DVD Reviews
20th
Century Masters: The Best of ABC
– The DVD Collection
Mercury
Chronicles
http://www.abcmartinfry.com
I almost feel a little guilty writing a review of a 20th Century Masters DVD collection so soon after my comrade in arms, fellow PopMatters critic David Medsker, took the label, Universal, to task for the injustice they committed on Tears For Fears via the same series.
Herr
Medsker spoke quite harshly of that disc, describing it as “the most meaningless music DVD ever, taking an extremely successful band,
with a large and diverse promotional video library, and releasing what is for
all intents and purposes a DVD single.” He
was right on the money when speaking of Tears For Fears...but, when the topic of
conversation is ABC, can the same thing truly be said?
Well...yeah,
kinda. But not necessarily.
Certainly,
for ABC fans, this 20th Century Masters DVD is a total and
utter waste of time, no doubt about that. Mercury
released a far superior collection several years ago; Absolutely ABC,
which is currently in print, spotlights
14 of the band’s videos, chronologically covering the band’s history from
the indispensable Lexicon of Love through the best-forgotten Up. As such, rest assured that, within those 14 videos, all five
that appear on the 20th Century Masters disc can be
found...and there’s certainly nothing else on this new collection to inspire
purchase (i.e. no extras whatsoever). Which,
in effect, should make it meaningless.
And,
yet, it doesn’t.
ABC fans are always going to recommend the more definitive collection, of course, simply because it explores tracks that didn’t win as much airplay but that are still top-notch examples of early ‘80s New Romantic pop. (Uh, except for “One Better World,” which has aged badly...and wasn’t all that swell to begin with.) But when traversing the track listing of Absolutely, there are precisely five songs that were top-40 hits in the United States: “The Look of Love,” “Poison Arrow,” “Be Near Me,” “(How To Be A) Millionaire,” and “When Smokey Sings.”
But...what’s this? Why, those are exactly the five videos contained on the 20th Century Masters disc!
And what videos they are, too...! “Poison Arrow,” directed by Julien Temple, is an excerpt from the full-length “espionage thriller” (don’t blame me; the phrase comes from the band’s website), Mantrap, with more drama than you can shake a stick at. “The Look of Love,” meanwhile, is a lighthearted romp through the park, with frontman Martin Fry looking quite jaunty with his hat and cane. “(How To Be A) Zillionaire” is an animated journey through the lifestyles of the rich and famous, while “Be Near Me” features Fry in an ensemble that, when he looks back at it now, must surely cause him to wonder why he didn’t just stick with the three-piece suits that he wore so well in the days of Lexicon of Love. Lastly, “When Smokey Sings” is a fun finale, with folks literally kneeling at the altar of William Robinson.
Still, this whole 20th Century Masters DVD makes Universal seem like a sleazy used car salesman. “You say you want the best of ABC on DVD, but you don’t want to spend $17.98...? Brother, have I got a deal for you! I can knock off all the filler, bring it down to five videos, and it’ll only cost you $7.99. Have we got a deal?”
This DVD really is the sum total of what the casual fan needs of ABC’s videography...and at less than half the price of the alternative collection, it’s hard to argue with a bargain like that.
I just feel dirty saying it.
Target
Video
http://www.musicvideodistributors.com
The Cramps are undeniably one of the most important bands to come out the
US during the 1970’s. They all
but singlehandedly invented the so-called “psychobilly” scene, which would
go on to inspire folks ranging from the Flat Duo Jets to the Reverend Horton
Heat. But their presence on DVD has
been decidedly limited...until now. The
folks at Music Video Distributors have just released the Target Video production
of The Cramps: Live At The Napa
State Mental Hospital.
Given
that the concert took place in ’78, it’s no surprise to learn that most of
the songs appear on the band’s earliest recorded work.
“Mystery Plane,” “What’s Behind The Mask,” “Twist and
Shout,” and “TV Set” are all found on Songs The Lord Taught Us.
“Human Fly” is found on their Gravest Hits EP, as are the
cover songs “The Way I Walk” (Jack Scott) and “Domino” (Roy Orbison).
“Love Me,” a song originally done by the Phantom (and masterminded by
Pat Boone...but that’s a story for another time), can be found on Off The
Bone, a collection of the band’s early work, but it and several of the
other tracks can also be heard on the band’s kick-ass compilation, Bad
Music For Bad People, featuring one of the most memorable album covers of
all time.
The band’s line-up for the
show isn’t identified anywhere on the packaging or on the disc itself, but,
given the time frame, it’s very likely the classic Gravest Hits line-up
of Lux Interior, Poison Ivy, Nick Knox, and the late Brian Gregory, who died in
early 2001.
The concert begins with the
following message being plastered across the screen:
“The following video tape was a free concert given for the patients at
the California State Mental Hospital in Napa, California, on June 13, 1978, by
the Cramps, who were on tour from New York, and the Mutants, from San
Francisco.”
Unfortunately
for the curious, however, there is no further reference to the Mutants beyond
this offhanded mention. The Cramps
don’t make any reference to them onstage, and, when the show ends, although a
final few phrases appear on the screen, they’re dedicated to regurgitating
part of the pre-concert message, then declaring that the concert is meant solely
for documentary purposes and revealing that the whole thing was filmed on a ½”
Sony Port-A-Pak black and white camera and single microphone.
So if anyone knows anything about the Mutants and why they’ve been
wiped from history, please drop me a line here at PopMatters, okay?
I’m a little worried about them.
The concert begins abruptly,
with “Mystery Plane.” As the
psychobilly mayhem continues onstage, the camera pans across the crowd in a
decidedly herky-jerky fashion...and it becomes obvious pretty quickly that this
isn’t a joke.
The
band really IS playing a mental hospital.
There’s
a fellow off to the side of the stage who’s rocking back and forth like an
autistic. The fashion statements in
the crowd range from cowboy hats to a suit and tie.
There’s a decidedly mannish looking woman in a flower-pattern dress
who’s jumping up and down, though not particularly trying to match the rhythm
whatsoever. One fellow who gets a
few seconds of camera time here and there looks suspiciously as though he might
have Down’s Syndrome.
One
has to wonder exactly what kind of shoddy care the facility took of its patients
that they would allow the Cramps to play there, let alone with as little
supervision as there appears to be. No-one
ever shows up on film that resembles anyone of authority, no guards or nurses or
anyone of the like. In fact, the
one woman who I was convinced was a bouncer for the band, because of the manner
in which she sits on the edge of the stage and helps remove the more unruly
sorts from the band’s way, later turns out to be a patient!
“We’re the Cramps,”
offers Lux, upon the completion of “Mystery Plane, “and we’re from New
York City...and we drove 3,000 miles to play for you people.”
At this, a grateful patient
can be heard screaming, “Fuck you!”
Undaunted (or perhaps
further inspired), Lux continues, “And somebody told me you people are crazy!
But I’m not so sure about that; you seem to be all right to me.”
And without so much as a pause for breath, Lux and the band then lunge
into “The Way I Walk.”
There’s quite a lot of
mental patient dancing throughout the band’s set, as well as more than bit of
uncertain shambling about, but, during “Human Fly,” there’s one particular
patient who adds a bit too much to the proceedings, grabbing the mike from Lux
and howling painfully into it. She’s
helped off stage by the aforementioned bouncer/patient, but, by the time
“Domino” is on, she’s back on stage, dancing like nobody’s business.
Finally, after “Love
Me,” she and Lux settle to the floor together, both pretty much laid out.
“How do you like the
Cramps so far, baby?” asks Lux.
“I got Cramps!” shrieks
the patient, sounding for all the world like Nancy Spungen...or, at least, Chloe
Webb’s portrayal of her in “Sid and Nancy.”
“What am I gonna do about it?!?”
“That’s your problem,
honey,” replies Lux. “I got
‘em myself, and I can’t do anything with ‘em, either!”
“Twist and Shout”
follows the witty repartee, and, the next thing you know, the band is closing
their show with “TV Set.” Lux
thanks the crowd, and the camera cuts off a few moments later.
So is Live At The Napa
State Mental Hospital worth owning? Sure,
if you’re a Cramps fan. And folks
who have an interest in music history would do well to check it out, as, in
addition to this decidedly unexpurgated performance, there’s also a sampling
of other items in the Target Video vaults...though whether or not any others
will be released by Music Video Distributors remains to be seen.
If
you’re not in it for those reasons, though, it’s hard to imagine that anyone
would be transformed into a Cramps fan simply by watching this DVD.
The performance is sloppy (fun, yes, but still very sloppy), and the
sound and picture is about what you’d expect from one guy holding a video
camera and a microphone...which is to say, it ain’t real hot.
Surely there are other
Cramps concerts captured on video somewhere...and one of them has got to look
and sound better than this one. Keep your fingers crossed that one of those turns up someday.
Shout! Factory
Every diehard TV fan has a list of shows that, in their mind, went off their air far too soon. The beauty of DVD, however, is that these shows can be released in their entirety, both for the fans who loved them the first time around and for those who heard great things about them too late.
Welcome to the format, then, Freaks and Geeks.
Taking place in Michigan in 1980, Freaks and Geeks begins as the tale of siblings Sam and Lindsay Weir (John Francis Daley and Linda Cardellini, respectively), then expands the palate to their friends, then their parents (played by Becky Ann Baker and Joe Flaherty). Amazingly, all of these characters are among the best written in the history of television.
While that may sound suspiciously like hyperbole, those who have seen the show and lived through high school know better.
You may note the use of the phrase “high school” as opposed to simply “the ‘80s.” While the decade is reproduced with often startling accuracy and remarkably specific detail (aside from a glaring dialogue error regarding what night The Dukes of Hazzard aired during 1980), what’s far more stunning is how little high school life has really changed in the intervening years. There are still cliques, there’s still peer pressure, there are still nerds and burn-outs, and, perhaps most importantly to readers of Amplifier, music still means a lot to the youth of today, just as it did to kids in 1980.
Not
only are the points of music reference accurate for the time frame, they’re
still surprisingly recognizable to viewers in 2004.
When Nick Andopolis (played by Jason Segel) states proudly that “I'm
gonna have a drum cage that'll make Neal Peart weep, man,” that’s a joke
that stands the test of time better that some of Rush’s albums do. In a later episode, when Nick serenades Lindsay with an
excruciating, squirm-worthy version of Styx’s “Lady,” it makes you forget
all about Eric Cartman’s rendition of “Come Sail Away.” The death rattle of disco is tackled in an oddly poignant way
(with a hilarious appearance by Joel Hodgson, late of Mystery Science Theater
3000). The brief foray of
Daniel Desario (played by James Franco) into punk in order to woo a mohawk-sporting
convenience store clerk is great, seeing a jean-jacket-wearing “grit” try to
get into Black Flag’s “Rise Above.”
Arguably, the funniest music-related moment in the series comes courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Weir’s investigation of the Who’s music and lyrics before allowing Lindsay to attend their concert. "Jean,” bellows Harold Weir (Joe Flaherty), “that is not about an accordion; that is in and out!"
Including all of the music from the original run of the show on the DVD was a labor of love. Producer Judd Apatow explained in the set’s accompanying booklet, “In order to release this package, we had to ask every artist’s permission to use their music again, negotiate a price, and then find a video distributor who was willing to pay that price.” The distributor in question was the new, up-and-coming label Shout! Factory...who, as a result of taking that chance, Apatow hopes “are still in business next year.”
Certainly, no fan of Freaks and Geeks will left wanting by the contents of this set. Every episode has at least one audio commentary (some have two), there are deleted scenes, screen tests, and backstage hijinx
If the other sets Shout! Factory releases are up to the standards of this one (and, since SCTV is set for release in June 2004, let’s hope that they are), it’s a safe presumption that they’ll be around for years to come. And, thanks to their hard work and the work of the shows’s creators and cast, thankfully, so will Freaks and Geeks.
Permanent
Press
http://www.permanentpress.net/raypaul.htm
Outside of the Boston area, Ray Paul’s greatest musical accomplishment
was the founding of Permanent Press Records.
Toward the end of the ‘90s, the label released debut albums from the
Brown Eyed Susans, the Carpet Frogs, Chewy Marble, Maple Mars, the Supers, the
Van De Leckis, William Pears, and Yogi, reissued albums by the Spongetones,
Segarini, Klaatu, and Badfinger, and kept artists like Walter Clevenger, Richard
X. Heyman, and Terry Draper in the public eye.
And, given that it was Ray
Paul’s label, it probably shouldn’t come as any real surprise that Permanent
Press also released The Charles Beat: The
Best of the Boston Years 1977-1981 and Now, by none other than...Ray Paul.
In 1980, What’s Up,
a Boston-based magazine, said of Paul that he “has a McCartney-esque talent
for melody,” adding that he and his band, RPM, “sound
like they truly respect pop. There's no new wave pretension, no '80's cynicism,
just the energetic good will that made groups like The Grass Roots and The
Raspberries so great.” The music on The Charles Beat backs up this opinion
handily.
Permanent Press closed its
doors as a label some time back, but Ray Paul still maintains its name to
release his own material, and, as a video companion to The Charles Beat,
Paul has now produced a 2-DVD set entitled Performance Reel.
At first glance, those who
aren’t particularly familiar with Paul’s work will undoubtedly think,
“Geez, two full DVDs worth of live performances?
What kind of ego trip is this guy on?”
And given that the guy’s putting out the DVDs of his own stuff on his
own label, well, you can kind of see where they’d be coming from with such an
opinion.
What needs to be kept in
perspective, however, is that, if your favorite hometown pop hero put out 2 DVDs
of live performances, you’d be all over it, whether the folks in Podunk knew
who he was or not. And that’s why
the folks who worshipped at Paul’s altar in Boston in the late ‘70s and
early ‘80s are no doubt drooling over this release.
Even if you didn’t live in
Boston, though, this is a fascinating artifact of the power pop sound of that
era, as well as of the sort of TV shows bands were appearing on back then.
“Nightscene” and “Boston Live,” two shows on which Paul and RPM
made appearances, are the sort of thing that you used to see on television
before syndicated programs and cable wiped out so much of the local TV
programming that used to exist. These
were the shows on which bands had to play in the dark, pre-MTV days.
Fans of late ‘60s pop will
be fascinated by the appearances from Emmit Rhodes, who made his mark as
frontman for the Merry-Go-Round before going solo.
Rhodes had been a virtual recluse from the concert scene, but Paul
managed to get him on stage for brief performances at International Pop
Overthrow in both 1997 and 2000.
Unfortunately, despite great music and fine performances, what cannot be
ignored is the wildly varying video quality of the various gigs.
Chalk this up to age and the fact that many, perhaps most of the items on
the two discs were probably transferred onto DVD from well-worn tapes sitting in
the Paul family video library. The
result of this, however, is that some portions of the older performances are
almost impossible to watch.
There remains another caveat
emptor as well. Although the discs
do note on their cases that, “due to the age and sources of some material, the
quality of portions of the video content presented here may at times vary,”
they do not note that both volumes of Performance Reel are DVD-R’s
rather than professionally-produced DVDs. As
a result, they will not play on everyone’s DVD player; in fact, to be
painfully honest, they didn’t play properly on mine, which resulted in a real
struggle to offer a review of the discs in their entirety.
That having been said, if
you’ve got a better DVD player than mine and you’re a fan of the power pop
genre, these two discs provide a fascinating trip into the history of a guy who
never managed to be quite the pop star he should’ve been.
It doesn’t solve the mystery as to why he never broke out beyond
Boston, but it provides some fine music nonetheless.
Shout! Factory
Like many glam rock bands that hit it big in the UK during the ‘70s, Slade never managed to translate their homeland sales into significant Stateside success. From 1971 to 1974, Slade scored eleven top 5 singles in 4 years in the UK, whereas in the US, they’re known mostly for Quiet Riot’s covers of “Cum On Feel The Noize” and “Mama Weer All Crazee Now.”
Capitalizing on the band’s success at home, Slade’s manager, Chas Chandler, used the Beatles as a blueprint and decided it was time for the group to make a movie. Instead of a slapstick romp, however, Slade got dramatic...a risky move for a group full of fellows who’d never acted a day in their lives; thankfully, they opted to stick to their strengths by playing members of a rock band.
“Slade In Flame” is far from what you’d expect a fun-loving band like Slade to make; it’s rather dark. Director Richard Loncraine and screenwriter Andrew Birkin went on tour with the band for two weeks to experience the side of a rock band that isn’t all glitz and glamour. Slade’s lead singer Noddy Holder claims that everything that happens in the film is based on a true story, if not necessarily on Slade’s own career. It shows the ups and downs of music stardom, unafraid to spotlight the shadiness of record executives and spurned former managers. Sadly, though Holder’s on-screen charisma shows how he ended up as the band’s frontman, his fellow members Dave Hill, Jim Lea, and Don Powell don’t make much of an impression. It’s left to supporting actor Tom Conti to keep things interesting.
The soundtrack to “Flame,” however, features some of the most unique and successful arrangements of the band’s career, with melancholy songs like “How Does It Feel?” and “Far Far Away” miles from the pop nuggets they’d been dishing into the upper reaches of the charts. Though the latter made it to #2 in the UK, the former, which features over the film’s opening credits, was the band’s first single in four years not to make it into the top 10 (it stalled at #15).
The DVD’s lone special feature is a 51-minute interview with Noddy Holder, recorded in 1992. Given that the film itself is only 86 minutes long, you’d think Holder could’ve ad-libbed another 35 minutes of material and done a scene-specific commentary, but no such luck. Perhaps the most unfortunate omission from the disc is that of subtitles; the working-class accents of the group take awhile to get the hang of. It’s unfortunate that Shout! Factory couldn’t come up with any other special features, given how packed their other DVD releases have been, but this appears to be the same version of the film that was released in the UK a year or so ago, so they may have simply licensed it without having the option to add anything new.
Is it coincidence that the year of “Flame”’s release was right around the time Slade’s star began to set in the west? Probably. Glam was on its way out, punk was just around the corner, and Slade’s rock star shenanigans had no real place in the prog-rock world of bands like Yes, Genesis, and King Crimson. “Flame” is, as they say, an artifact of its time...but it’s one worth investigating, if only for the music and the risk the band was willing to take to stay true to themselves.
Epic
Thanks to School of Rock, Jack Black has finally succeeded in proving that he can carry a movie by himself...and, courtesy of Elf, Kyle Gass can finally note on his résumé that he’s had a significant role (i.e. more than just a cameo) in a hit film that didn’t involve appearing with Jack Black in some capacity.
You’re no doubt wondering, either to yourself or possibly even aloud, “Yes, these facts are clearly undeniable, and thank you for bringing them to my attention, but how does this affect me, John Q. Moviegoer?”
Glad you asked.
This means that, in 2005,
your local movie theater will be offering several daily showing of...wait for
it... Tenacious D in: The Pick of
Destiny.
That’s right.
Now that it’s been proven that JB and KG can successfully draw folks to
movie theaters in droves (okay, mostly JB), some kind soul has green-lighted a
full-length Tenacious D movie.
Skeptics might figure it’s
destined to suffer the same fate as Mr. Show’s Run Ronnie Run
(i.e. to go straight to video, but not before spending a lengthy period in limbo
where fans debate how great it is, how the corporate suits “just don’t get
it” and that’s why it hasn’t been released, even as its creators assure
them that, no, really, it’s because it just isn’t actually very good).
Those fools, however,
clearly aren’t familiar with the power of the D.
They can, however, be easily
indoctrinated and turn into a full-fledged D-ciple with the help of the new Epic
Records 2-DVD set, Tenacious D: The
Complete Masterworks.
But, first, a warning.
If
you’re a parent who’s taken your kid to the family-friendly School of
Rock and you’re thinking, “Hey, I see an artist’s rendition of Jack
Black on the cover of this DVD, so I’ll bet this Tenacious D thing would be
the perfect Christmas present for little Jimmy or little Mary”...?
Put.
The. DVD.
Down.
Right
now.
Tenacious
D may be a lot of things, but one thing they most certainly are not is
kid-friendly.
Trying
to describe Tenacious D to those who’ve not previously experienced them is a
real challenge. On the surface, there’s a whole lot of cursing and
single-entendre sex jokes (most blatant example: their song “F*ck Her Gently”) that’s kinda hard to get
past if you don’t really go in for that sort of thing.
The songs, however, are consistently catchy and, in many cases, they
don’t involve obscenities, instead playing on the humor inherent in rock
pomposity, “Wonderboy” and “Dio” being two instances that leap
immediately to mind.
Tenacious D began life when
Jack Black and Kyle Gass started playing guitar together in Kyle’s apartment
in Los Angeles. From there, they
played their first gig in 1994 at Al’s Bar; it consisted of just one song,
“Tribute,” which was about “the best song in the world,” even though
their song didn’t actually sound anything like that song.
From
there, they were discovered by David Cross, who, with his Mr. Show
compatriot, Bob Odenkirk, helped propel Tenacious D to official cult status by
hooking them up with their very own HBO show.
The combination of premium cable channel exposure combined with tours of
the world and elsewhere led to...well, still cult status, but a much bigger
cult.
For
proof, witness the concert on the first disc of The Complete Masterworks,
where the band performs at Brixton Academy in London to a crowd of approximately
4700 people, most of whom can be heard singing every word along with the band.
As the band opens with a cover of Queen’s “Flash,” segueing into
their own “Wonderboy,” it becomes obvious that both Black and Gass are
extremely competent musicians. Given
that the band’s album features work from musicians like Dave Grohl (Foo
Fighters), Steve McDonald (Redd Kross), Page McConnell (Phish), and Warren
Fitzgerald (the Vandals), plus production from the Dust Brothers, this
wouldn’t necessarily be a given for anyone who’d never seen the band perform
live...but the performance on the DVD is clearly by just these two guys with
their acoustic guitars, and they undoubtedly know how to play them quite well. In addition to the concert, Disc 1 also includes all six
episodes of the aforementioned HBO show.
Disc
2 includes footage of the band recording their self-titled album, three
television appearances promoting it (including a performance of “Friendship”
from Crank Yankers where the D have been transmuted into floppy puppet
form and spend pretty much the entire song naked...complete with floppy puppet
genitalia), music videos for “Tribute” and “Wonderboy” (as well as
making-of documentaries for each), a documentary of the band on the road, and
three short films which have been shown during their live shows.
(The video for “Tribute,” the road documentary, and the short films
were all directed by Liam Lynch, who, in addition to his work on MTV’s Sifl
‘N’ Ollie, also scored a minor hit this year with “United States of
Whatever.”) The short films,
however, require a great deal of endurance to get through without wincing; the
first two prominently feature the expulsion of spermatozoa, and the third,
entitled “Butt Baby,” starts innocently enough (you know your standards have
dropped when a purported LSD trip can be defined as “innocent”), then
devolves into a very grotesque sequence involving Kyle giving birth from the
orifice referenced in the title.
Certainly,
the title of the collection is accurate; this is as complete a collection of the
band’s material as you’re likely to find anywhere, which is no doubt why it
premiered at #2 on Billboard’s Music Video chart and has already been
certified platinum. There are even
a few easter eggs scattered throughout the two discs, including the band’s
promos for MTV’s The Osbournes.
If
this review has frightened or disturbed you in any way, then, for the sake of
your loved ones and, indeed, your moral fiber, steer far clear of this DVD.
If, however, you’ve had the privilege of hearing or seeing Tenacious D in any capacity in the past and you felt like it was a blessing rather than a curse, The Complete Masterworks should unquestionably be on your Christmas list.