Power Metal!

Power metal is for people who know why twenty-sided dice and mana tokens are as important as power chords. If you like Iron Maiden or Dio, there are a million other bands paying tribute in their own way.

Power metal gets a bum rap from people who take music too seriously. (Even glam metal fans get their licks in.) I’ve always felt that it’s the musical equivalent of sci-fi and fantasy. Its classical roots give it an epic feel. The genre also stems from bands like Uriah Heep and UFO. Judas Priest laid the groundwork, but the power metal bands did it twice as fast, with precision and grace.

Visually, they’re easy to laugh at. But listen to how they play: they want to do it right. It’s easy to understand why metal fans hated grunge and nu-metal when you hear this stuff. It’s all about ability.

Helloween is one of my favorites. They’re kind of like Maiden, but faster and, at times, funnier.

I always saw Manowar’s albums in the store, and though, “These guys really like Conan comics.” Our long-gone metal station, KZDC, played this song in 1996, and I knew then that heavy metal would survive. If these guys could put out this song in the middle of the “alternative” music “revolution,” we’d be okay.

Because there’s a little metal in all of us.

The TransFormers, as scored by Manowar! Notice how the visuals match the lyrics. This is a tightly-edited fan flick. Bravo!

Guns N’ Roses

Portions of this review originally appeared in INsite magazine, March, 2007.

Someone very special told me that Axl Rose is a big INsite reader. He buys it every month. He was going to contribute a tour diary, but that would mean he’d actually have to tour. Plus, it would probably take the place of the DVD reviews, and forget that. I need swag.

Okay, so there’s a small element of LIESLIESLIES to all of that. But I do talk to Axl. And right now, all I can say is that it’s not going to work. Do you read me, Axl? It’s not happening. Buckethead, Rivethead, Celery Head: nope. We want Slash and Duff back. We’d like Izzy, if you can swing it, but Gilby’s probably learned how to play since The Spaghetti Incident. If you can teach him to write, it may work out. Steve’s probably raking in millions with Adler’s Appetite, but we love Matt Sorum. Try to secure him in between Cult reunions.

Anything else is merely Axl N’ Pals. You can hire Jeffrey Coombs to reanimate Jimi and Duane, sew them together, give the thing a guitar and win a Nobel Prize for Musical Taste. It still won’t matter, because it still won’t be Slash.

Until the G n’ R faithful finally get their due (even if it’s a one-off song over the end credits of Road House 3), we’ll always have retro. It’s just a shame that Chrome Dreams, whose Sexy Intellectual titles have been fabulous over the past year, couldn’t get it together for the band that made me a lifelong metalhead.

At first, the new double-disc Guns DVD seems like a steal. It contains two documentaries, one on the band, the other more Axl-centric (in keeping with the band’s history, I suppose). The cover art is a classic band pose: even Steve and Izzy recline like this beautiful thing will never end. The back of the box promises goodies like “full colour picture discs and deluxe DVD slipcases,” making it a “collector’s item of the highest order.”

So heaven isn’t too far away. Get ready for nothing but a good time. No need to live on a prayer, because…

Nope. It’s awful. It’s just repackaged baloney from a few years ago, apparently before Chrome Dreams started taking advantage of fair use laws. Unlike their Nirvana, Velvet Underground and Rolling Stones discs, these documentaries contain no musical clips of the band. That’s usually the first sign of a bad time, but the interviews are just atrocious. While other documentaries from this company have included some fairly insightful talking heads, this one pretty much phones it in. You do get to hear from the girl who let the band borrow her apartment, though.

Not that G n’ R was ever as good as the rock press made them out to be (no band is), but fans deserve better than this rehashed one-off. I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I’ve seen better stuff on VH1. Being an avid fan of Chrome Dreams’ good stuff, I honestly look forward to a genuine effort at a real Guns doc. Even with “superb packaging including inserts,” this product is rusty and wilted.

Weird Al Show, Pee-Wee Herman Show, Faith No More, Vince McMahon, The Big Buy

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

The Weird Al Show was gaudy, obnoxious, and nerdier than the Drafthouse on anime night. It was obviously a kids’ show, which was okay, because it was far funnier than its Saturday morning time slot deserved. It was 1997, about six years since tabloid TV “news” had demolished Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. Someone needed to fill the void. For one season, “Weird Al” Yankovic would deliver a fairly worthy successor. Sure, it had lame guest stars like Drew Carey and Hanson, but it was still better than anything your kids have been subjected to since. The new three-disc DVD comes with commentaries and some behind the scenes stuff. Fire up the accordion, fix some Twinkie wiener sandwiches, put on a Hawaiian shirt and do a rubber man dance. Perhaps Al-TV won’t be too far behind.

Speaking of Paul Ruebens, you can’t go wrong with his Playhouse prototype, The Pee-Wee Herman Show. This is the HBO special from 1981, several years before the silver screen, the weekly series, or all those jokes about Abraham Lincoln. He wasn’t quite the guy from Nice Dreams anymore, but this was no kids’ show, either. Shoe mirrors, fake dog doo, a Shaft reference, Kaptain Karl getting blitzed, Jambi’s joke about his new hands: it’s all risqué, perhaps even more so today than when it was new. (If that last thought makes you shudder, we should hang out.) There are no extras, but the show itself is brilliant, and the price tag is low. Plus, you get guest stars like Phil Hartman, John Paragon, a barely recognizable Tito Larriva, and the incomparable Lynne Stewart.

Mike Patton must have seen The Pee-Wee Herman Show, as it contains a classic children’s educational film about minding your manners, lest you become a “Mr. Bungle.” Patton would reach a larger audience with Faith No More, who has a double-feature DVD out now. Live at the Brixton Academy, London was on VHS and CD during the band’s Real Thing heyday, and features a fantastic concert with songs from the era. Patton flops like a fish during “Epic,” breaks wind into the microphone and swears it was real, and even belts out a couple of tunes originally sung by Faith No More’s first frontman, Chuck Moseley. Who Cares a Lot? The Greatest Videos covers the band’s entire career, and made me wonder why these guys had to break up. I mean, we lose an innovative, imaginative, songwriting machine like Faith No More, but the Chili Peppers get to release the same album every few years?

I haven’t watched McMahon, but I know it exists, because I’ve seen it in stores. I even held it in my hands, but I put it down before the curse could affect me.

Let’s face it: I’m a big dork for wrestling. You know those anime guys I made fun of in the first paragraph? They have nothing on wrestling fans when it comes to utter silliness. Some of us have limits, though. Mine is McMahon. He runs the whole show, some old robber baron’s version of action storytelling, where the racial and gender stereotypes are worse than anything that upset Pauline Kael. And he gets away with creating really bad television (and now, really bad movies, thanks to Lion’s Gate and Fox), because he’s the last one left. (TNA? Please. I’d love to see those guys succeed, but I’m not staying up until eleven on a Thursday night – or whenever they’re on this week – in the hopes that Impact will at least be slightly better than Raw or WWECW.)

So, no, I won’t be paying money to watch the old fart pretend he can wrestle. I also won’t be buying any autobiographical DVD’s from Steve Jobs or Rupert Murdoch. I love wrestling, but there’s better, more entertaining stuff out there.

The Big Buy: Tom DeLay’s Stolen Congress is for fans of an entirely different variety of wrestling. Our state’s favorite disgraced congressman finally gets his own movie, and it’s an eye-opener. This is the guy who said, in 1994, that having no federal government at all would suit him just fine. Over the course of a decade, DeLay did all he could to make this happen. The movie comes from Disinfo, the same bunch who brought you Outfoxed. Check it out, especially for the killer jazz score.

Andrew WK, Poison, Rolling Stones

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

            Someone should remind Andrew W. K. that rock has always been about having a good time. Do it quick, before he writes another song with “fun” or “party” in the title.

            The hype machine behind this guy turned me off from the beginning.

“Ooh, he has a huge nosebleed on his album cover, and the record company censored it up with a big red sticker!” (Did the imagery hit too close to home for certain record executives?)

“All of his songs sound exactly the same! He’s like Wesley Willis with money!”

“He can’t sing! He can’t play! His band is atrocious! Let’s pretend he’s an underground sensation then put him on SNL!”

            Sign me up.  I’ve been known to stop thinking on occasion. Plus, I’ve always wondered how the collected works of Jim Steinman would sound played by the most bored-looking speed metal band on the planet.

Who Knows? is Andrew’s idea of a documentary/concert film. You get to hear Andrew talk about himself (a lot), and his mission to bring absorbing, provocative material like “Party Hard” and “Girls Own Love” to the masses. Whether or not the irony is intentional doesn’t matter: it still isn’t all that interesting. If he’d show off his piano chops more often, his music would have staying power. Even the footage of Andrew staring into camcorder in various hotel rooms is better than the musical parts.

His sound is raw yet melodic, his demeanor populist, and his audience working class. None of this would strike me as negative if his body of work didn’t sound like it took all of thirty minutes to write. He’s like a record executive’s version of Mike Patton: weird, but with no interest in evolving. Patton does something different every time he enters a studio. Andrew pretends to.

There’s a school of thought that insists if you want to rock, there isn’t much to it. Is it loud, fast, and catchy? Is it mind-numbingly simple enough to get onto corporate rock radio? Will frat boys like it? Welcome, graduates!

Rock desperately needs a new school, and Andrew W. K. desperately needs to attend. His parties would be more fun if he went in a new direction.

Not that it would matter. Poison still gets on TV. Seven Days Live covers their 1993 show at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. Like Andrew, Poison is all about the good time. Like Andrew’s music, Poison’s is aimed squarely at regular folks. Unlike Andrew, though, the guys in Poison wrote songs. It was all cheesy MTV junk, but at least they never tried to pretend they were anything more than that.

Die-hard Poison fans – the ones who own a copy of that horror movie with Bret Michaels as a serial killer – know this version of the band features Ritchie Kotzen on guitar, not C. C. DeVille. Ritchie’s a better guitar player, and the songs arguably sound a little better than they did originally.  Poison, however, was always more about personality than musicianship. Poison without C. C. is like a box of Cracker Jacks without the prize: neither are very good for you, but if you’re going that route, go the distance.

This concert shows Poison at a crossroads. They weren’t quite the same band as before, but they weren’t about to change their look or sound to fit the grunge mold. They stuck with what had worked before. Whether it works for you depends on how much you like guys who dress like girls. For the record, Bret Michaels plays harmonica fairly well…

…At least as good as Mick Jagger. Enough with the disposable stuff, already. Sexy Intellectual’s new Rolling Stones DVD, Under Review 1962-1966, covers the original Stones, in what some fans consider their greatest period. I’m more of a Sticky Fingers guy, but the footage in this film is fascinating to watch. This is the band in its rawest form, when Keith had the blues and Mick didn’t dance around so much. It’s a version of the Stones that wasn’t quite as sure of itself, a band whose great covers of Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly barely registered with the public. It wasn’t until “The Last Time” and “Satisfaction” that things really got rolling.

By honing in on the formative years of the band, this documentary makes you see what other movies couldn’t: future rock icons struggling just to have their music heard. More importantly, you get an idea of how great these guys used to be, long before ridiculous ticket prices and jokes about wheelchairs.

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.

New York Dolls, God Save the Queen, Metallimania, Testament

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

            My father will never be a fan of punk rock.  He has too much Johnny Winter and Pat Travers in his system, too much of that blues-based, seventies rock genius.  He hears one Ramones song, and has pretty much heard them all.  It’s a taste issue.  It kind of reminds me of those “punker than thou” punk rock fans, who hate Iron Maiden because Bruce Dickinson can actually sing.

            As a child, my brother learned how to play guitar by studying my dad’s albums.  Jimi Hendrix, the Allman Brothers, Frank Zappa, Black Oak Arkansas, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, all that beautiful stuff.  It was as amazing to him as punk rock is to the average newcomer.  My brother inescapably inherited my father’s musical snobbishness.  For a few years there, if it had no connection to a time before he was born, he wasn’t interested.

            So it’s pretty cool that the New York Dolls were an early seventies band.  Otherwise, New York Dolls: All Dolled Up wouldn’t have been another bond for me and my brother.  (Dad’s next.  I commit myself to this cause.)  Releases like this (and recent DVD’s for the Ramones, Clash, etc.) have successfully turned my brother on to the beauty of early punk.  It helps that it’s a documentary about weirdos in a band, on the road, doing weird stuff.  (Kind of like 200 Motels, but for real.)  To top it off, the footage was shot with black and white, reel-to-reel videotape, so you can see David Johansen and Johnny Thunders ham it up, looking like something out of a backyard horror movie.  Except, of course, the backyard is America, and the horror is touring.

            A TV reporter describes the band as a cross between the Rolling Stones and Alice Cooper.  Fans know they were definitely more than that.  Like the MC5 and the Stooges, the Dolls were a landmark band, as goofy-sounding (and influential) as the best of their progeny.

            Yikes, Johnny Thunders looks young in this video, halfway energetic, even.  The same can’t be said for his performance on God Save the Queen: A Punk Rock Anthology, but it doesn’t matter.  This is about history.  The DVD collects performances from several eras, and serves them up in a farily decent sampler.  The Dead Boys perform “Sonic Reducer,” from a previous MVD release.  Iggy and the Stooges reunite for “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”  There’s vintage footage of the U. K. Subs (with animation!), the Germs, and the Exploited.  You get Generation X, long before Billy became the Idol.  Forward-thinking folks will love Chelsea’s “Right to Work” as much as I do.  And the Buzzcocks, bless them, outlive that little SUV commercial misstep they took a few years ago.  There’s a little filler, but not too much.  If you want to turn an impressionable youngster on to punk rock before MTV does, this is a good place to start.

            As for your heavy metal friends, there’s no better reason to call up old high school buddies than Testament: Live in London.  Testament’s a band that never quite got their due outside of the thrash subgenre.  It may have something to do with guitar wizard Alex Skolnick leaving the band in the early nineties.  They never quite regained the oomph that came with albums like Practice What You Preach.  It didn’t help that singer Chuck Billy went death metal a few years later, forever marking Testament as followers of a trend.  Meanwhile, Skolnick established himself as a guitar virtuoso, with his jazzed-up acoustic arrangements of hard rock classics.  (You know times have changed when they’re interviewing guys like Skolnick on NPR.)

            Testament can still do it, as this concert proves.  Not only is Skolnick back, but the entire line-up is of the classic variety.  They change drummers about halfway through the set, so you get a taste of how the band sounded in two separate eras.  It’s a welcome change from the average reunion line-up that, somehow, always manages to leave someone out.  The fans are rabid on this one, and I swear I saw a cute girl or two in the crowd.

            There are no cute girls on Metallimania.  Just morons.  Lots of them.  And I’m not talking about Lars.  (That’s Some Kind of Monster.)  I’ve been a Metallica fan for years, and I’ve heard the criticisms from day one.  Going backward:

            “Man, Jason Newsted was rad.  Who’s this Trujillo guy ever played with?”

            “I was still with em’ on that symphony album, until they ruined ‘Hero of the Day.’”

“I was still with em’ on Load, but Re-Load was too commercial.”

“Man, Jason Newsted’s lame.  They should have kept Cliff in the band.  I don’t care if they’d have had to go to a witch doctor to do it.”

“Man, Kirk Hammett’s lame.  They should have kept Dave Mustaine.  I’ve heard all a five minutes of that old stuff, and it’s phenomenal.”

“Man, Cliff Burton was lame.  Ron McGovney was the bomb.”

And on and on and on.  That’s who this documentary is about: the overly-verbose, unbelievably cynical Metallica fans who criticize the band at every opportunity, but still fork it over for albums, T-shirts, and concert tickets.  In other words, garden-variety idiots who think “Disposable Heroes” should be the national anthem, “Because, you know, it’s about political stuff.”  (And, because Cliff played on that song, not Jason or Rob.)

Of course Metallica got lame.  It happens to any overly-successful artist.  Anyone who becomes a pop star, from Axl Rose to Paul McCartney, is, by nature, overrated.  That’s pop.  Sorry.  Maybe you should stop buying everything KLBJ or KISS tells you to buy.

I should be on this video, sandwiched somewhere between the gun nuts and the adolescent boys who want to see the Apollo Theater blown up.  I’d say something like, “This band never got what was rightfully theirs.  They had all the talent in the world, and they never wasted a minute.  And yet, they’re still this little cult band.  But you know what?  Their fans really, really appreciate them.

“This is about Manowar, right?”

Samhain, Great Kat, Human League

Portions of this review originally appeared in INsite magazine, December, 2005.

Samhain – Live 1984 Stardust Ballroom

“Hey. They’re towin’ cars over at Alpha Beta, so if you’re parked there, you better move, or… ‘Cause I didn’t park there, so I don’t care. This is an oldie…”

All the murder, all the guts, and all the fun are here…but since it’s from MVD, it’s only 48 minutes and comes with no extras. (Okay, so there is a pretty rad Samhain sticker in there. That may justify the purchase: being the one hard rock guy on your block to have Samhain swag instead of another Misfits skull.)

Just who or what is a Samhain? Watch Halloween II for Donald Pleasence’s take on the subject. To metalheads, Samhain was a major turning point. Having left the Misfits behind, singer and songwriter Glenn Danzig chose to take the horror-rock sound into darker territory. Sahmain’s first album was like the Misfits’ “Earth A. D.,” had the songs been written by Anton LaVey. Samhain also marks the debut of Eerie Von, who would later play bass on Danzig’s first four (and best) solo albums.

This DVD features Samhain’s first LA show. It’s all on video, and rawer than roadkill, but the sound is surprisingly good. The filmmakers had the common sense to use a multi-camera setup, so you’re not stuck with Cliff Em’ All shots the whole time. The results are more professional than the average underground punk or metal video. It’s like a public access show with good sound: the quality is there, but nothing is sacrificed for the sake of slickness. Not that fans of Samhain would care. The historical value outweighs any potential quibbles here.

It’s hard to say which Danzig project I love the most. The Misfits, however overexposed they’ve become in recent years (every teenybopper in America knows that skull from somewhere…), wrote some great songs. Danzig’s solo albums were a welcome diversion into blues-based doom metal. Black Aria, his classical album, was creepy and great for RPG sessions. (There. I’ve admitted it.) Samhain had the best of all worlds: all that had come before, and much of what we’d hear later.

Horror-rock would never be this good again.

 

The Great Kat – Extreme Guitar Shred

The first thing you see when you start this DVD is a quote from Guitar One magazine, calling the Great Kat one of “the top ten fastest shredders of all time.” Just in case you forgot. I didn’t. I remember “Beethoven Mosh” all too well. The Juke Box Network used to play it all the time. (Remember them? You’d call a 1-900 number and pay money to watch music videos. You’d get Slayer’s “War Ensemble” one minute, and Kid Frost’s “La Raza” the next.)

Indeed, the Great Kat can play. She plays “shred guitar” and “shred violin.” She performs all “demonic vocals.” She wears shreddin’, demonic outfits, tortures men who dress like that guy from Candlemass. She wraps herself in the flag and screams “kill, kill, kill,” over footage of WWII, the Holocaust, and 9/11, spliced with bad video footage of her band in camouflage, toting plastic guns.

It’s like someone took everything I love about heavy metal and women-in-prison movies, but still got it wrong. If this were just a piece of camp, I’d giggle a bit, then watch another Gwar movie. With the war stuff, though, it’s beyond tasteless, and not much more.

Still, in proper company, this may be an interesting party video. The next time the Alamo Drafthouse shows This Is Spinal Tap, this would be great fodder for the pre-show.

Why else shouldn’t you buy it? It has the word “extreme” in the title. I’ll only let that slide in wrestling.

 

The Human League – Live at the Dome

Do your best Paul Ruebens, and say it with menace: neeeeeeeeewwwww waaaaaaave! I still like it, if only a little. It’s eighties synth-pop, but more saccharine and less interesting than Devo. It’s still the easiest music in the world to play. Practically anyone could get a synthesizer and make music. I’ve done it.

Still, if you grew up on this stuff, Human League’s silly, slick charms may work on you to this day. To me, they come off as the Smiths, Depeche Mode or Material Issue, but way too upbeat and with awful lyrics. Every song sounds like the Revenge of the Nerds soundtrack, without the cool words.

When I turn this DVD off, I’m going to say I’ve forgotten all about it. Then I’m going to look over at that keyboard, and all that music software, and sigh. Human League has influenced me to make music that makes fun of Human League. Awesome.

Duke Ellington, Michael Schenker, MC5, etc.

Portions of this review originally appeared in INsite magazine, September, 2005.

            Rockers: 25^th Anniversary Edition

            Russell Simmons had to have seen this movie before he produced Krush Groove.  The similarities between this reggae classic and the hip-hop movies of the early eighties are undeniable.  Rockers is basically a snapshot of reggae at its peak.  The squares (in the movie and in real life) don’t get it, but we do.  If this movie were about speed metal and Magic: The Gathering, I’d sue.

The only beef I have with this DVD is a technical one: you can’t turn the subtitles off.  As with The Harder They Come (this movie’s better-known predecessor), you’ll have a hard time deciphering some of the dialogue.  Between the slang (a glossary is provided as an extra, by the way) and the thick accents, it can be grueling.  But reading an entire movie can be a pain, too.  If you love foreign films as much as I do, you know it’s more fun to watch them with the subs off.  No such luck here, but again, it’s a minor quibble.

            The Troy Dillinger Dirty & Hairy Film Festival

            The idea is noble: local Austin businesses supported an independent film festival by donating goods and services.  The festival is dedicated to merging the film community with the music community, as each film is basically a music video.  Again, it all sounds good on paper.  The only problem is that all of the songs are by Troy Dillinger, and all of the videos feature Troy Dillinger.  If you want to watch the same guy cavort with pretty girls in different settings, buy a Benny Hill boxed set.

            Seriously, though, the music is middle-of-the-road, and the movies are like something out of a junior college RTVF course.  Believe me, as I speak from experience.  Austin can do, and has done, far better than this.

            Metalmania 2004

            One DVD, one CD, and twenty-two bands.  It’s hard to go wrong with that much variety (see the Skate & Surf Fest review below for a good, bad example), especially in a genre as diverse as heavy metal.  Here, you get live performances by bands as varied as Moonspell and the Michael Schenker Group.  Not all of it’s that great (there’s a bit too much drop-D tuning for my taste), but it’s a good sample of where heavy metal is today, even if the genre is once again in danger of death by over-marketing.  Take Soulfly, for example.  Here, they’re given the royal treatment.  Their sound, though, hasn’t evolved since they started: it’s the same hop-up-and-down-like-it’s-a-Kriss-Kross-concert crap they were doing five years ago.  It’s basically high school music, even if the band is fronted by Max Cavalera, a heavy metal legend.

            And speaking of legends…

            The Michael Schenker Group: Live in Tokyo 1997

            Much of this performance is presented in one camera shot.  (Perhaps the guy in the control booth was watching Rockers right before they shot the show.)  None of that matters, though, because Michael Schenker has returned (eight years ago, anyway) to show you how it’s done.  If you’re a guitar head, you’ll love everything here (even “All the Way from Memphis,” a song I hated when it was new in 1990).  This is an anniversary show for Schenker, covering his work with the Scorpions (they were never better), UFO (they still haven’t gotten the respect they deserve), and MSG (not the kind that puts you to sleep and makes you hungry an hour later).  It’s Schenker’s entire musical history in one fantastic evening.  Don’t be put off by the production value.  It’s kind of like watching Robb’s MetalWorks on San Antonio public access…except these guys can play.

Skate & Surf Fest

Too bad none of these guys can.  Three Ramones have died in the past decade, and record companies still can’t stop defiling their legacy.  Here, you have twelve of the most godawful pop-punk bands on the planet (all of them Blink-182 and Good Charlotte booster clubs, I guess), and Andrew W. K., who only stands out by not sounding like anyone else on the bill.  (He still sounds like his first crappy album from five years ago.)  If you bought your Misfits T-shirt at Hot Topic, you’ll probably like it.  But you’ll hate it if you know anything about a certain quintet from the Motor City…

MC5: Kick Out the Jams

They were political radicals, outlaws, and jailbirds.  They were everything rock music was supposed to be: loud, fast, intense, raw.  And they did it in the friggin’ sixties, when this kind of thing mattered most.  (I’m only 28, by they way.  Just floating that out there for you.)  They inspired the Ramones, Iggy Pop, the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, and everyone else on that familiar roster.  While this DVD won’t give you as much information as Legs McNeil’s book, Please Kill Me, it’s a good starter kit for anyone interested in the band.  It’s also an odd little art film, featuring footage of the band, the audience, and most importantly, the period.  It’s only thirty-five minutes long, but  I like it.

Duke Ellington: The Big Band Feeling

John Coltrane took the cover photo.  Obviously, someone at the Eforfilms company has it together.

The Stars of Jazz Collection is one of the better resources for some of the most brilliant music of the 20^th century.  If you’re burned out on Ken Burns, and you need that jazz fix, look no further.  This Ellington disc is a good start, specifically because the performance was filmed in 1952, a few years before jazz evolved in a radical fashion.  This is the peak of the Big Band era, and in glorious, old-fashioned black and white, to boot.  If Burns’s Jazz was your core course, this is enrichment.  Enjoy it as you would the best American traditions.

Spencer Davis, Dead Boys, Devo, Al Di Meola, Sun Ra, Bob Dylan

Portions of this review originally appeared in INsite magazine, May, 2005.

            Crank up the home theater system, turn out the lights, and indulge.  This month, it’s all about the rock and roll.  (Except for that cheesy Bob Dylan thing at the end.  Talk about someone who deserves better…)

 

Al Di Meola – One of These Nights

            It’s probably safe to say that many INsite readers are musicians.  You don’t have to be a musician to enjoy guitar maestro Al Di Meola and his too-good-to-be-legal band.  If you’re friends with one, though, sit that person down and put on this DVD.  Your friend will either try harder or give up.  Either way, he or she will never forget this concert.  One of These Nights is a sequel of sorts to Di Meola’s 1980 concert (with Paco de Lucia and John McLaughlin), Friday Night in San Francisco, a show that has since become legend.  If you’ve heard that, you’ll want this.  If you’re unfamiliar with Di Meola – or good guitar playing in general – this DVD will change your life.

 

The Spencer Davis Group – Gimme Some Lovin’ Live 1966

            There is British blues, and there is the Spencer Davis Group.  With rare documentary and performance footage, this DVD shows two eras of the band.  The original line-up features Steve Winwood, who rips it up here, arguably better than he ever would again.  The band performs “Gimme Some Lovin’,” of course, but it’s their cover of “Georgia On My Mind” that really makes this worth having.  Fans of Cream, the Rolling Stones, and other bands that would eventually become known as “psychedelic rock,” will love this rare glimpse into the early British rock scene.

 

Dead Boys – LIVE! at CBGB 1977

            This is where it all comes from, little ones.  Despite their status as punk rock icons, armchair critics tend to list the Dead Boys as an also-ran.  In any list of “important” punk rock bands, they seem to fall somewhere below the Ramones and Clash, yet slightly above the Descendents or Dead Kennedys.  The Dead Boys had an energy and appeal all their own, though, much of it due to late frontman Stiv Bators.  (You may remember him as the dangerous boyfriend in John Waters’ Polyester.)  Like the Spencer Davis DVD mentioned above, this also is a glimpse of a scene at its inception (and, arguably, its peak).  The DVD is short, but hardcore punk fans will love it.  (Check out the footage of opening band the Steel Tips in the bonus features.)

 

Devo – Live in the Land of the Rising Sun

            Well, you get it or you don’t.  Lots of people in Japan get it, and bless each and every one of them.  To their fans, Devo have always been more than just an “eighties band.”  A good new wave band is pretty hard to come by these days, but Devo soldiers on.  With this DVD, Devo answers a question asked by their detractors: yes, the weird jumpsuits and flower pot hats look even more ridiculous now than they did twenty years ago.  This concert is the polar opposite of the Al Di Meola concert mentioned above, but the music’s a lot of fun, and the visuals are fascinating.  Check it out.

 

Sun Ra – The Magic Sun

            In 1966, underground, experimental filmmaker Phil Niblock created a music film, applying techniques similar to the free jazz style of his subject, Sun Ra.  The result is way too short.  I wish this thing were as long as an Andy Warhol movie.  My brother, a guitar virtuoso with an interest in film, wants to watch this every day now.  I never thought someone else would enjoy an experimental film more than I do.  If you’ve never seen or heard this sort of thing, here are the basics: the film is in black and white, and produced very cheaply.  The shots are as abstract as the music, and the editing is paced with that same manic intensity.  It looks like it was cut on a cheese grater, and for that, I think it’s absolutely beautiful.

 

Bob Dylan World Tours 1966-1974, Through the Camera of Barry Feinstein

            This is actually more about Barry Feinstein and director Joel Gilbert than it is about Bob Dylan.  There is actually no Dylan music to be heard on this DVD; the soundtrack is performed by “Highway 61 Revisited,” a Dylan tribute band fronted by Gilbert.  That said, Feinstein’s pedigree as a photographer is impressive.  He worked on Easy Rider and Monterey Pop as a cameraman, and was Dylan’s exclusive tour photographer for many years.  There are lots of photos here, and a few interviews, but the dearth of Dylan music is too large a sin to ignore.