| Concert Films |
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It is pretty rare that a concert film is going to really need much more than a couple of paragraphs. It's pretty much "was the sound okay", "was the band good", "Is there some reason I should watch this?". For the most part, I am a fan of Folk music and favor the Texas songwriters. You'll see names like Townes Van Zandt, Jessie Winchester, Lloyd Maines, Jerry Jeff Walker and the Amazing Rythym Aces come up frequently. The same as I will rarely review hit movies, I won't be spending a lot of time with pop divas. It is a good bet that "The Nick and Jessica Variety Hour" is never going to appear here.
| Heartworn Highways | Shut up and Sing (Dixie Chicks) | ||
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The star of this movie is Townes Van Zandt. We get to hear him perform "Waitin' around to die" and "Pancho and Lefty". Rodney Crowell, Steve Young and a very young Steve Earle play a few songs before everyone gets together at one of Guy Clark's "Guitar Pulls". As the evening draws to a close, someone starts singing "Silent Night" and he is quickly joined by the rest of the musicians. If you've ever sat around a living room with beers and guitars, this should bring back some fond memories. The film spends a fair amount of time clowning around with Townes and watching Guy work on a guitar. We get to see how these guys were living then and how they spent their time. It's not what you would call glamerous, lots of second hand furniture and run down houses. You don't hear these guys mouthing platitudes like "music is my life" because they don't need to. They are already commited to their music and it is obvious. Too much time is spent with David Allan Coe for my tastes but it was cool to see The Charlie Daniels band playing a small venue.
Around the time that the US invaded Iraq the Dixie Chicks were playing in London. Natalie Maines called the president stupid and stated that she was embarrased by his actions. The Country music world in general responded by doing nothing. A lot of fans voiced their disapproval, but didn't give up their tickets. But a small very vocal group of politial activists starting calling radio stations and threatening to boycott advertisers whenever the Dixie Chicks songs were played. This minority won out and the Chicks were dropped from almost all Country stations. As there are only a couple of companies that own nearly all the radio stations in the States, this is not as hard to do as you might think. Clear Channel owns 900 stations in the US. The Chicks took this pretty hard. They had just planned a hiatus for family reasons and it was a very scary way to take a break. Their album Home was in pretty heavy rotation and "Traveling Soldier" was hanging out in the top ten, and then nothing. No airplay on the major stations. Just a lot of people acting shocked that the Dixie Chicks were not supporting the war effort. WTF!?! Did these guys ever listen to the words of "Traveling Soldier"? It's about a scared young 18-year-old kid being sent off to war and dying. Anyway, the Chicks spend the next year and a half enjoying their personal lives and slowly putting together a new album. Natialie Maines and Toby Keith got into a pissing match which is pretty well documented in the film. We follow the girls around as they try out music for new album and as they refuse to back down from their comments. And in the end when their album was released with the entirely unrepentent song "I'm not ready to make nice" it went straight to number one on the country charts without any Country radio support.
The music industry is populated by performers and musicians. Their are acts out there that a fueled by a performers limited ability to make music but great crowd appeal. I would put acts like Toby Keith and Brittany Spears in this category. Their music is basically pretty simple and they require a lot of musical help to get even that across. Musicians on the other hand can sit down with one instrument and their voice and rip your heart out. Townes Van Zandt, Bonnie Raitt, Lyle Lovett, Fred Eaglesmith, these guys are musicans and so are the Chicks. Acts like the Dixie Chicks help lend legitimacy to the Country music ranks. They can be held up as examples of great muscians playing in a rather stagnant genre. And when Country music turned their back on them, their album still hit number one. Why? Because Country music needs the Dixie Chicks a lot more than the Chicks need Country music.
Anyway, the film is about the Chicks and as such takes their side in the contraversy. You'll love or hate the film. If you like the Chicks and their music, it provides great insight into how they choose their songs and put together their albums and you get to hear them perform in a variety of venues. If you hate the Chicks and their music there is nothing for you on this DVD. On the plus side, you also get to see Lloyd Maines (yup, Natalie's dad) playing with the band. When it dawns on you that Natalie must have spent her youth around the likes of Joe Ely, it explains a lot about her musical tastes and personal beliefs.
Steve Earle: Live at Montreaux
Steve Earle: Live in Austin
I have a lot of respect for Steve Earle as a songwriter. He has a great voice and I love story songs. Unfortunately, I have not seen enough of his concert footage to tell if he is always like this or if he was just having a bad night. I know that he has had a hard life and fought back from drug addiction, and that he is a political activists, so perhaps he felt out of place playing in front of such a high brow audience. In fact, he makes several references that seem to be an insult to the audience. He mentions "the rich" a couple of times and not in a good way. I suspect that he really, really did not want to be there. The resemblence to Woody Guthrie was very prounced as he spouts off on his liberal agenda in front of a bunch of rich guys.
The sound is crystal clear and the video is perfect on the DVD, but I had a hard time watching it. During "Devil's right hand" he missed a chord and his eyes were wandering around like he was bored. His guitar sound like crap. It sounded like the strings were dead and there was so much buzzing that I think the frets really needed to be filed down. Coupled with his tendency to play he guitar like a flailing banjo (no pick, instead using the thumb and fingers to strike the string in an asymetrical rythym) it was sometimes painful to listen to. There are absolutely no extras on the disc which makes me think that Steve is not too pleased about the whole thing. In fact, the DVD is not for sale on his web site.
And then I watched the Live in Austin DVD. This clearly was recorded several years earlier and in front of an audience that he liked. Here he is playing with his band "The Dukes" which changes the sound and song choice considerably. I think the only song on both DVDs is "Devil's Right Hand". His guitar still sounds like crap and his technique is odd. He has a great ear but is not a great mechanic. When he writes his songs he comes up with great progressions and combinations. When he plays, he is not on the beat all that often. This is not too noticeable on the rockabilly songs but on some songs there is a pretty big difference between the band sound and what he is playing on his guitar (fortunately his instrument is often muted). Still the Austin show which was orginally broadcast on Austin City Limits is pretty good. I would not recommend the Montreaux effort.
The Rolling Stones played their first gig in 1962 which makes the performance filmed by Martin Scorsese part of their 45th year as a band. It also would be about the time Keith Richards turned 65 years old. My first mistake was to watch the film in Blu-Ray. Trust me, you do not want to see Richard's face in hi def. While the film was very nicely done, I did not really like seeing Scorsese as one of the main characters in the early going. We get to hear him whine about this and that and sit in on a couple of meetings where it seems like the band is giving him a hard time and deliberately withholding information from him. For some reason Jagger would not give him the play list before the show started. Once the music finally starts it starts off with a bang. Straight in to "Jumping Jack Flash" but right away you notice that Richards doesn't seem to be paying much attention. He plays guitar for a while, walks around with a big smile on his face, hits a couple of notes, mugs for the audience some more, plays a couple more riffs and generally acts like a featured guest more than the lead guitarist. Throughout the show we occasionally see glimpses of the man's talent but they are few and far between. Comparing this film's version of "Sympathy for the Devil" to the 1968 "Rock n' Roll Circus"version is very telling. In 1968 Richards was just starting to really master the guitar. He flails away at his guitar in a frantic but controlled way providing the swinging rhythm of the song that plays beautifully against Watt's solid on the beat drumming. Richards has always used various open tunings which makes his style difficult to copy on a standard tuned guitar. His understanding that the guitar is a percussion instrument also made his style unique. Unfortunately in "Shine a Light" Richards' years of hard living may have finally caught up with him. Instead of dominating the sound, he is reduced to filling in for a couple of beats here and there and does a pretty mediocre job on the solo.
Ronnie Wood was solid as hell even though his guitar was mixed too low to hear most of the time. Watts is probably a better drummer now than he was 40 years ago. And then there is Mick. Still as ugly as ever with the same hideous dance moves and the same reed-thin body and questionable voice and still one of the best rock and rollers of all time. He takes his job seriously. The man is not some fat old has-been. He sings a duet with Jack White (of the White Stripes) that is perfect. When they sing their lines together there is no overlapping or missed entrances. Still, the Rolling Stones are a Jagger/Richards collaboration. The Stones without Richards sounds a lot like The Who without Moon and Entwistle, it sounds wrong. There is just something missing. Whether it was just a bad night or Richards has finally lost his touch, I don't know but he does not contribute fully to this film. Stones fans are going to love it anyway, but Richards' fans (like me) are going to be a little saddened. Especially so as the title seems to refer to an old song that Jagger wrote for Brian Jones just before his death.
Hayseed Dixie: No Sleep 'til Liverpool
First of all these are some good musicians with some pretty serious pedigrees. They could play any style they like but find it amusing (and profitable) to play hard rock songs with bluegrass instruments. The result is something that is not quite a gimmick because of the intensity and skill of the band. They don't act like a cover band and they certainly bring something new to the songs that they play. The result takes a little tolerance and a sense of humor but makes for a enjoyable show. Rock n' Roll has its roots in the blues but part of the influence was a country music. No really, listen to some old Hank Williams (the original not the son or grandson) and you can hear some of the same rythyms. There is a reason that lots of rockers have covered a country song or two in their time.
So, how do "Dirty Deeds", "Walk this way", "Black Dog", and "Highway to Hell" sound on a guitar, mandolin, bango and bass? They kinda rock. There is a fair amount of varience through the songs and a lot of respect to the originals. The guys are clearly enjoying themselves and taking the gig seriously which makes it pretty easy to do the same. Of note, the sound recording does not match the video really well and there is a pretty serious disconnect visually that at times looks like bad lip synching. As I was checking for some info on line about Hayseed Dixie, I found out that they are on their fifth bass player. As they don't have a drummer I guess the bass player is the next most likely musician to suffer the "Spinal Tap" curse.