411 Music Ten Deep 3.12.10: Top Ten Music Documentaries

Posted by Andrew Moll on 03.12.2010

In this week's 411 Music Ten Deep, we look at the Top Ten Music Documentaries! From Some Kind of Monster to Anvil! The Story of Anvil, see what made the list and came in at number one!


(Disclaimer: All opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of 411 Music and its staff.)


Welcome, one and all to the thirty-third edition of 411 Music Ten Deep as we wrap up our brief look at films and the cinema in honor of this past Sunday's Oscar telecast. We will move on in just a bit to today's newest column, but first we will backtrack to last week and the list of the Top Ten Concert Films and the comments you left about it:





umm where the hell is MJs THIS IS IT???
Posted By: Brad (Guest) on March 05, 2010 at 12:40 AM

@Brad: I was worried that This Is It would be on the list, so I'm happy it wasn't. The topic is CONCERT FILMS. It's a sore subject, but let's face the facts - Jackson never made it to his concert.
Posted By: MaxGrouper (Guest) on March 05, 2010 at 09:02 AM

I could go with that explanation based on a technicality, but the real reason is I never saw This Is It, so I can't comment on it. I just had no desire to watch Michael Jackson prepare for a concert and never actually have the concert. Although enough people have said it was good that I may have to check it out.

The fact that the self-titled Led Zeppelin DVD is not on your list means that this list fails.
Posted By: Travis (Guest) on March 05, 2010 at 09:45 AM

I was focusing less on compilations and more on single concerts, but you're right, based on just the set lists alone that Zeppelin set is at or near the top.

i hate U2, but not even an honorable mention for "rattle and hum" ???

cold as ice
Posted By: Guest#1067 (Guest) on March 05, 2010 at 10:53 AM

Look below. Although you could make the argument it's more a concert film than a documentary. In a lot of cases the difference is up to the viewer, and it may just be a case of different names for the same thing, anyway. But it's my column, so I'll play by my own made up rules.

this may be stretching it here....but how about NIN's "Closure"? or the fan-made, NIN-endorsed "Another Version of the Truth"?

Good list though, I need to see The Last Waltz sometime soon.
Posted By: nastrodamus (Guest) on March 05, 2010 at 05:25 PM

Both are pretty good, but mostly fall into the category of taped live performance, and not much more. And yes, you need to see The Last Waltz as soon as possible.

Could Moonwalker, The Jazz Singer, and Purple Rain have a category someday?
Posted By: GeeSpotter (Guest) on March 05, 2010 at 09:04 PM

Hmmm, let's see. Best Vanity Projects for Successful Singers? Best Fake Biopics? Best Movies with Musicians Playing Not All That Fictional Versions of Themselves? I'm not sure. Any suggestions?



Top Ten Music Documentaries



There's a difference, as I pointed out last week, between a concert film a music documentary. To me, a music documentary focuses much less on the music onstage itself and more on the people behind the music and how it all comes together or perhaps falls apart. The following movies aren't great just because of the music they portray, but because they're great documentaries with great subjects, handled just as well as any great film is. Before that, though, let's take a look at the films that just barely missed making the list, with the honorable mentions.


Some Honorable Mentions: Buena Vista Social Club; The Great Rock ‘n' Roll Swindle; Instrument; Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten; No Direction Home; Rattle & Hum; Truth or Dare; Young at Heart




10. We Jam Econo


The Minutemen were the leaders of a certain kind of punk rock aesthetic that involved keeping costs down for recording, touring and everything else involved with being an independent band in the mid-1980s. Bassist Mike Watt coined the phrase "econo," short for economic, and it's the perfect way to describe both the band's approach and their sound. So it's then fitting that the film documenting their career and unfortunate demise was entitled We Jam Econo, since that title summed up the band pretty well. The film shows how this band of three guys from San Pedro, California fused jazz, punk and funk into a unique sound, through new interviews and archival footage.





Interviews with people like Jello Biafra, Joe Carducci, Flea, Ian MacKaye, Thurston Moore, Keith Morris and Henry Rollins help give context to the band and show just how important and influential the band was, when figures like that are sharing their memories. But the best parts of the film are when we see vintage interview and performance clips of the band, as well as newer interviews with surviving members Watt and drummer George Hurley. D. Boon's death in a car crash in 1985 halted the band just as it was gaining steam, but this documentary helpfully tells the story of a great and somewhat unheralded band for those who don't know, and is also an enjoyable film for those that were already fans.





9. Heavy Metal Parking Lot


It's such a great and simple idea: Take a camera, go to the parking lot outside a Judas Priest concert, ask straight forward questions to drunken fans and then let the hilarity ensue. That's what John Heyn and Jeff Krulik did with 1986's Heavy Metal Parking Lot, a film that surely ranks high on the Unintentional Comedy scale, thanks to the interviewees complete lack of self-awareness in what they're saying. Thanks to people like the girl who wants to jump Rob Halford's bones (which I'm sure was a funny comment then and his hilarious now) or the legendary Zebraman and his rants against punk music, or the guy making out with his thirteen year old date, Heavy Metal Parking Lot feels like a bizarre National Geographic special or something.





That feeling is part of the reason why the film still holds up, instead of being just an old relic of the past. (Another reason is the unintentional comedy, of course.) Even though the film is only about sixteen minutes long, it still manages to perfectly capture a moment in time; if you needed to describe to anybody the heavy metal era of the eighties, Heavy Metal Parking Lot is probably as good a place to start as any with its fascinating yet passionate fans.





8. Anvil! The Story of Anvil


What happens when you help spearhead a new genre of music, only to watch as your contemporaries pass by you on the way to selling millions of copies, while you spend the subsequent years dealing with your own lack of success and intra-band conflicts? That's the question posed in Anvil! The Story of Anvil, a movie the tells the tale of the great speed metal band that you never heard of, who paved the way for bands like Metallica and Slyer yet never came close to reaching the kinds of heights those other bands did. It wasn't for lack of talent (songs like "Metal on Metal" are just about as good as any speed metal song I've heard), and certainly not for a lack of trying as the band continues to play and make records despite a lack of mainstream popularity.





We see the band's leaders, singer Steve "Lips" Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner go about their day jobs while still hoping for that one big break that they've been searching for. Through all the hardships, like a disastrous European tour and the struggles to just record a new album, the guys are pushed to the brink and are occasionally ready to jump, but instead keep plugging along, assuming their hard work will eventually pay off. It's been said that Anvil! is like a real-life version of This is Spinal Tap, but to me that undermines the guys in Anvil; we shouldn't laugh at the band, but rather feel for them when they fall and also respect and admire their dedication.





7. Hype!


It's telling that just four years after the peak of the grunge scene and two years after Kurt Cobain's death, there was also a retrospective documentary on the movement. That shows just how important that grunge was and also how quickly it seemed to vanish; Hype! manages to capture not just the glory years, but the people and bands who made Seattle a great musical scene before anyone had even heard of Nirvana. From the epochal Deep Six compilation album to lesser known pioneers like, TAD, The Melvins, and the U-Men to the influence of the legendary Sub Pop Records to the famous acts like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, Hype! covers every facet of Seattle rock music, detailing an insular community that would soon became home to a media invasion that none of them wanted or could understand.





The movie features a host of great live performances from the likes of The Fastbacks, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and even a rare clip of the first ever performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," all of which would be good enough to make an interesting movie. But the movie really finds its footing when detailing the overexposure of the scene and how different media types descended upon a scene they didn't know and "hyped" it into oblivion. (The best of which might be the quote that opens the movie, from Spin in December 1992: "Seattle… is currently to the rock ‘n' roll world what Bethlehem was to Christianity.") That exposure was met with cynicism and mockery, and eventually everyone left, leaving only the people who had been there before. It's a fascinating look at a scene that despite itself became the capital city of rock in an instant, and just as quickly lost it all without anybody really minding all that much.





6. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco


The recording and release of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a famous story, one in which artistry and quality triumphed over money and record labels. While Wilco may have won out in the end, the process getting there wasn't easy, as documented in I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco. Things are problematic right from the beginning, as band leader Jeff Tweedy had recently fired the band's drummer and brought in Glenn Kotche. That, coupled with the mounting tension between Tweedy and guitarist Jay Bennett, make for an interesting portrait of a band in trouble even as they're making what would become the defining album of their career.





Even through those creative differences and a brief departure from Tweedy, the band has made their album and are excited about its prospects. Naturally, the band's label rejects the album and eventually decides to drop Wilco from the label. At the same time, the band was dealing with the exit from the group of Bennett as they went on tour and streamed their new album online. In the end, the band found a new home and released Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which was almost immediately heralded as a classic. What started off as pretty much a long form music video about the recording of an album ended up as a look at a band at its most frustrating and lowest point before reaching new heights and finding a level of redemption.





5. The Devil and Daniel Johnston


There aren't many singer/songwriters like Daniel Johnston, a bipolar musician who has spent time in mental institutions while his cassette recordings have been championed by the likes of Sonic Youth and Kurt Cobain. It's unfortunate that they were probably a lot of people that listened to Johnston and gave him a level of "coolness" because of his mental illness, but his sincere and earnest work has stood over time and transcended anybody's opinion of him. The film does a great job of letting us know the man that has dealt with these problems for much of his life, as well as the genius that was enough to get people interested in the first place.





We also see the effects of Johnston's illness, putting himself in danger on a number of occasions, to his obsession to a girl named Laurie that has lasted for years; although, the word obsession makes it seem worse than it really is. Johnston comes across as such a sweet-natured guy that you can't see him willingly causing problems for anybody, he just wants some adoration from her. The Devil and Daniel Johnston gave the musician some much deserved recognition as those who were previously unaware of him got to not only appreciate the work of a special musician, but also the great story of a unique American artist.





4. The Decline of Western Civilization Parts I & II


I decided to include the first two editions of Penelope Spheeris' The Decline of Western Civilization both for practical reasons, so as to allow me one more movie to mention in the top ten, and because that, despite the differing musical genres that are covered, the two films cover the same territory: the outside, destructive lives of the punk and heavy metal scenes. In the first film, we are planted directly into the LA punk scene, and I mean that quite literally; Spheeris places her camera right in the mosh pit, making us feel what it's like to be at these concerts as much as we find out what it's like to listen to them. Black Flag, X, The Germs, Circle Jerks and Fear all make quite an impact in the film, which is because this was music that wasn't being covered much by the mainstream press. This was a subculture that not many people knew about but those around it feared would incite violence.





The follow up, which came a few years later and was entitled The Metal Years, spends a bit less time at the concerts and more time talking to the musicians themselves, leading to some fascinating encounters. A lot of the film involves the treatment of women on the Sunset Strip and it's amazing that this stuff was considered normal at the time; we also see Ozzy Osbourne talking about substance abuse in a kitchen while spilling orange juice in a scene that was later admitted to be faked. The film's most famous scene, involving WASP guitarist Chris Holmes drunk in a swimming pool pouring a bottle of vodka with his mother watching, was also claimed to be faked, with Holmes instead pouring water over himself. But even if it was staged, the effect something like that had is tough to overstate, and with both films Spheeris was able to find a culture hiding just underneath our own that was just begging to be filmed.





3. DiG!


Rock and roll sometimes tends to attract, um, "interesting" personalities, the type of people who, for better or worse, were born to be on stage and either entertain or incite people. I think it's safe to say that Anton Newcombe is one of those people. His band, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, were one of the most prolific bands in indie rock throughout the 1990s; meanwhile, a band called the Dandy Warhols gained notoriety and their lead singer Courtney Taylor admired Newcombe, and the two bands struck up a friendship. But that friendship waned as the Warhols got more popular; Newcombe wanted to join with them to start a musical revolution, but those plans don't work for a number of reasons, least of which are Newcombe's drug use and unpredictable personality. That tension and contrast makes up the whole of DiG!





Shot over the course of seven years, the film is like a lesson in rock stardom, with Newcombe as the case study in what not to do if you want have a successful commercial career. We see his problems with drugs, his kicking an audience member on stage, his dedication to never selling out to a major label, the onstage fight with his band during an industry showcase, and Newcombe's decision to start attacking the Warhols and then start stalking their shows. The entire movie is fascinating from beginning to end, with the glaring differences between he approaches of the two bands. While the Warhols mainly played by the rules and found some success, the Massacre did no such thing and ended up paying for it, as this amazing film shows us.





2. Some Kind of Monster


Metallica are the most popular and possibly the best metal band of all-time, making then unlikely candidates to star in a documentary that's less about music and more about relationships with people you've spent the last twenty years with, and how you don't really know them at all. Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky have made some great documentaries (Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost, and Some Kind of Monster ranks right up there with them, with its portrait of one of the biggest bands in the world at a crossroads. Dealing with bassist Jason Newstead's departure and James Hetfield's decision to go into rehab, the band must deal with shifting relationships and the prospect of recording a new album with different Hetfield on lead vocals. We are immediately exposed to the power struggle between him and Lars Ulrich and it becomes pretty apparent that despite being so closely associated, these two men don't really know each other.





Not everyone loved this look inside the world of Metallica, but I found it riveting as the group had to deal with the restrictions of Hetfield's new life while trying to still be the same band that had sold millions of albums. Adding to the problems is a meddling therapist that seems to need as much counseling as the band itself. Adding to the aura of the film is that the subsequent album St. Anger was the most reviled of the band's career, but after having seen the film you realize it was a miracle that album was made at all. The movie is filled with great and tension-filled scenes, like the one where Ulrich just screams "Fuck!" as loud as he can in Hetfield's face, and is a great portrayal of the dynamics of the one of rock's greatest bands and how they aren't that much different from you and me.





1. Dont Look Back


Bob Dylan is one of the greatest, most fascinating and charismatic rock stars in the history of popular music, and he's at his best in D.A. Pennebaker's Dont Look Back, a look at Dylan in 1965 at his absolute peak. It caught Dylan at an interesting time in his life and career, as he was in the midst of a breakup with Joan Baez, who is a prominent figure in the movie, as well as on the brink of forgoing his status as the great folk icon and picking up his electric guitar. This is Dylan in transition and makes for a captivating figure on camera, especially since we know what is to come after. So when he interacts, it's interesting to watch since we know that it was just a matter of time until the poor man's Bob Dylan would be left behind in a cloud of dust, although it wouldn't surprise me if Dylan knew it was bound to happen.





A number of Dylan's other interactions are also tremendous to watch, like with Alan price of the Animals, and also his live performances in London which are obviously great. But the film is well-known for two reasons; first, the opening of the film which counts as maybe the first music video, with Dylan unveiling cue cards for "Subterranean Homesick Blues" with Allen Ginsberg in the background, which is maybe the definitive Dylan video clip as he stands defiant as hell. That defiance is present in the film's other famous scene, his evisceration of Time reporter Horace Freeland Judson; Dylan goes off on him and his magazine seemingly without provocation. It's the one of the most riveting things I've ever seen in a movie, as Dylan goes on for a few minutes, never letting up and coming across as brilliant and defiant and difficult as possible. It's the scene that defines him and the film that best, as he is fighting back against everything around him, the type of situation that would lead to him changing paths and making the best music of his career. Dont Look Back simply lets the camera roll as Bob Dylan lets himself become a compelling figure that never stopped being interesting.



That'll do it for this week folks, thanks for reading. If you have any questions, comments or concerns feel free to let me know, and make sure to leave your own lists in the comments. I'll see you all next week. And if you're out on your bike tonight, do wear white.