Under Review, Robin Trower, Dimevision, Bruce Dickinson, Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey

Portions of this review originally appeared in INsite magazine, August, 2006.

            If you see a DVD from Sexy Intellectual’s Under Review series, buy it.  Watch it a million times, then invite your friends over and watch it a million more times. I don’t care if you’ve never heard of one particular band or another. It doesn’t matter. If these British geniuses took the time to put together a documentary, it’s worth seeing. Think of it as the auteur theory, applied to music criticism.

            This is, no doubt, criticism, in the purest sense. This isn’t VH-1; you won’t find a bunch of fake stand-up comics opining about Black Sabbath’s penchant for preacher bling. These guys are serious music fans, who know that fans of the Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, and the Smiths are looking for something more than, “Hmm, I wonder if Morrissey was gay? Did Beefheart ever shave? And what’s with Warhol’s wigs?” These are full histories, and every moment is fascinating.

            The biographies are unauthorized (wouldn’t an authorized biography be an autobiography?), so it’s easy to confuse them with the slew of junk out there. Don’t be fooled. For one thing, they tend to pick subjects that haven’t been covered on DVD. In the case of Beefheart and the Velvets, there are no other documentaries available.

            It’s exhilarating to know that someone is doing this kind of work, and it’s lovely that this stuff is region-free.  Unlike most American releases, these can be watched all over the world. The same holds true for Germany’s Ruf Records, and their new DVD from Robin Trower, Living Out of Time. We’re all Trower nuts in my family: he’s right up there with Johnny Winter and Rory Gallagher. He’s one of those names you hear if you hang around guitar players long enough. (Or, if you remember the movie Rush, here’s another clue: Trower’s masterpiece, “Bridge of Sighs,” bookends the movie, scoring Gregg Allman each time he walks to his car. Yeah. That song.)

Trower ought to be a household name, as evidenced by this concert. Recorded at the Rockpalast Crossroads Festival in Germany, last year, it’s a little over an hour of some of Trower’s finest work. I say “some,” because there’s a little too much emphasis on new material. Not that any of it’s bad. I’m just an old fan. Plus, he doesn’t play “Long Misty Day.” Drag. Other than those few quibbles, you can’t beat him. If there’s an Eric Clapton fan in your family, slide this one their way.

Three new heavy metal releases have surfaced, and they’re all worth picking up. Big Vin Records brings us the long-awaited Dimevision, a frenzy of footage showcasing Big Vin’s little brother. If you know Dime, you know what to expect. It resembles the old Pantera home videos and Metallica’s Cliff Em’ All, for obvious reasons. Its most somber moments are the still frames: fan photos, pictures with other musicians, and magazine covers. There’s even a montage of fan tattoos. Its happiest moments show Dime at his finest: playing guitar and having a good time. No one did either like Dime. Best of all, there’s vintage stuff. See Dime, Vinnie, and Rex  with teased hair, playing “Seek and Destroy!”

Bruce Dickinson Anthology is a three-disc set with a decent price, covering the solo career of Iron Maiden’s legendary front man. Through various line-ups, you can hear how Dickinson’s sound has changed over the years, from the pop-rock Tattooed Millionaire days, to the alterna-rock Skunkworks, up to the crushing power metal of Accident of Birth, Chemical Wedding and Tyranny of Souls. You get three concerts and all the music videos, plus a rare look at Bruce’s first band, Samson. For a guy whose solo career started as a one-off track for an Elm Street sequel, he seems to have done fine. The best part is that he’s juggling the solo stuff with the new Iron Maiden. The man is unbelievable. (Ask his fencing friends at Texas State University.)

If you can only afford one DVD this month, check out Sam Dunn’s documentary, Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey. Dunn is an anthropologist, and makes that his angle as he travels around the world, interviewing people like Dickinson, Tony Iommi, Rob Zombie, Ronnie James Dio, those nerds from Slipnot, those geeks from Mayhem, and lots of metal fans. Plus, he gets face time with a self-styled moral crusader who has never heard of Cannibal Corpse. He explores the roots of metal, from classical to the blues. He even investigates those church burnings in Norway. Heavy metal is often misunderstood, but anyone who sees this movie, be they fans or just curious, will come away with a deeper knowledge of one of rock’s longest-lasting subcultures.