil And Daniel Johnston- I'd never heard of Daniel Johnston before watching this movie and I don't listen to him that much now after having seen it. He’s a singer and a songwriter who gained a little fame and a cult following in the mid 80's and early 90's in the Austin, Texas music scene. He recorded his songs by himself in his house, usually only with just a piano and a tape recorder. Then he became mentally ill, got worse and worse, and is now in his 40’s living with his parents, overweight, and extremely medicated. And there's tons of video and tape of the whole thing because Daniel documented it all. As a kid his mother yelling at him to get a real job, in college the girl he fell in love with and who he wrote all his songs for, and finally the beginnings to the depths of the end of the madness he comes to and into which he falls. I've truly never seen a documentary with better footage than this one. You don't have to like his music to like this movie; at its core it's about where art comes from and what it costs you. Sometimes the great ones end up in their 40's, sedated, forgotten, still living at home.
9) The Beatles Anthology- 11 hours of the Beatles. 11 fucking hours. A lot of precious time. Is it worth it? Hero worship is a dangerous thing; either you hurt the things you love or you start to feel that they have been loved way too much and way too long. So criticize them, seek their flaws out, don't give in, and meet them head on. But don't avoid them; life's too short.
10) If I Should Fall From Grace With God- The Shane MacGowan Story Shane MacGowan was the lead singer of one of the greatest bands ever, The Pogues. They were from Ireland and played a mix of traditional sounding Irish music and punk rock. In 1991 Shane was thrown out of the band for not showing up for tour dates and for a drinking and drug taking that had gotten out of hand. The geniuses that kill themselves and all their screaming fans. A talent worth its weight in gold, all it took to ruin it, and rotted teeth from out a skull where Irish eyes are smiling.
Showing posts with label 10 greatest rock documentaries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 10 greatest rock documentaries. Show all posts
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
10 Greatest Rock Documentaries (Part 4)
Continued from last post
5) The Filth and the Fury- The Sex Pistols were kids and now they're all men. Except for Sid Vicious who died of a drug overdose. At one point in the movie Johnny Rotten breaks down and crys thinking about him. The best revolutions may stand forever; the ones who have fought them will vanish and die. The fate of great revolutionaries and punk's founding fire.
6) Nirvana- Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!- Kurt is skinny and frail. A delicate, likable hero. He's eulogized now beyond belief, but like many overhyped bands theres a beautiful core that they built the hype on. And their core is a gentle heart; Kurt's gentle heart, in love with rock and roll. And though bitter and smart, he's just a kid; fragile and young. He who that shotgun picked up wouldn't have hurt a living soul.
7)Chuck Berry- Hail Hail Rock n' Roll- A genuine genius, one of the best writers to ever have picked up a pen. A beautiful voice, and a better guitar player there's never been. You don't have to put down Elvis to raise up Chuck; Elvis was great though he never wrote a line, and Chuck was great and wrote almost all of them. It's rare you find a movie that can do honor to a talent this big; but thanks to great directing, Keith Richards and Bruce Springsteen, Bo Diddley and Little Richard, that's what this movie is. Between clips of Chuck and others talking about him, the movie is ostensibly about Keith Richards getting together a concert in Chuck's honor, rehearsing it, and then finally its performance. The concert isn't that good but that's really not the main focus; Chuck Berry is. A difficult, extremely charming, loose canon who's a genius; with his cards and his thoughts kept in tight close to him. He who went to the top of the mountain was named Moses, he who came back with a guitar was a brown eyed handsome man.
Continued next post
5) The Filth and the Fury- The Sex Pistols were kids and now they're all men. Except for Sid Vicious who died of a drug overdose. At one point in the movie Johnny Rotten breaks down and crys thinking about him. The best revolutions may stand forever; the ones who have fought them will vanish and die. The fate of great revolutionaries and punk's founding fire.
6) Nirvana- Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!- Kurt is skinny and frail. A delicate, likable hero. He's eulogized now beyond belief, but like many overhyped bands theres a beautiful core that they built the hype on. And their core is a gentle heart; Kurt's gentle heart, in love with rock and roll. And though bitter and smart, he's just a kid; fragile and young. He who that shotgun picked up wouldn't have hurt a living soul.
7)Chuck Berry- Hail Hail Rock n' Roll- A genuine genius, one of the best writers to ever have picked up a pen. A beautiful voice, and a better guitar player there's never been. You don't have to put down Elvis to raise up Chuck; Elvis was great though he never wrote a line, and Chuck was great and wrote almost all of them. It's rare you find a movie that can do honor to a talent this big; but thanks to great directing, Keith Richards and Bruce Springsteen, Bo Diddley and Little Richard, that's what this movie is. Between clips of Chuck and others talking about him, the movie is ostensibly about Keith Richards getting together a concert in Chuck's honor, rehearsing it, and then finally its performance. The concert isn't that good but that's really not the main focus; Chuck Berry is. A difficult, extremely charming, loose canon who's a genius; with his cards and his thoughts kept in tight close to him. He who went to the top of the mountain was named Moses, he who came back with a guitar was a brown eyed handsome man.
Continued next post
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
10 Greatest Rock Documentaries (Part 3)
Continued from last post
4)Jerry Lee Lewis- The Story of Rock and Roll- This movie isn't a great documentary, or even particularly well done, but it deserves a spot on the list just for the footage in it of Jerry Lee Lewis. His 1957 performance on the Steve Allen show is the full rearing up of a snake that was pressed, unknown and unimagined, to America's side. A venomous, wild, Killer's heart, on NBC, on Sunday night. Richard Nixon is vice president and another landslide won by Ike. But things here are not what they seem. There's a 13 year old cousin lurking in a South East Asian jungle side. And things are ready to burn; they were right, He comes back not with water, but great balls of fire. In the dark, words to haunt an American dream, to Ike whispered low, "No more dreams, I'm alive".
continued next post
4)Jerry Lee Lewis- The Story of Rock and Roll- This movie isn't a great documentary, or even particularly well done, but it deserves a spot on the list just for the footage in it of Jerry Lee Lewis. His 1957 performance on the Steve Allen show is the full rearing up of a snake that was pressed, unknown and unimagined, to America's side. A venomous, wild, Killer's heart, on NBC, on Sunday night. Richard Nixon is vice president and another landslide won by Ike. But things here are not what they seem. There's a 13 year old cousin lurking in a South East Asian jungle side. And things are ready to burn; they were right, He comes back not with water, but great balls of fire. In the dark, words to haunt an American dream, to Ike whispered low, "No more dreams, I'm alive".
continued next post
Monday, March 23, 2009
10 Greatest Rock Documentaries (Part 2)
Continued from last post
2) Gimme Shelter- There's an air of something's wrong here. This movie's mainly about The Rolling Stones and a free concert put on in 1969 at a place called Altamont. It was supposed to be the west coast version of Woodstock, with bands like The Grateful Dead, The Jefferson Airplane, Santana and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young performing. And because this was supposed to be a counter cultural event they didn't get police to do security but used the Hell's Angels instead. And so what happens is we get footage of what looks like a descent into hell. A crowd that's restless and not right, moving in closer to the stage, met with pool cues and knives, there's no band here that's safe. Marty Balin, from the Jefferson Airplane, beaten unconsious by a Hell's Angel during the middle of their set, Mick Jagger punched in the face by a female fan seconds after arriving, and Jerry Garcia, wiser than the rest, sensing something wrong at Altamont and taking the Dead away. But the Stones aren't wise, they're set to headline it tonight. And isn't that what you wanted? You said sympathy for who? From the stage, Mick, look upon it. Tonight all your dreams come true.
3)Gospel According To Al Green- The last of the great ones. The line that descended from Sam Cooke and Ray Charles, to Jackie Wilson and James Brown, to Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin, ends at last in Al Green. A great songwriter, an amazing talent, an incredible stage presence and an incredible voice. When people describe his music as "seductive" or "sexy" they're classing him in with singers like Luther Vandross, Boyz 2 Men, and any other "R & B" singer who's ever released a souless and overproduced piece of crap Justin Timberlake thinks is supposed to be good. And Justin, you're already going to rot eternally in hell, stop using the term "baby making music" or you'll only make it worse. Al Green is a singer with the fire of God bristling inside him; with all hell, revelations, flames, prayers, for his tunings; and each hit that he made a calling out to be blessed. This movie is about his career and why it was that he switched to singing only religious songs in around 1978. Who wrote the Gospels were who felt too human; there's acres of churches in "Love and Happiness".
Continued next post
2) Gimme Shelter- There's an air of something's wrong here. This movie's mainly about The Rolling Stones and a free concert put on in 1969 at a place called Altamont. It was supposed to be the west coast version of Woodstock, with bands like The Grateful Dead, The Jefferson Airplane, Santana and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young performing. And because this was supposed to be a counter cultural event they didn't get police to do security but used the Hell's Angels instead. And so what happens is we get footage of what looks like a descent into hell. A crowd that's restless and not right, moving in closer to the stage, met with pool cues and knives, there's no band here that's safe. Marty Balin, from the Jefferson Airplane, beaten unconsious by a Hell's Angel during the middle of their set, Mick Jagger punched in the face by a female fan seconds after arriving, and Jerry Garcia, wiser than the rest, sensing something wrong at Altamont and taking the Dead away. But the Stones aren't wise, they're set to headline it tonight. And isn't that what you wanted? You said sympathy for who? From the stage, Mick, look upon it. Tonight all your dreams come true.
3)Gospel According To Al Green- The last of the great ones. The line that descended from Sam Cooke and Ray Charles, to Jackie Wilson and James Brown, to Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin, ends at last in Al Green. A great songwriter, an amazing talent, an incredible stage presence and an incredible voice. When people describe his music as "seductive" or "sexy" they're classing him in with singers like Luther Vandross, Boyz 2 Men, and any other "R & B" singer who's ever released a souless and overproduced piece of crap Justin Timberlake thinks is supposed to be good. And Justin, you're already going to rot eternally in hell, stop using the term "baby making music" or you'll only make it worse. Al Green is a singer with the fire of God bristling inside him; with all hell, revelations, flames, prayers, for his tunings; and each hit that he made a calling out to be blessed. This movie is about his career and why it was that he switched to singing only religious songs in around 1978. Who wrote the Gospels were who felt too human; there's acres of churches in "Love and Happiness".
Continued next post
Saturday, March 21, 2009
10 Greatest Rock Documentaries (Part 1)
I just saw this trailer for a movie called "Anvil! The Story of Anvil". It's about a metal band from the 80's who had videos on MTV back then and toured with some big bands but was never really that successful. I had never heard of them before but man does this movie look good. Here's the clip I saw and then the 10 Greatest Rock Documentaries list.
1) No Direction Home- Scorsese's my favorite director ever but I usually hate his music movies. In addition to "No Direction Home" he directed an episode of a seven part documentary on the blues, that recent "Shine a Light" concert movie of the Rolling Stones, and most famously The Band's "The Last Waltz". The first two of these I thought were really boring, and I have never understood the appeal of "The Last Waltz". The Band made some great records but they weren't the fucking Beatles. That movie seems to be saying that the Band's final performance was marking the end of an era. By November of 1976 what era was ending? Whichever one it was, during the shitty Joni Mitchell song I couldn't wait for it to end.
But in 2005, with "No Direction Home", Scorsese also made the greatest rock documentary ever. It covers Bob Dylan from his start in Minnesota up through to his famous motorcycle accident in 1966 at the height of his fame. The title comes from a lyric in Bob's "Like a Rolling Stones", and also serves as a commentary on a dishevelled, skinny, strung out looking Dylan in the movies final scenes, talking to a reporter, rocking back and forth, and muttering with bleary eyes, "I just want to go home...I just want to go home..." This comes right before the film's absolute final scene, the famous 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert where they called Bob "Judas". The whole movie is 4 hours long and it's on two dvds. The first half is good but can be a little dull at parts. The second half however is two hours that I'll never get tired of watching.
Continued next post
1) No Direction Home- Scorsese's my favorite director ever but I usually hate his music movies. In addition to "No Direction Home" he directed an episode of a seven part documentary on the blues, that recent "Shine a Light" concert movie of the Rolling Stones, and most famously The Band's "The Last Waltz". The first two of these I thought were really boring, and I have never understood the appeal of "The Last Waltz". The Band made some great records but they weren't the fucking Beatles. That movie seems to be saying that the Band's final performance was marking the end of an era. By November of 1976 what era was ending? Whichever one it was, during the shitty Joni Mitchell song I couldn't wait for it to end.
But in 2005, with "No Direction Home", Scorsese also made the greatest rock documentary ever. It covers Bob Dylan from his start in Minnesota up through to his famous motorcycle accident in 1966 at the height of his fame. The title comes from a lyric in Bob's "Like a Rolling Stones", and also serves as a commentary on a dishevelled, skinny, strung out looking Dylan in the movies final scenes, talking to a reporter, rocking back and forth, and muttering with bleary eyes, "I just want to go home...I just want to go home..." This comes right before the film's absolute final scene, the famous 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert where they called Bob "Judas". The whole movie is 4 hours long and it's on two dvds. The first half is good but can be a little dull at parts. The second half however is two hours that I'll never get tired of watching.
Continued next post
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