Cool Flix with a Good Beat

Okay, not all music films are painful. I recently picked up a few cool DVD’s featuring music that is legitimately good (well, to these well worn ears anyway). So, it’s not all evil robots, Agnetha’s bottom, and milkshakes:

The Unheard Music (1985)

A pretty nifty little documentary of the band X, which I saw at the Ogden in Denver (then the coolest movie theater in town, now a so-so concert venue) when it was originally released. I hadn’t seen the film since then, and it’s been out of print for years, so I was happy to snap up the DVD when it came out. The film itself has aged pretty well, and captures the band at what was arguably their peak. There are interviews and live performances interspersed with found/stolen footage from then current television, old films, newsreels, some original animation, and whatever else the filmmakers could get their hands on. It ends up being a collage of fast editing and great music (all from the first four amazing X albums), which reflects the band’s own crossbreeding of musical styles and the punk rock DIY ethic. The tone is somewhat optimistic, as if X is actually on the verge of breaking through to mass acceptance. In reality, shortly after this film was released the Ain’t Love Grand album came out – an album which, while not awful, smoothed down the band’s raw sound in a bid for commercial success. It did get them a small amount of radio play, but Billy Zoom quit soon thereafter and the band was never the same after that. The funniest part is an interview with a label exec that passed on X, but is really excited that his label will soon be releasing the third album by (the deservedly long forgotten) Point Blank. (I actually remember one song by them, the truly awful “Mean to Your Queenie.”) Nice move, Mr. Label Exec!

Ramones Raw (2004)

Do not confuse this with the terrific recent documentary End of the Century, which is still not available on DVD. The majority of this release is home video footage taken by Marky Ramone, and it’s pretty much for hardcore fans only. Seeing as Marky didn’t start carrying a video camera until some point in the late 80’s, this isn’t even footage of the band in their prime. Still, it’s a pretty fun time for fans of the bruddahs. It’s nice to see that there were a few smiles behind the scenes during the band’s last few years (End of the Century painted a somewhat miserable picture when it came to band relations). It is also amazing to see how popular they were in other countries – playing for huge crowds, with fans outside of their hotel chanting and their car getting mobbed everywhere they went. Because I’m a goofball, my favorite part was the footage from Dee Dee’s short lived rap career as Dee Dee King (a more inept rapper you’ll never see!). There are also some cool extras, the highlight of which is a 1980 program that was originally shown on Italian television. It features songs from a great live show from when the band still really gave it their all (unlike the 90’s, when they played everything as fast as they possibly could and Joey stopped trying to sing). Whoever put together the Italian TV program manages to really mangle the titles of a few of the songs, with such amusing subtitles as “Rock & Roll School,” “Rock Way Beach,” and “Sheena is Punk.” These screw-ups just add to the fun, so Gabba Gabba Hey! (Or, as the Italian TV producers might say, Google Google Har!)

The Harder They Come (1972)

I had never seen this classic Jamaican movie before. First off, I have to state that I do not know a great deal about reggae music. I have dabbled a bit here and there, and there is a good bit of it I do like. However, a lot of my potential enjoyment of it has been tainted by the three years I attended school in Boulder. There were way too many trust fund hippies blasting their Bob Marley Legend CD’s and going on and on about reggae being the ultimate peace-and-love-and-good-vibes music. It has taken me a long time to shake off those associations and enjoy the music for what it is. The Harder They Come presents the gritty truth about reggae’s birthplace, the slums of Kingston, and it’s pretty damn bleak. With it crushing poverty, crooked police force, drug use, and corrupt music industry Kingston is a far cry from the “good vibes” the hippies associate with reggae. Jimmy Cliff dazzles in his portrayal of Ivan, a country bumpkin who moves to the city with dreams of fame. He cuts a record, for which he’s paid a mere $20 (a common practice at that time, apparently), and then gets involved in the marijuana trade. His life of crime leads to him killing several policemen, forcing him to go underground, and then his record becomes a hit. This makes Ivan a folk hero, he now has the fame he craved, and he buys into his new gangster image wholeheartedly. There is a sequence in which Ivan goes into a photography studio to have his portrait done – he wants to send his picture to the newspapers to fuel his growing fame. Dressed in ultra sharp threads and brandishing a pair of pistols, Ivan is just about the baddest looking dude ever to grace a movie screen. Needless to say, it all leads to a climatic shootout and sad ending. The film is incredibly low budget, and at times it can be really difficult to decipher what the characters are saying due to their thick Jamaican accents (there are periodic subtitles for a few actors who are impossible to understand). It also takes a while for the story to get going, but once it did I was hooked. I wouldn’t say The Harder They Come is an amazing film, but it is good and definitely worth catching. Oh, and the soundtrack is terrific.