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What is your favorite audio/band documentary?

BillH

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Lots of great content here. I can't wait to work my way through this list. Here's one of my favorites - Frank Zappa - Eat that question
 

tmtomh

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20 Feet From Stardom


Story of the female background singers - usually black - with special attention paid to the great Darlene Love

Definitely one of my favorites!

I also loved Nothing Can Hurt Me, the excellent Big Star documentary.

 

Wombat

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Aussie pub rock. If you like AC/DC …………………………

3122807-l.jpg




All tracks: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB80qgYTqWhVlpvB9rTBCGg2mgtLbPPtg
If you like it enough to buy it, get the release with CD included.


On any day my choice will be likely be different. There are so many good ones. :)
 
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Wombat

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Wombat

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The making of Classic Albums series are worth seeing. After catching some on TV I purchased several of the(longer running) DVDs and none are duds IMHO.

E.g.

 
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ajawamnet

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Behind the Wall

Where at about 10:50 you'll see:

David Gilmour - ".... I ... I guess what has to be said is that quite a lot of the people ... come for not necessarily for
the music.... elements of the show and the party that goes with it"

Roger Waters - "... more and more and more that's what it's about ... place half filled with assholes all shouting and
screaming... I just arrived at a point I just can't do this anymore

After that you'll see Nick Mason (drummer) state: " ... Roger just felt really strongly about we'd just completely
lost contact with them ... what we were doing, and what they thought we were doing, and what they thought they
were coming to see was so different ... we were on completely different wavelengths..."

Further on:
Roger Waters: " famous story of spitting on some kid in Olympic Stadium scrambling up the front of the stage ....
cracked at one point....spat in his face afterwards I was really depressed What have I been reduced to?" That night,
or the next night, or the next day ... idea of building a WALL across the front of the stage.... to express that sense of
alienation and separation..."

David Gilmour - "Obviously when someone says ... in the first half of the show we're gonna build this f'ing great
wall across the front of the stage .and we're gonna be behind it playing and the audience will be in front of it looking
at it you sort of go ' Hang on a minute...' "

Nick Mason - "... I think his initial ideas as far as I remember, that the entire show would be played from behind a
wall and the audience at no time would see us..."

But hey, been like that forever - background music for the human mating ritual. Google Stravinsky Conducts Firebird
...youtube vid...


At 7:52, you'll see the end... you'll then see a shot of the audience.... watch the the look on most of the faces in the
crowd during the ovation:

"Why am i standing? Should I still be clapping?"
"Did they see my gown? Isn't it beautiful?"
"I wonder if I'm being noticed..."

Not a clue as to what they just saw....

When cable came around, the ESPN's of the world realized that they market human ability. Not some stale ass product that plays it the same, night after night. They educated their consumer and provided a dynamic product - one where the audience can see the value since they too how hard it is to do right.

Music? Well... Autotuning? Milli Vanilli (and I met Jerry Mangolas that worked for Clive at Arista and signed them). Black Box where Martha Wash - from 2 Tons of Fun - actually sang the stuff, not the hot little chick in the vids?

Yea... great. So I go play gigs and two people out of a hundred shut up long enough to hear us. We've even had regulars at various clubs here in DC come up to us - apologizing for the rest of the crowd's behavior.

"Play Brown Eyed Girl!"

Yea... primate parading. See, as the band you're the perceived alpha in the room. So if the alpha female (or male) can get you to play their obnoxiously shouted out request, they are the ones that you want to replicate with.

Lovely...

BTW: Jerry told me when Clive found out that they weren't singing he freaked. But the rest of Arista knew the producers and what was up...
 

ajawamnet

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Harry Chapin

"He called himself a third rate rock star..."

If this documentary doesn't make you tear up a bit, you might be dead...

Note that Harry's dad was the drummer Jim Chapin, the proponent and teacher of the Moeller technique - here's some Wise Words from him on being a musician:



Even he tears up a bit at the end of this...

Jim's friend and drummer - Freddie Gruber. Well, he was interesting and just amazing. Neil Peart from Rush took lessons from him. Not many vids of him out there, but here's one - talk about making other performers feel good. And this is a mid-20th century jazz drummer playing rap music using Ice Cream Scoops:


Check out how he directs them to do the upbeat... then cops the funky ass feel ... yea... music.

Music is so spiritual, but most numbed out, over stimulated humans (I call it the dead dick syndrome) just don't quite get it.

Sad, really...
 
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North_Sky

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Not necessarily my favorite, not exactly a documentary; it was first a book then they made a movie based from it...a music autobiography film.
I don't know if some of you have already seen it, but I'll say this: You won't be motivated to see it and it will be a mistake. It might take a while, perhaps forever, but one day you'll remember that guy from ASR who said that it's a Must See. And after watching it you'll decide if I was wrong or right. Moments of good laughs are good times in life ...

 

nintendoeats

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I recommend Everyone Stares by Stewart Copeland. It consists primarily of Super-8 footage that he personally recorded at the the height of The Police's career. It contains very little editorializing, and a lot of great footage.
 
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ajawamnet

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Lynyrd Skynyrd: If I Leave Here Tomorrow

Martin


Interesting story about Skynrd.... I'm doing sound at a theater thing, and this older guy comes in to do FOH. His neck is all crooked, he said he got thrown from one of the horses he had in Central PA.

So I start talking to him. He mentions that he's an award winning jingle writer... Addy's they're called. Did Coke, Cadillac, etc...

He mentions having a studio in the late 60's early 70's with a partner in north FL. Had one of the first 16 track machines
- I'm guessing the ol' Ampex MM1000 behemoth

So he goes on to mention that one day these kids come in. Not sure how they knew about the place but supposedly some record store guy mentioned it to them. They have this little 7" reel of their rehearsal and wanted to know how much it cost to record. So he gives them the nickle tour - including the small disc mastering and pressing plant (back then you sent demos out on 45's).

As he's walking them around, he sees they're getting more despondent. "Well thank you Mr. Sutton, it sure was nice to show us around - we could never afford this...."

"Let me hear your tape..." he says.

So he puts it up, and is floored. He then asks them if they'd be OK with him and his partner recording it. They'd put it on their label - Shade Tree Records.

He stated nothing happened after he sent out demos and they let them out of their contract. He mentioned that about a year or so later he heard one of the songs on the radio. When he told me the song I thought the guy may have hit head a bit hard when that horse threw him.

Nope - it was Jim Sutton... I had no idea

So here's those demos:




Like the time as a late teen I went to The U of Penn Uniontown campus to buy an ounce of hash with my buddy and his brother and his friend. We were going to go see the brother's friend's older brother to hook up.

So we get there and it's some trailer. We walk in and there's all these hot babes sitting on the floor (I think there was one chair - like no furniture) and they're googling over some guy with long blond hair and a big handle bar mustache. So my friend's brother and his entourage leave to go score and leave me and Bobby in the living room.

We were like Beavis and Butthead... "Whoa, these chicks are hot... wonder who the dude is?"

So a few minutes later this guy with really long brown hair look around the wall from the kitchen and says, "Hey you guyz... come on in"

We're like, "Uh... us?"

"Yea..."

So we go in. Him and this black guy are in there smoking some kick ass black hash. The give us each a hit.

So we go back in the living room and I hear the blond dude mention something about his prof in I think it was psychology move him to the back of the room 'cause he feet stunk so bad..

Yep - that dude, I came to learn later - was Skunk Baxter. The guys in the kitchen were Simmons and Porter. So I got high with the Doobie Brother and had no idea who they were at the time...

Oh... and we never got the hash...
 

Martin

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Interesting story about Skynrd.... I'm doing sound at a theater thing, and this older guy comes in to do FOH. His neck is all crooked, he said he got thrown from one of the horses he had in Central PA.

So I start talking to him. He mentions that he's an award winning jingle writer... Addy's they're called. Did Coke, Cadillac, etc...

He mentions having a studio in the late 60's early 70's with a partner in north FL. Had one of the first 16 track machines
- I'm guessing the ol' Ampex MM1000 behemoth

So he goes on to mention that one day these kids come in. Not sure how they knew about the place but supposedly some record store guy mentioned it to them. They have this little 7" reel of their rehearsal and wanted to know how much it cost to record. So he gives them the nickle tour - including the small disc mastering and pressing plant (back then you sent demos out on 45's).

As he's walking them around, he sees they're getting more despondent. "Well thank you Mr. Sutton, it sure was nice to show us around - we could never afford this...."

"Let me hear your tape..." he says.

So he puts it up, and is floored. He then asks them if they'd be OK with him and his partner recording it. They'd put it on their label - Shade Tree Records.

He stated nothing happened after he sent out demos and they let them out of their contract. He mentioned that about a year or so later he heard one of the songs on the radio. When he told me the song I thought the guy may have hit head a bit hard when that horse threw him.

Nope - it was Jim Sutton... I had no idea

So here's those demos:




Like the time as a late teen I went to The U of Penn Uniontown campus to buy an ounce of hash with my buddy and his brother and his friend. We were going to go see the brother's friend's older brother to hook up.

So we get there and it's some trailer. We walk in and there's all these hot babes sitting on the floor (I think there was one chair - like no furniture) and they're googling over some guy with long blond hair and a big handle bar mustache. So my friend's brother and his entourage leave to go score and leave me and Bobby in the living room.

We were like Beavis and Butthead... "Whoa, these chicks are hot... wonder who the dude is?"

So a few minutes later this guy with really long brown hair look around the wall from the kitchen and says, "Hey you guyz... come on in"

We're like, "Uh... us?"

"Yea..."

So we go in. Him and this black guy are in there smoking some kick ass black hash. The give us each a hit.

So we go back in the living room and I hear the blond dude mention something about his prof in I think it was psychology move him to the back of the room 'cause he feet stunk so bad..

Yep - that dude, I came to learn later - was Skunk Baxter. The guys in the kitchen were Simmons and Porter. So I got high with the Doobie Brother and had no idea who they were at the time...

Oh... and we never got the hash...

Cool stories... Never heard the Collectybles versions of those songs.

Thanks,
Martin
 

Ordin Aryguy

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Probably one of the absolute best music related documentaries is Ken Burns' Country Music. Ken has an incredible way of telling a story, but from an angle that is so unexpected. In this case, he tells the story from places that are so far from what's expected that he pulls you in deeper and deeper with ever ongoing minute... It's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, regardless of topic.

The one take away I got from Country Music is that I lost total respect for Chet Atkins after watching the film. He just about single-handedly began the ruination of country music, real country music. Watch the film and you'll understand... and I really used to like Chet.

Another documentary that I can't recommend any higher is Finding Joseph I: The HR From Bad Brains Documentary. I'll preface this with saying that I'm a huge Bad Brains fan, but this is simply another great documentary. The sad part of this one is that it mainly focuses on HR's mental illness and how deep he had fallen into the hole that mental illness creates around those dealing it.

Wow, just remembered another GREAT documentary, Lamb Of God - As The Palace Burns. Another phenomenal work! It started as one thing, but morphed into another. You have to watch it to understand, and I really hope you do!... I just finished Randy Blythe's book, Dark Days: A Memoir, that documents his time around which this documentary is filmed. I also highly recommend it!
 
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