Archive for the ‘DVD’ tag
Resonnances
Review by Brian Charles Clark
3 stars on Curled Up with a Good DVD
Look out. Look up. A still from Resonnances
Look, you guys, quit giving rides to serial killers, okay? I know you think, what with the intertubal Facebooks and the Tweety birds surveilling from limb to limb and all that wooly blanket of webbery, that you’re perfectly safe. All watched over by machines of loving grace, as it were. But what you didn’t count on is what you need to count on.
In the case of the “micro-budget” (I ain’t buying it) RESONNANCES, the thing you didn’t count on was the alien craft crash landing in the vicinity some 400 years ago.
And this is rural France, don’t forget, so things are… different. Vive la difference, sure–except things aren’t. We’re ricocheting between Hollywood horror and indie spoof here. This is familiar, fun turf – with subtitles.
read the rest of Brian’s review on Curedl Up with a Good DVD.
Todd P Goes to Austin
Todd P. Goes to Austin
directed by Jason Buim; 79 minutes; Color, DVD, NTSC
Featuring Todd Patrick, Mika Miko, The DeathSet, Matt and Kim, Dan Deacon
Released on Microcinema September 28, 2010
Review by Brian Charles Clark, who gives the documentary a rousing 4 stars
Brooklyn-based concert promoter Todd P. hates the star-making machinery of the big labels and the big festivals. He wants the raw, unmediated truth of music that hasn’t been marketed into a niche and over-produced by hit men. What to do? DIY, that’s what.
In particular, one thing to do is to descend upon Austin (the only surviving city in the atomic crater of Texas) in a shitty green van crammed with people and sound gear. Austin is the site of the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival where everything hip, new and cool is, if we believe the industry hype, showcased and signed to lucrative record contracts. It’s statements like that that make Todd P. blow beer out his nose in a fountain of froth that fumes at fraudulence. Read the rest of this entry »
The Steve Hillage Band Live at the Gong Unconvention
The Steve Hillage Band Live at the Gong Unconvention
When Steve Hillage made the surprise announcement that he was getting his old band back together to perform at the Gong Unconvention, he hadn’t performed in this particular configuration since December 1979. In the interviews that follow the DVD’s concert program, Hillage confesses that he and his mates had to relearn all their old parts. “Do you remember how to finger that bit?” They had to listen to their old recordings slowed down and over and over again to learn to play their own songs.
Dude! Cool. Proof, once again, of what the Hawai’ian red dirt shirts claim: Old Guys Rock.
The concert is marvelous, in part because, as Hillage says in the interview, he had decided to play the Unconvention a year or so before announcing the fact and spent that time practicing the 25-year-old songs. The hardest part, and alas, the weakest bit of the 2006 Gong Family Unconvention performance, was the vocals. Then again, Hillage’s voice was never more than a utilitarian herald’s tool. You could hear him loud and clear at his peak in the late 1970s, and you can hear him just fine in 2006. Read the rest of this entry »
