Sometimes laying in hotels I get lonely for Jesus; at others I need some Rock n’ Roll

An incomplete reflection on rock documentaries

originally published in The Link

I recently watched Some Kind of Monster, the documentary that chronicled two years in the life of Metallica. During those 24 months they battled their demons with the help of a ‘performance psychologist’, tried to write and record an album, suffered through a period in detox for James Hetfield, did a lot of soul searching trying to find meaning in their lives, lost their bassist (Jason Newsted) and hired another (Robert Trujillo). It’s an awesome piece of film and well worth the bottle of wine I had to share in order to see it.

It got me to reflect on other music documentaries and here are seven of my faves, in no particular order.

Gimme Shelter
David Maysles & Albert Maysles
1970
The Rolling Stones were riding high in 1969 and finding their stride as a band. Brian Jones’ death had allowed Jagger and Richards to take creative control unopposed and the leadership schism within the band disappeared. After the artistic disaster of Satanic Majesty the Stones began five or six years of producing some of the best rock music ever. In 1969 they were touring to support Beggars Banquet, their first real album as the Stones, and ever mindful of outdoing the Beatles, they decided on a ‘free’ concert in Golden Gate Park, which the city fathers nixed as dangerous. So, after some tense last minute negotiations Altamont Raceway was decided on as a site.

The Maysles brothers had produced the excellent documentary Salesmen, about bible salesmen in the American South. Their style was to turn on the camera and see what happens.

And what happened at Altamont was that a 100,000 people descended to see a free festival concert and it turned into a day-long slide into The Lord of the Flies with medical emergencies, violence, rapes, seriously bad trips, dirt, cold and all manner of unplanned for events. The bands on stage, including Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, tried to keep things going, to keep the ‘summer of love’ vibe happening but this was 1969 and the darkness of the 1970s was looming. The organizers asked the Hell’s Angels, who still had some sort of rebel cachet to them, to sit on stage and to help ‘keep order’. Instead, these hairy Gestapo fucks went ape-shit for six long hours, even turning nasty towards the bands and culminating in the stabbing death of a man in front of Mick, Keith and the boys, apparently to avenge an insult to the colours.

Gimme Shelter is a slow ride to hell. Rock and roll culture at its worst – venal, self-absorbed, useless.

Let It Be
Michael Lindsay-Hogg
1970
The Beatles are arguably one of the best bands ever, a collection of four awesome talents who were able to work together to create music that had a profound impact when it was made and whose effects resonated for thirty years. Their imprint can still be heard in Karl Wallinger and World Party and in bands like Oasis.

But the true story of the Beatles is less one of a joyous pop group sent to capture the hearts of a new generation in the 1960s and more one of four men who dreamed of becoming popular musicians and ultimately regretted getting what they wished for. Their spirits were driven into the ground by screaming fans, incessant demands on their attention, the need to live in hotels for eight months out of twelve while on tour. Ultimately they couldn’t even enjoy playing their own music because they couldn’t hear themselves.

So, after enduring the deaths of Brian Epstein and the break-up of two of their marriages and worried about the imminent disintegration of the band (Sgt Pepper was recorded with never more than a combination of any two Beatles at a time in the studio) the band decided on getting back to basics. They decided to record an album in the way they did in 1962, with all the Beatles in studio, playing live, working together on songs like they used to in Liverpool and Hamburg when it was fun.

But the project turned sour. The Beatles were in no mood for dicking around with each other. Ringo objected to Paul always telling him how to play drums (drumming was one of Paul’s conceits) and Paul punched him (you can see Ringo’s black-eye in one scene). John and Yoko Ono cleave to each other like orphans. George Harrison is aware of never getting respect as a songwriter but clearly doesn’t care. Paul tries to show leadership but ends instead by bleating over the course of the year.

They threw the resulting audio tapes and film in the vaults and let it be for over a year. The project was a wasted effort until Paul took the film footage and had it edited and then released. The ‘version’ of the film is clearly Paul’s. In revenge, John took the audio tapes and had Phil Spector give it his sound.

Despite the bad mood in the film – the boys are awesome and so freakin’ talented. Don’t watch Let It Be stoned on pot – it’s a bit of a downer that way. Instead throw it on the DVD player and crank the stereo.

Don’t Look Back
D.A. Pennebaker
1967
As a filmmaker Pennebaker has given us 40 years of brilliant documentaries including the fantastic, constantly compelling political film, The War Room, about Clinton’s run for the American Presidency in 1992.

But in 1965 he was following Dylan around England recording the man on his last acoustic tour as he was about to turn ‘traitor’ and play electric. (They actually yell ‘traitor’ from the crowd.) Don’t Look Back is a great film for any Dylan fan ‘cause it just allows Dylan to be Dylan – for those who find him brilliant… well, what can anyone say… but for the most part Dylan was then and forever afterwards a pain in the ass to people who just want to talk to him. He’s not a normal guy with whom you can have beers.

The Last Waltz
Martin Scorcese
1978
After 16 years on the road the five musicians known as The Band decided they wanted out and threw a good-bye party at the Filmour West with all their friends. Directed by Martin Scorcese, the The Last Waltz captures some awesome performances from Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters, Mike Bloomsfield, Neil Young, Ronnie Hawkins and, of course, from The Band.

The film is interspersed with interviews with Richard Manual, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Robertson and Rick Danko and includes Robbie’s recollection of Ronnie Hawkins’ encouragement to him to make a living as a musician since he would ‘get more pussy than Frank Sinatra’.

Their onstage performances are absolutely brilliant and breathtaking whether playing their own material (Up on Cripple Creek, Ophelia, The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down) or playing other people’s stuff (Neil Young’s Helpless). Offstage though the members seem tired, burned out and weary, except for Robbie Robertson. They try and pull off this last concert as a true rite of passage the words of Richard Manual (“I just want to break even”) sums up their interview mood more than anything.

As a side note Robertson was the only one to experience this last concert as a passage to better things. He went on to a successful solo career, wrote music for films, and mentored other young artists, including Nellie Furtado, for the record labels. Maybe Garth Hudson did well, too. He’s been a successful session musician and is credited on a Neko Case album. However Levon Helm died of alcoholism*, Richard Manual hung himself. Rick Danko died in his sleep in 1999 after being charged with heroin smuggling in Japan.

*Actually, Levon Helm is not dead according to this website. My apologies if I alarmed Levon or his loved ones.

Concert for Bangladesh
Saul Swimmer
1972
When a famine sucked the life out of the people of Bangladesh Ravi Shankar called his friend, George Harrison, to ask about doing something to help. That something was a star-studded concert at Madison Square Gardens featuring George, Ringo, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Dylan, Bad Finger, Jessie Ed Davies, and Leon Russell (who steals the show) and a half dozen other lesser-knowns.

The concert footage was shot on two 16mm cameras with small magazines meaning that they often had to change stock in mid-song. The resulting footage was a 16 month nightmare to cut and sync with the sound but well worth the effort. There were two concerts that night and the film is an amalgam of both.

It was the first of many celebrity charity concerts. Concert for Bangladesh is a great film and an even better album.

UK/DK
Circa1980
The punk scene and the London skinhead scene are observed, probed, interviewed and on display in this doc from the early 1980’s. It’s a great look at a movement that appeared outwardly to be fresh and original but was, in fact, the usual down and out suspects in new gear and safety pins.

The Kids Are Alright
Jeff Stein
1979
Personally, I feel The Who is the best band in the world and Pete Townsend is my all-time favourite guitar-auteur. I’ve always understood exactly the angst he wrote about. From the beginning I knew the line from My Generation had nothing to do with age but attitude (‘I hope I die before I get old’). For several years now I’ve been meaning to rework Quadrophenia into a queer film script. Keith Moon was a demented genius, a brilliant buffoon whose drumming style perfectly suited the band. Daltrey was made to sing Townsend’s swaggering, vulnerable lyrics. Roger Entwhistle was just right for Pete’s power chords and Moon’s insane drumming. My god, I’m tearing up.

The Kids Are Alright is the story of The Who stuffed into 90 minutes; a collection of footage from different sources edited together to chronicle the essence of band from their early angry days as The Detours and The High Numbers all the way to their 1977 tour; the film ends with the ‘definitive’ concert version of Won’t Get Fooled Again. I once destroyed the light globe in my kitchen in the West End, smashing it doing the windmill during the climax of that song when The Kids Are Alright was being broadcast on the CBC.

It’s only teenage wasteland, indeed.

xoxo

M

Camille Miller is in the Building

A two week old conversation is oddly prescient

I met with Camille Miller at Wazubeez in order to write an article for the paper regarding her upcoming appearance at the school where I work. We talked about life (hers and mine); mine includes a guerilla style war on behalf of the arts and against the administration. She asked that I not get fired before her performance which occurs today at 11:30AM.

And now, through a combination of forces of good and evil, it appears that Camille will be my last presentation in the Great Hall. I am leaving my job as Special Events Coordinator to become the manager for the campus pub, a job that carries within it both chaos and opportunity.

Two remaining Live@Lunch performances are schedule after Camille's today but whether they come to be will be the decision of others: Chad Oliver on October 23rd and Ivan Coyote, tentatively scheduled for Nov 6.

God, The Universe, and the Resulting Brouhaha

Order was never intended to fully conquer the nature of Chaos

Juan Mascaro wrote, in the introduction to his English translation of the Dhammapada, that the first great truth of Buddhism was that all is transient and therefore all is sorrow. The second great truth of Buddhism, again according to Juan, is that mankind's suffering comes from clinging to the transient. I think there are a couple of reasons for suffering in this world. I've been listening to a podcast series of Buddhist lectures from New York's Ethan Nichtern and while he is easing us into a better understanding of the basics of Buddhism I find myself standing back a bit, forever the argumentative skeptic. After a few weeks of thinking about this I'm not so sure I'm convinced that ridding our lives of 'suffering' (wrong thoughts, wrong impulses, unwanted experiences) will necessarily make them better or make us happier.

Admittedly, it's a bit of a counter-intuitive approach.

The universe, by its nature, is chaotic (at least that's my theory and I'm sticking to it). Things fall apart, they fall into confusion and perpetually disintegrate if not acted on by creative forces. It is the lifeforce (God, The Prime Mover Unmoved, the Great Mother, or whatever one calls the teeming gadzillion creative forces that seem to animate the universe) that imposes order into it, trying to ride the wave for a few glorious moments before being spilled back into the surf. And when you have competing lifeforces laying down patterns with differing intentions we end up with unexpected rivalries, or a situation where the dog eats the cat who ate the mouse. And these conflicts can lead to jealousy, anger, rule-making, and just plain grief.

And why create a world where these undesirable conditions can exist? I dunno but it might have to do with having as an inherent component that if you create a situation where you can feel pleasure you also create an opportunity to feel pain. Rick Blaine loves Ilsa Lund in Paris but loses her just as the Germans arrive and then lives bitterly and disillusioned in Casablanca. Had Ilsa stayed with Rick it would have been Victor Laszlo who would have been bitter and disillusioned (the competion for pleasure). Good can't be experienced without the chance of experiencing bad. And jealousy, while it's not super good, is not such a disaster; just knowing the components of how it works in you, where it comes from, etc allows you to experience it and then move on, sometimes instaneously. Same with anger; ditto with disillusionment. So, for me don't tell me how to avoid these emotions; I would prefer you help me understand their make-up, where they come from and whence they unfold.

I truly like this universe and while I deplore pain and suffering I also know it's only a matter of perspective; it's mostly my attitude that determines the difference between a good day and a bad one. In theory, anyway. In practice, I often prefer to change content rather than change attitude but curiously, sometimes changing attitude changes content for me. A willingness to experience bad means it often doesn't materialize or it dematerializes. Sometimes I'm a winner and sometimes I'm a loser in the competition of imposing my order in the universe. Sometimes you carry the ball and sometimes I'm running with it.

Of course this posting doesn't even address the idea of the (apparently mandatory) greater responsibility one has for all life forms, for all sentient beings, for all life but that's because I'm just way over my head on a lazy Saturday afternoon and because I'm more buffoon than Buddha.

All right. Now, seriously, you're on your own. Remember, when you wipe out there's always another wave; when you get killed there's always the reset button. And in the words of George Michaels, "there's a way back for every man."

xoxo

M

Guy Fournier Resigns From The CBC

Or Was He Dumped?

A co-worker burst into my office unable to breathe from laughing so hard. "Guy Fournier has resigned," he gasped using the door to keep himself from collapsing on the floor.

The staunch (in the sense of dry and weary), proper personnel of our Majesty's Government apparently lost confidence in Monsieur Fournier to lead the national public broadcasting company and forced his resignation. This loss of confidence stems, it's said, from Fournier mocking the sexual laws of the Lebanese in a column for the popular Quebec magazine, 7 Jours (clicking on the link will take you to Le Monde's coverage of the incident). In that column Monsieur Fournier wrote that Lebanese laws allowed a man to fornicate with animals provided they were female but risked the death penalty if they were male. The controversy that erupted seemed to amuse the head of Radio-Canada.

But the Conservatives were already uncomfortable with the 75 year old when he publicly confessed in an interview that, at his age, he found defecating more pleasurable than sex.

Shit! Fuck, no! My God! This confession of M. Fournier was why my co-worker lost his usual reserve and was leaning heavily and breathless on my door.

My hope is that Fournier is a mischievous crank who enjoys pulling the tail of the watertight Harper (who, incidently, will not tolerate the mocking of the Lebanese peoples prefering to see them murdered from the air by the IDF). If that's the case I'll be sorry to see a controversial character like M. Fournier leave the public square to be replaced by a level-headed bureaucrat who will be pleased with neither shitting nor fucking.

xoxo

M

It's Like They Buried Elvis in Pet Semetary

Bloodshot Bill
Trashy, Greasy, Rockin’ Billy
Flying Saucer Records

Somewhere in the early 1950’s country music went feral and became a breed of its own, called rockabilly. A mixture of mountain folk music, country swing, electric guitars and a very, very bad attitude rockabilly then went from bad to worse when it came in contact with the late 1970’s London punk scene and evolved into psychobilly.

Montreal’s Bloodshot Bill is a great example of that high energy country punk ‘billy: onstage the man simultaneously plays rockabilly riffs on his guitar, howls and squeals about booze and faithless women while keeping rhythm by stomping on the kickdrum. He’s like a wild handsome Elvis corpse risen from the grave, or ‘prison handsome’ as we decided over beers last night.

Trashy, Greasy, Rockin’ Billy has that handmade, rough-edged feel of the early rock ‘n roll records when truck drivers made them for their mothers on their lunch breaks. If you’re an audiophile with pretensions of being a sound engineer you’ll weep but if you like guitars fuelled by amps with broken tubes this greasy rocker is for you.

xoxo,

MVL

"Turn it up to eleven and rip the knob off!"

Orson
Bright Idea
Mercury Records

After succeeding in angering everyone at the BCIT Safety and Security office with the bands on Orientation Day I’ve turned my attention toward alienating every one of my neighbours with two or three new CDs including this little gem from Orson, a five piece bundle of joy from LA.

Here these guys rediscover the best sounds from 1970’s guitar rock with the added low-end made technically possible by the invention of the compact disc and reworking it all into a bouncy, lively record. Bright Idea was recorded in late 2005 for a cost of $5000 and it not only got them a deal with Mercury Records it also put them on stage as the supporting act for Duran Duran earlier this year and now currently for Robbie Williams. The single No Tomorrow is climbing the charts in the UK but my favourite is the catchy title track, Bright Idea, with its tom-tom drumming and jangling rhythm guitar.

I think my neighbours like it best too since they keep rhythm by beating on their walls and floors.

xoxo

MVL

Crikey! The Nervous System Loves Red Bull

I've been running around for three days. No end in sight.

The days are filled with one emergency moment after another, cobbling solutions together from odds and ends of processes and securing them with frayed pieces of tangled wits.

Oh, no. Daddy is not happy.

On the plus side (the negative being flawed, disorganized, discombobulation) I'm actually having a bit of fun. There is a bit of milk and sugar in my coffee. I think if I can hold on I can make something nice out of these experiences.

I'm off to see Curtis Santiago and the Vendetta Republic, against my better judgement (regarding health etc). But the reckless heart can sometimes find lands that others had not conceived and sometimes (on the flip side) like Steve Irwin, have his heart punctured by the nasty barbed tail of a stingray.

xoxo

M

Woody Allen's Manhattan

This is Shaping Up Like a Noel Coward Play. Somebody Should Be Making Martinis.

In 1979, Woody Allen released his film, Manhattan, starring Woody Allen as Isaac Davies, Diane Keaton as Mary, Mariel Hemingway as Tracy, and Meryl Streep as Jill (the ex-wife). Michael Murphy and Anne Byrne play Isaac's friends, Yale and Emily.

The film is set in New York amongst a group of intellectuals and writers. Isaac, a 43 year old writer who works for a SNL type comedy show is dating Tracy, a precocious 17 year-old. Yale, Isaac's friend, is having an affair with Mary, a flighty anxious intellectual writer. The sexual and emotional alliances switch up and you do feel a little as if you're in a Noel Coward play. The story moves along effortlessly with some absolutely brilliant moments.

It's a charming piece by Allen, shot in B&W, a soundtrack filled with Gershwin, and every Manhattan landmark you can think of. The Twin Towers make a ghostly appearance through the haze in the first few seconds of the film. Along with Crimes and Misdemeanors, Manhattan is my pick for best Woody Allen film. It's early morning so I won't be making a martini but I may just make myself a mimosa.

xoxo