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Music documentaries

Started by Custard, December 10, 2020, 09:03:22 AM

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Cottonon

Quote from: PeterCornelius on May 15, 2021, 01:49:45 PM
Hail! Hail! Rock n' Roll is a great documentary about Chuck Berry. I have the DVD expanded edition which has a load of additional footage, interviews etc. His interactions with Keith Richards are unintentionally (or maybe not?) hilarious.

Worth seeking out:

Tony Palmer - All You Need Is Love
[url]Standing In The Shadows of Motown]Standing In The Shadows of Motown][url]Standing In The Shadows of Motown[/url]
The Wrecking Crew

Hopefully, the hyperlinks work!

I think it was on the US double DVD version of this, one of the extra features where director Taylor Hackford explains that Chuck has signed up for a 90 minute film. Chuck then stops turning up after 90 mins of FILMING claiming he thought that was it even though they'd done three scenes or something. Perfectly sums up the disingenuous and mercenary side of him. But then also has great footage of him and Johnnie Johnson playing some woozy tune during some downtime and you forgive him (for a bit).

the science eel

Quote from: SteveDave on October 11, 2021, 09:45:35 AM
...John Cale. He still looks great.

Doesn't he just? He's eighty next year!

Loved the doc, altho' (predictably) it's light on the later years. Not sure why Doug Yule wasn't interviewed to help with that stuff - he's all over the 'other' doc, Vanishing Point.

But JC and Jonathan Richman are very charismatic and engaging, and what was really cool (and surprising) was seeing nothing but testimony from people who were/are close to the band - especially the three ladies. No Bono, no Grohl, not even Paul Morley or David Fricke.

It's out there and he did a grand job* - we can all breathe easily.





*unlike Jarmusch's Stooges thing or that Scorsese Stones effort


Ballad of Ballard Berkley

I really enjoyed the Velvets documentary too. Haynes is clearly more interested in the Warhol/Cale era of the band, it's basically a tribute to that whole scene, but the Yule era does at least get about half an hour devoted to it.

And I agree with regards to the rare footage and photographs, there's a lot in there I've never seen before. And Jonathan Richman is excellent value whenever he crops up; I particularly enjoyed his wide-eyed account of audiences being stunned into five seconds of silence after each performance of Sister Ray

kalowski

Finally got round to watching the Big Star documentary, Nothing Can Hurt Me, and it was great. Just reminded me how good this band was.

NoSleep

Just stumbled across Basically, Johnny Moped on Netflix, which I can highly recommend. Fascinating stuff.

jobotic

Yeah I saw that a few years ago at an arts centre, followed by The Masonics blasting out a few Jonny Moped tunes. I didn't know anything about them, was a fun night.

The band themselves played down the road last year but I was away.

studpuppet

I can't see that anyone else has mentioned it, but The Sparks Brothers (in a year that contained Get Back and The Velvet Underground) was my favourite music doc, I think in part because I've struggled to get past the one or two most well-known Sparks tracks in the past and it made me explore their back catalogue after I'd watched it. It has the right wattage of celebrity (UK-centric), obligatory Paul Morley, and reflects Ron & Russell's idiosyncrasies as well.


The Mollusk

Quote from: studpuppet on January 10, 2022, 09:26:51 AMI can't see that anyone else has mentioned it, but The Sparks Brothers ...

It was mostly discussed in the Sparks thread! It is a marvellous film though. As a fellow obsessive when it comes to being comprehensive yet concise when gushing about my favourite music, I think Wright did an excellent job not just in writing an epic love letter to his favourite band but also providing a clear and fun to follow timeline for newcomers. It's a long flick but my partner who knew next to nothing about them found it engaging throughout.

NoSleep

Quote from: jobotic on January 09, 2022, 11:48:01 PMYeah I saw that a few years ago at an arts centre, followed by The Masonics blasting out a few Jonny Moped tunes. I didn't know anything about them, was a fun night.

The band themselves played down the road last year but I was away.

I never saw them live but had all the records. There was something unique about them compared to other bands of the era.
Did you notice that the end of credits music was a cover of one of their tunes by Kirsty McColl?

steveh

In the same Music Box series on HBO / Sky Documentaries as the recent one on Woodstock '99 there's an interesting film on Robert Stigwood. It mostly focusses on the time around Saturday Night Fever, using that to go into the growth of disco from a black gay scene into the rather different New York Italian clubs and the US mainstream. It also covers his move from managing acts like Cream in the UK to producing musicals (blame him for Webber and Rice) and onto running a film production company. Then, when the hits stopped coming, leaving it all behind to spend his money on yachts and toyboys. Haven't seen the others in the series yet.

Dirty Boy

Any good ones on Post-Punk or American Punk/Hardcore?

the science eel


jobotic

Quote from: NoSleep on January 10, 2022, 10:05:41 AMI never saw them live but had all the records. There was something unique about them compared to other bands of the era.
Did you notice that the end of credits music was a cover of one of their tunes by Kirsty McColl?

Darling, Let's Have Another Baby?


It's the only song of there's I can remember! Great though.

The Mollusk

We had a heady double bill the other night: Summer of Soul (... or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) followed by Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. I had never seen either of these - the former being very recent but still I felt a dope for not getting around to it sooner, and the latter being an absolute staple of riveting car crash documentaries, both of which I'm so glad to have finally seen.

I found some interesting disparities between the two films. "Summer of Soul" is a film about black people pushing to gain the freedom they deserve via some of the most raucously joyous and liberating grooves in the USA at that time, whereas "Some Kind of Monster" is a small group of rich white idiots with privilege coming out of their arses, the world at their fingertips, and yet their warring egos inhibit them to a point of self-imposed near-madness.

Where the earth-shattering event of "Summer..." was brilliantly planned and executed, and preserved via some truly spellbinding footage, "...Monster" by comparison is a little more a case of being in the right place at the right time. The archived material of "Summer..." has sat gathering dust for the last 50 years due to the suppression of black culture whereas "...Monster" - in which several white men repeatedly make fools of themselves and still think they're making the right decisions - exists warts and all, and would comparatively be an insult to the pursuit of great art were it not for the fact it's so absurdly fucking funny.

I'm not trying to open a debate about this, for what it's worth, I just found the contrast intriguing in an almost tragically funny way. Both films are absolutely superb. The bit where Lars shouts FUUUUCK in Hetfield's face is the biggest laugh I've had in ages.

Sebastian Cobb

Summer of Soul is great. Wattstax is another one if you like that sort of thing.

Sebastian Cobb

Muscle Shoals, the Muscle Shoals documentary that used to be on Netflix but now isn't is great as well.

Norton Canes

If you know nothing about the story of Silibil n' Brains, you need to watch The Great Hip Hop Hoax.

The Mollusk

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 13, 2022, 02:31:35 PMSummer of Soul is great. Wattstax is another one if you like that sort of thing.

Cheers, I'll definitely be digging that out.

studpuppet

Quote from: Dirty Boy on January 13, 2022, 01:39:14 PMAny good ones on Post-Punk or American Punk/Hardcore?

There's a 4-part doc called 'Punk' which is very much US-skewed - it's occasionally repeated on Sky Arts.