Skip to main content

Good Good Things

Looks like I, along with about a hundred people, got to witness something last Thursday that people all over the world are clamoring for: seeing Filmage, the documentary on the Descendents/All.

I do what I can to spotlight local filmmakers with my connection to the Observer, but I wasn't expecting thousands of Facebook "Like"s and dozens of tweets about my brief Q&A with the filmmakers. I don't write for stats, but I'm well aware of them when a story goes live.

Coming out of the screening at the Texas Theatre -- which I can safely put on the same level as the original Alamo Drafthouse in Austin -- I couldn't stop gushing about the film. As in, this is a documentary that should be seen all over the world. And I'd love to see the film again.

The story of the Descendents (and its off-shoot All) is not something that could fit in a documentary like, say, American Hardcore or Hype! The Descendents might have been on one of the coolest punk rock labels in the '80s, but they were too melodic to be considered angry. All might have put out a record on a major label in the '90s, but they were not one of the casualties of the post-Nirvana/Green Day boom. The band is a story to itself, and I'm really happy a documentary on them exists. And it's a pretty definitive one at that, given the people interviewed for it.

The film looks beautiful, features a ton of great songs, and moves at a pretty even pace. Yet when the pace slows to a crawl (I won't say where or why), the film becomes much more than a retelling of a band's history. This part adds tremendous emotional depth that you rarely see in these kinds of films, especially about fast punk rock bands.

As I walked out of the theater and into the lobby, I talked with a number of people. One of the first things I said was, "I want to go home and pull out Milo Goes to College, Somery, and the All compilation on Owned and Operated." I've listened to the Descendents and All for many years, but it had been a while since I listened any of those. A great documentary on a band can make me want to listen to them again, and Filmage did just that.

I can't stress enough how good this is. While the filmmakers need to get music licensing taken care of, I hope they can commercially release this version as is. Whatever hurdles they need to get over, I believe it will be worth it in the long run.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air...
4 comments
Read more

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Ben Folds and Ben Folds Five

Originally posted on Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 : For some, Ben Folds Five was merely a one hit wonder. For others, the trio was a life-changer. Myself, I’m one of the latter. Being formally introduced with the “Battle of Who Could Care Less” video on 120 Minutes , I was very intrigued to know more about this piano-bass-drums combo. Once I heard Whatever and Ever Amen , I was hooked. As a matter of fact, out of all of my favorite bands, Ben Folds Five is one of the few that I liked right away and I have held the same kind of admiration ever since. Their three proper albums (and one b-sides collection) are staples in my record collection and they may very well be (or soon be) staples in your collection too. For a band that was once described as “punk rock for sissies,” you may realize how effortlessly these guys walked between fun, semi-goofy pop songs and some really deep and powerful stuff too. It helps that they had it right from the beginning and kept maturing. Ben Folds Five (1995) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Politics Shmolitics

Yesterday, the more pleas I saw for people to go out and vote, the more uncomfortable I felt. Plenty of the blogs I hit up everyday said something along the lines of "Vote and if you don't, don't complain." Folks, this is why I find discussing politics so alienating. There are plenty of reasons why I don't discuss politics on here or in my everyday conversations. The biggest reason is because I don't have a lot of interest in politics in the first place. By what I've seen, heard and read for the last eight years, political debates are usually pissing contests. Judging by the views I've processed, it would be easy to think that we're all slowly going downhill either on the left, right or down the middle. Yet I don't think we're going totally downhill or totally uphill. Debating the direction we're going seems futile, especially when adults start screaming at each other like they're in grade school. To my ears, political debates are s...
11 comments
Read more