Music documentaries?
 

I have been hungry for music docs lately. But I want good ones. Does anybody have any suggestions? I watched Fearless Freaks (Flaming Lips) and was pretty severely disappointed by how lame it was. It was mostly just Wanye talking a bunch of standard Wayne shit. I want real stories. Documentaries of "scenes" are also welcome, but don't mention Hype!. :)

Thanks!

Just finished watching this. Excellent.
Pierre Henry documentary - The Art of Sounds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uVCYL8zVBk

Until the light takes us (norwegian black metal scene)
We jam econo (minutemen)
instrument (sort of docu about fugazi)

By the way, i'm trying to get my hands on music doc "We call it skweee", which seems like mission impossible. Any help is appreciated.

straight no chaser-doc about thelonious monk

really well done!

Here is What Is about the recording life of Daniel Lanois

Thanks! I love Instrument, and I'll check out the others.

this one is amazing
http://www.folkstreams.net/pub/FilmPage.php?title=126
its an alan lomax documentary about parades is new orleans. really interesting.

I saw that quite new Joy Division-document last autumn and I really liked it. Also Stones Exile-document was quite interesting, but not very serious. Stones Shine a light is also worth of seeing, on the other hand very sad to watch because Richards seemed to be very demented in it (maybe he´s got some new medicine because he played so well in new Tom Waits-album). And not-serious-"documents" Spinal Tap movie is just very great!

Will check this out tonight. Thanks for the tip.

Please do, and feel free to share your impressions.

I just remembered that 24 hour party people is very great, not full serious made "documentary"-film about Tony Wilson, who was one of the factory records founders. Only thing I don´t like in that movie is the guy, who acts Ian Curtis.

I saw 1987 "It was twenty years ago today"-document about hippie movement in 1967 on the television. That was very interesting, but I don´t know is it available anywhere.

The Cure Staring at the sea is a video collection, but kind of document about the bands development from 1979 to 1984. And there is also some material between the videos.

Which Joy Division doc are you talking about?

This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2v4UwEiO-g

By the way, when Finnish television showed it, there was a big storm in the south Finland. My friend has programmed it to record into his digibox and he was afraid the storm caused that recording unsucceed. But it didn´t.

I'm sure you've seen the first two Decline's of Western Civilization. But I put them out there, just to be sure.

ANVIL is a lovely story about a shitty metal band twenty years past their prime.

The music sucks, but the story is touching.

are there more than 2? Too bad the first one is unavailable.

The Kids Are Alright with the Who gets my vote.

Those Minuteman and Mission of Burma videos were big let downs for me.

I didn't know there was a MOB one. What's it called?

A Bookshelf In The Sky is a neat doc on John Zorn
Also if you can find We Don't Care About Music Anyway it's a neat little performance/doc on the japanese experimental scene.

Yep, Decline Part 3 isn't so much about music though. Though it does have a handful of shitty neo-hardcore pseudo political punk bands in it. It's really more about squatters and the kids in LA being homeless. Alot of the scenes are of teenagers hanging out on corners pandering for money. It's pretty depressing to be sure.

I'm not even that sure where you would find it. I watched it on google videos or whatever a few years ago. I saw it was on youtube, but it's got that copyright infringement thing on it. Oh well, its easily the worst of the three.

Anvil is a good doc

i wanna see it. if i track down or something i'll make sure to post the link

I've been wanting to watch "We Don't Care About Music Anyway" for a long time. It finally has been released in DVD format in Europe, although it only has Polish subtitles. That sort of makes me hope some other releases will follow with subtitles in other languages. The soundtrack is available for streaming, and also can be ordered, over at bandcamp, and it's truly magnificent (includes madly awesome tracks by Otomo Yoshihide, Hiromichi Sakamoto, Jaike Stambach, among others):
http://bruitblanc.bandcamp.com/album...t-music-anyway


Another documentary worth mentioning (I think) in regards to the Noise scene would be "Nornoise: 12 Portraits About Music", by Tom Hovinbøle. It puts a lot of focus on the Norwegian scene; not a bad thing for those into Maja Ratkje, Origami Republika, and Jazkammer for instance, but there are also some nice interviews with other noise-artists and legends of the genre such as Masami Akita, Toshimaru Nakamura, and Otomo Yoshihide.

It's a great doc, the only version I found was subtitled in french which was fortunate for me. It's got some interesting perspectives and discussions on the sounds and everything regarding japanese music. The roundtable discussions are really neat to see but the performances are what really steal the show.

Two Beefheart docs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBa8b...eature=related (with John Peel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVWeRninKnA (the superior "Under Review" documentary in which many of the old band members are interviewed, though it contains a few unbearable verbose critics trying to contextualize Don's music in the lamest terms possible)

US Maple documentary for the Acre Thrills album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loni6SVagbw

Screamin' Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell On Me doc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qecYcFZR6Mk

Although it's not fully distributed yet, here is the trailer for the recently completed film about Rowland S. Howard, Autoluminiscent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpP9iWupUo0

'Cure For Pain: The Mark Sandman Story'...the trailer is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KW3G5pb9zM

More here:

http://gatlingpictures.com/#cfp

For those that don't know, Mark Sandman was the lead singer and slide bass player of the legendary band Morphine.

The power of salad and milkshakes about Lightning bolt is really good fun,

Louder Than War about the Manic Street Preachers playing a gig in Cuba is an interesting study on what it means to be a left-leaning rock band who routinely plays stadiums in the early part of the 21st century. Many here won't be fans of them, but I dont think you need to be to find it interesting.

It skips over the obvious ethical issues with being used by the Castro regime as propoganda tools, but there is a definite love for the culture and a regret about its inevitable decline that is touching. They also meet Castro and get all giddy

Here's another one for ya...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv102hoBDUU&ob=av2n

'Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten'

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1136197913/

Steve Shelley appears in the Townes Van Zandt doc Be Here To Love Me

Touch the Sound --Evelyn Glennie and Fred Frith

Watched the Classic Albums vid about Aja a little while ago. Not bad. I was obsessed with the album at the time so it was interesting.

Some good (and some not so good) jazz documentaries on BBC 4 this weekend:

Friday 17th.
21:00 Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes
22:00 Sonny Rollins '74: Rescued!
23:00 Ronny Scott and All That Jazz
00:00 1959: The Year That Changed Jazz

Saturday 18th
22:45 The Jazz Baroness
Documentary about the British baroness who fell in love with jazz genius Thelonious Monk.

Sunday 19th
19:00 Sir John Dankworth at the BBC
20:00 Jazz Piano Gold
21:00 Barbara Thompson: Playing Against Time
22:15 Barbara Thompson in Concert

Envious. I'd love to see the Rollins shows and the 1959 show.

Make a special note if they're "official" documentaries; band sanctioned or whatever.

Now that I think about it I've never actually seen a Sonic Youth doc of any kind, unless you count Punk Broke, which I don't, or corporate ghost, which I don't.

Corporate Ghost is not a documentary about SY.

That's why I said don't count it ;)

btw: When corporate ghost came out they promised an official collection of vids from the pre-Geffen years. What happened to that?

There was a South Bank show Doc about SY which is probably out there somewhere.

I don't know but that would have been very cool.

Understood. Why do you bother worrying if some people think it is a SY documentary then? I am just trying to work out what goes through that mind of yours.

I remember I couldnt find pre-geffen videos on youtube a while ago, thats probably the same reason the purported DVD has never come about; contractual wranglings etc.

I also got a dodgy copy of corporate Ghost, the first batch they made was faulty and didnt play all the stuff it was meant to. Basicallly the modern equivolant of a vinyl mis-press but instead of being worth ££££ its just a pain in the arse