Drive In '77

Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest

Holy smokes!  Michael Rappaport got skillz!  This is easily my favorite documentary about hip hop ever and Top 10 for music in general.  For me, that is a statement.  I love music docs.  Music docs are an obsession and I 've watched even mediocre ones a dozen times, but Beats, Rhymes & Life makes me want to go buy the Blu Ray, hook up the stereo, and crank the dial.  It is a mix of old school hip hop history, the persistence of artistic vision, and the story of a group so influential they've become almost impossible to quantify.

Directed by the aforementioned Michael Rappaport, an actor and notorious hip hop aficionado known for his roles in flicks like Higher Learning and his time on Boston Public, this film tells the story of A Tribe Called Quest.  If you neither know nor own any of their music, chances are you will by the end of this movie.  As a drummer, it was these "Native Tongue" and early hip hop groups like Run DMC that I always gravitated towards when I was searching for grooves to lay under rock and roll.  Tribe might have been the best.  Their loops were always tight and bottom heavy but without all the over tweaked low end you get on modern rap albums.  They carried with them a soul that changed the game and transcended the genre.  They were jazz, they were R&B, they were street, they were poetry and it's about time their story was on film.

For a first dip into the feature film pool, Rappaport displays a keen knowledge of how to capture life and infuse it with history, a skill required for good documentary filmmaking.  He lets the players talk (and they do!) and tell their story all while following them through a new resurgence of performance.  They're a group that has over two decades of history, and no stone is left unturned.  The beauty of the way the collection of images, old and new footage and interviews is assembled is the power of Tribes music.  Throughout, you cannot help but bob your head and feel the flow of their tracks whether it lays underneath the scene or is cranked up in the mix.  Everything is tied together with a perfect bow as if it was that dream Christmas gift you didn't even know you'd asked for.

I don't know what else to say without sounding like some schill blowing endless smoke up this film's arse.  You have to see it.  You must do yourself the favor of seeing it.  If you grew up in the 80s it is required viewing.  A fantastic doc from beginning to end.

Grade: A+

Moog

In general I am a documentary junkie. I love the idea of educating myself, and with a good doc, I can feel a sense of accomplishment at the end credits, like I just aced an extended education class down at the learning annex. Toss in the subject of music and the documentary, or the “rockumentary,” becomes irresistible. I’ll watch it a dozen times even if it is about a band or person I don’t like. In fact, two of my favorite films in recent years are about Death Cab For Cutie and the Dixie Chicks, neither of which I even listened to before seeing those docs. In short, I love me some musical education!

Recent years have been quite good to the “rockumentary,” so it was with a little bit of glee that I sat down to screen Hans Fjellstad’s Moog, a doc about the creator of the Moog synthesizer, Dr. Robert A. Moog.  Have I said "moog" enough yet?  He’s a bit of a genius, starting out assembly theramins and then basically inventing electronic music as a genre and a companion to traditional music with his monster of a machine of circuits and wires named, like Frankenstein’s Monster, after its life giver.

The subject alone seems like a knock it out of the park opportunity, but unfortunately, in a rare case of musical doc disappointment, Moog fails to assemble itself into anything quite as magnificent as the synthesizer itself. I’m not quite sure what the movie was supposed to be about, the man or the machine? I don’t believe the filmmakers knew either. The lack of direction contributes to a feeling of distraction, failing to tie me down to my seat waiting for the next moment to flicker across my eyes. The final edit feels like a box of found footage. There’s no real cohesive theme that holds the story together, rather a collage of conversations, live performance, and historical film clips.

It’s too bad really, because some of those old clips and the concert footage from a Moog celebration concert event really are interesting. Getting to see the artists playing and tweaking their Moogs to create a cacophony of sounds was the most intriguing part of the show. It seems like that idea, the idea of the Moog as machine, would have made a great documentary. So would the exploration of Moog the man and how and why he created what he did. Where he came from, the genesis of ideas, all would make a great documentary. However, here we get both, but not enough of either. I leave the film without an increased knowledge of Bob Moog and without the satisfaction of just watching musicians work.

A particular pet peeve of this production is the use of subtitles to identify the people on the screen. Their appearance is inconsistent in that they pop up when someone famous or well-known first comes on screen, but not for some of Bob Moog’s old colleagues or friends. He had an entire conversation with someone who was one of his first salesmen and it was fascinating. He explained how he tried to demo the Moog to music stores and the general confusion as to what it did and all that. It was a great series of moments between these two old colleagues and I still don’t know his name! Thankfully the conversation clued me in to who he was, but a little help would have been nice. Same goes for the musicians who populate this film. Rick Wakeman shows up to tell a funny story about buying his first MiniMoog, but unless you are really familiar with music or have a computer on your lap, you have no idea he is from the seminal progressive rock band Yes. Same goes for Keith Emerson, Money Mark, or the mind altering talent of Bernie Worrell. Any layman would recognize who these musicians have played with, so why not tag them instead of alienating and confusing your viewers? Seems like a lazy choice to me.

My favorite part is watching Bob Moog struggle with a taiko drumming video game in Japan. Maybe not the best part, but, even if accidental, it draws a nice line between the man who gave the world the idea of musical creation through electronic means and the mass consumption of circuitry based rhythm gaming.

Listen, if you’re a music nerd like me, than it won’t kill you to watch Moog, and at 72 minutes it will all go by pretty quickly. You get some neat anecdotes here and there and possibly some motivation to go search out some of the artists that you hear in the live segments. However, for the casual observer, Moog fails to captivate or educate and will probably become quite boring after about 10 of those 72 minutes.

Screened: rental-ville (DVD)

Director: Hans Fjellestad

Grade: C

Mill Valley Film Festival 2010: Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone

Fishbone is without a doubt one of the greatest tragedies in the last 40 years of the American music industry.  Their rise and fall is the best example ever of how to mishandle a band.  It is a story of failure from the record company, the live promotors, and most importantly, of the consumer.  The public failed to recognise the importance of Fishbone, failed to see what they are and what they meant. 

Two quotes stick in my mind immediately from the new documentary about the band, Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone.  The first being "musicians get it."  This might be one of the worst labels a band can receive.  Even with the success of a band like Rush, they are a "musicians get it" band and remain relatively obscure to the general public.  Musicians love Fishbone, Flea admits to stealing ideas from Norwood in this film, and they spawned so many bands from their existence it would be a pretty long list to try and recreate here or anywhere.  The music world owes Fishbone, big time.

The second quote comes from Ice-T who said, "there was no pre-Fishbone.  There wasn't Fishbone and then there was Fishbone."  Truly, this band is a complete original, a collection of all they know that refused labels and limitations.  Everyday Sunshine attempts to explain this frustrating musical puzzle.

Narrated by Laurence Fishbourne, the movie infuses new interviews with classic concert footage, animation, photos, interviews with fellow musicians, and a see all behind the scenes of the working of Fishbone the band as it exists today.  It is not an unfamiliar set-up, but I will say the use of the animation (Fat Albert style) in the beginning is inspired.  You get to hear from some of the bands that drew inspiration from Fishbone like No Doubt, Living Color, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Gogol Bordello.  There is a tremendously candid retelling of the attempted kidnapping case of Kendall by Norwood in my hometown of Novato, CA and a look into the artist minds of Angelo and Norwood.  It is comprehensive and compelling.  It also opens with footage from a show I was at!!

Gauging audience reactions, I think some might see the story of Fishbone as a sad tale, but in a way, it is an example of how to stick to your values and be true.  Fishbone never sold out, they never let some big time producer come in and change them, they never agreed to be anything other than what they wanted to be.  I find it inspirational.  Yes, they deserve to be millionaires, they deserve to be in the rock and roll hall of fame, they deserve to be the biggest of the big, but they're not and that is okay.  What I took away was it is okay that Angelo lives with his mom.  It is okay that they are making music in Norwood's tiny ass apartment in Santa Monica, because above all, they are still making music.  The music has always been the most important member of the band.  That has cost them to some degree, but it also lifts them above so many.

Technically speaking, it wasn't the best musical doc I've seen.  The editing was "loose" with black outs between scenes and awkward moments of silence where a shot goes on too long.  Additionally, there is a great animated sequence in the second reel showing Los Angeles with Laurence Fishbourne narrating and setting up the time and conditions of the birth of Fishbone.  It belongs a lot closer to the beginning of the movie than it falls.  A lot.  Like, all the way in the beginning.  You're launched into a certain documentary style and meeting the band and watching old footage and then *bam*, you're in a whole new movie with slick animation and that first 10 or 15 minutes just doesn't fit as well as it should.  Switch those first two sequences around, and I believe the movie would feel a lot more cohesive.

I also would have liked to see more discussion on the topic of Fishbone and their relationship to "black" music and radio.  They were treated pretty horribly by the so-called black section of the industry, as are all black rock bands to be honest, and I would've liked to have seen more of how that treatment affected them because as much as their uniqueness made them a hard sell musically, I think their virtual banishment from their community had a lot more to do with, as Angelo puts it, them being "famous but not rich."

After the film there was the requisite filmmaker Q&A, and while Anderson and Metzler seemed like compitent and likeable guys, I was kind of shocked to hear them talk about starting the project.  It seems like it was more of a hunch than because they were fans.  Now, I can see the need to approach a documentary subject with an objective eye, but with a band as powerful as Fishbone, it would be interesting to know how big time fanatics would approach a movie.  It's a capable enough effort, but if there was a little more passion, maybe it could've really shot over the top like a Some Kind of Monster.

Other questions from the audience were your standard film fest fare.  The room was small and I'd say less than a handful were actual Fishbone fans.  One dude had a Fishbone shirt on ("Fuck Racism" which Angelo actually wears in the movie so you know that guy was stoked) and I would venture to say I was easily the youngest male there.  There were a couple of girls who probably bested me towards their 20s, but for the most part it was a pretty old crowd which surprised and disappointed me.  So you got questions like "well, why hasn't anyone ever recorded them live if that is their strong suit?"  Um, because A) they have and B) you are totally missing the point.  No matter how great a live recording is, it will never be a tenth of what it is like to actually be at a show.  Never.  Fishbone or any other band, it is never the same.  Then some chick asked why they didn't interview more punk musicians..... because all the talking heads with Mike Watt were confusing?  It would have been a lot more fun in a room of Fishbone soldiers as I'd hoped would be there.

Clearly headed to home video, hopefully soon, a keen eye in the "Thank Yous" list spotted some really interesting names that I can't wait to see in bonus feature interviews.  Names like Chuck D and Fat Mike.  If that stuff makes it on the DVD, I'll be in heaven.  As it stands, the interview moments (they kept them brief, letting Fishbone tell the story more than an all-star cast of Grammy winners) are pretty good and unusually insightful. 

All in all, as a bigtime Fishbone fan, I really enjoyed myself and my grade will reflect that.  But as an armchair critic, I think the film could be tighter.  Just a smidge.  If you have a chance to go see it, absolutely do, support movies about bands like this because they need us.  Fishbone needs us.  The Mill Valley Film Festival has one more screening and the movie's website has more dates, so head out and learn something or just celebrate one of the greatest bands of the last few decades. 

Screened: Mill Valley Film Fest, Rafael Theater, Screen 3 (film)

Director(s): Lev Anderson, Chris Metzler

Script: n/a

Cast: Fishbone, Vernon Reid, Gwen Stefani, Ice-T, Flea, Perry Ferrel, Mike Watt

Fav. Quote: "If there were 12 levels, they're on the 13th."

Snacks: Pre-show In and Out

Grade: A -

7's: Faith No More

For those of you with no taste for awesome, Faith No More is a hard rocking band that epitomized the rock and funk scene of San Francisco in the eighties.  Maybe not as advertised as L.A. hair metal or Seattle's grunge, the type of groove inspired hard rock that was coming out of the Bay Area gave me some of my all time favorite bands.  Groups like Primus, Mr. Bungle and The Limbomaniacs were playing legendary clubs like The Omni and The Stone and creating a unique scene that reverberates to this day throughout rock and metal.

They've been away for nearly a decade, but back to celebrate their 30th anniversary Faith No More recently played a trio of nights at The Warfield in SF, as well as an appearance at Coachella and many more gigs lined up through the summer.  If you can see them, see them!  Unfortunately I was dead broke when tickets went on sale and couldn't buy them.  That was hard considering if you forced me to rank bands, FNM would crack the Top 3 no problem.  I did get offered tix by a buddy last minute, but my schedule stood against me like an immovable douche bag.  I say douche bag, because that was also the night when original singer Chuck Mosely showed up!  Join me in a nice loud "fuuuuuuuuuuuuccckkkk!!!!"

I could go on for hours about FNM, but let me sum it up like this: their drummer MIke Bordin is the only famous person I've ever accosted!  I've had the opportunity to meet a lot of celebs and musicians etc. in my 35 years, but outside of leaping into action to get a photo with Scary Spice a couple years back, I generally just find it a pretty normal experience.  They're just people after all.  But it was Bordin that made me get up from my chair at the Punchline one night and wait outside the bathroom for him to come out so I could talk with him.  He was super cool and talked to me at least 3-4 minutes about drums and the band etc.  It was a highlight reel moment.  Play it at my funeral.

So, this might be the most difficult decision session in the history of "7's" but I had to do it.  Keeping in mind that every song not mentioned here is tied for 8th, here then are my 7 favorite Faith No More tracks.

1. Be Aggressive (Angel Dust)

2. The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (King For a Day....)

3. Surprise! You're Dead! (The Real Thing)

4. Jizzlober (Angel Dust)

5. Chinese Arithmatic (Introduce Yourself)

6. Ricochet (King For a Day...)

7. Paths of Glory (Album of the Year)

Like I said, this is six of one, half a dozen of another.  Looking over the iTunes, there's not a song that I don't enjoy.  What is great is how complete and themed each album comes across.  You get one feeling from "King for a Day..." and another from "Epic."  Such a good band.  Check out any, or preferably all of it if you're not familiar. 

Star Wars In Concert

Last night I cruised on down to the Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles to combine a love of music with my uber nerd soul and take in the live symphonic meets visual extravaganza that is the Star Wars In Concert Tour. In a word: goosebumps. My skin rippled with electricity from beginning to end with only a brief pause in the middle, but more on that later. The show is fantastic and before you read any further, check the bank account, check the schedule, and get yourself a ticket.

The premise of the event is to combine clips from all six Star Wars films with John Williams iconic scores as played by a live symphony complete with laser lights, sound effects, pyrotechnics, and the narration of one Anthony Daniels. The legendary man behind C-3PO (one of only two actors to be involved in all of the movies) introduces each piece of music as if telling the story of the Star Wars saga, breaking them down into familiar themes, plot lines, and characters. For example, one section was about Luke and Leia as siblings, another about Anakin turning to the dark side, and another about Yoda. The first half is generally Episodes 1 through 3 and the post intermission group follows up with original trilogy beats.

The show started about 20 minutes late, mainly because of all the folks in the lobbies of Nokia checking out the costumes, props, and 501st costumers on display. But when it did start, you got THX tone booming through the theater followed by the familiar 20th Century Fox fanfare. It was invigorating as the symphony exploded into the Star Wars theme with a rash of footage on the wide screen set behind them and then shot after shot of the musicians, introducing us to our new heroes or the night.

This led to our narrator and Daniels was brilliant. He is a well spoken Englishman with a distinctive timbre to his voice and he plays his little intros like Shakespeare at the Globe. Early on, he goes on a tangent about how awesome C-3PO is and it is pretty funny. And while dressed primarily in black, Daniels lets his inner "golden rod" peek out a couple time. There is no doubt he was the absolute perfect choice for this tour.

As the concert moved along, my appreciation for the band grew and grew. At this level, the musicians are so precise, so talented, without the visual confirmation of them sitting there, one would think you were just listening to a CD. They were that close to perfection. I'm a musician, though not near any of these players, and there was maybe once or twice where I noticed a little more volume in the percussion parts or a vibraphone I'd never noticed before, but other than that, you will hear this music played exactly the way Williams imagined it.

The film clips were assembled with meticulous attention to each segment's theme. What was a fantastic surprise was hearing such familiar melodies over images we associate with other music or sound. The best example was the extensive pod racing footage accompanied by just a symphonic score. While technically amazing, I always felt this section of Episode 1 a little long. Not with the the orchestra in tow!! The pod race was exponentially more exciting this night and breathed new life into my interest of the scenes.

A few times, often with the classic characters like Vader, Yoda, Leia etc., the screen also popped up McQuarrie's concept art, animated with transitions and lighting effects. Scenes framed as flashbacks were sepia toned and blurred and important dialogue mixed in with the music. Green laser lights flashed in the second half and fire balls shot up when Obi Wan and Anakin battled on Mustafar.

The finale was a wonderful nod to the original scoring sessions for each film, showing, in order of release, the one sheets for each movie and then a couple of pics of the recording process and the session date. Seeing Williams age was probably more interesting to us than to him though!! After the final note was struck, the crowd demanded four curtain calls as appreciative nerds waving light sabers and cheering wildly called them back again and again. They might have to concoct some sort of encore because it would have been highly welcomed by all in attendance.

My only downer was a segment revolving around young Anakin Skywalker. Even edited to lose the awkward pauses, the wooden delivery of Jake Lloyd is still the worst thing about the saga. The music was intoxicating, but every time he stumbles out "are you an angel" I want to shoot my ears off. It was the ultimate ying vs. yang moment.

There were quite a number of children in attendance and it really struck home to me how, as a "gen-1" fan of the universe, it is easy to overlook or criticize the prequels but for the kids out there, they friggin' love 'em! Say what you will, Lucas did his job and ensured that the legacy of the franchise would remain strong for decades more to come. And hey nay sayers, he is giving us some kick ass Clone Wars toons isn't he?

The merch was awesome. Unfortunately, I had to spend $25 to park at Nokia, which was great and easy access, but left me without the cash to grab any take home souvenirs. The program looked sleek, but didn't seem to have any pics or info we haven't seen before. The shirts with the tour dates etc. were pretty great. One had Vader in a tux conducting and orchestra! There was also a mug, a sweatshirt, and a lenticular poster!! Hopefully some of this will make it online at a later date.

I really appreciate Lucas putting this together. It never ceases to amaze me how 12 hours of entertainment can generate new and wonderful experiences for me year after year.