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U23D: the review

Going to see U2 in a theater with a screen roughly the size of the Pop stage doesn't really seem that incongruous. U2, life-size Bono, South America, seems like a no-brainer - and for the most part it was.

I've been loving the coverage of the movie premiere at Sundance: "You mean to tell me that Yellow Submarine has a narrative arc?" (Bono, in response to some trainspotter criticizing the film's lack of cohesiveness).

1) There's no doubt that this was the right band to test this technology. Big and bold and loud - but not loud enough. It's a concert film. TURN IT UP.

2) I found myself fascinated by the oddest things, like - what drink, exactly, does Larry Mullen, Jr. have next to his drum stool, within arm's reach? Iced tea? Mint Julep?

3) The film needed a pause, and a zoom, mostly so I could see what, exactly, Bono had taped to the stage in front of his mic.

4) Every person in South America owns a tiny digital camera. Or at least so it seemed every time any member of U2 got near the edge of the stage.

5) The setlist is incredibly deficient. Where were some of the no-brainers like "Elevation," or "City of Blinding Lights"? I mean, "Miss Sarajevo" is compelling and all but it's not "Even Better Than The Real Thing." This was a BIG SCREAMING MULTIMEDIA THING and not the place for subtlety.

6) You know those guys at every concert who get up on each other's shoulders, take their shirts off, and wave them around in a circle above their head? They have them in South America, too. (Former readers will be interested to know that woo girls also exist in S.A.)

7) I realize that any song from "Achtung Baby" is going to present a tempting opportunity to recreate ZooTV in 3D format. However, when "The Fly" gives me the only time to watch all four members of U2 wearing instruments and jamming together at center stage, I do not want to have my view obscured by words and letters at the front of the screen.

8) If you went to this movie to see anything, it would be "Streets," right? I got goosebumps just thinking about it during the opening notes. South America, 100,000 people, if God was ever going to walk through the room, it would be here, right?

It was so underwhelming it was just sad. "With Or Without You," a song I hate and despise (HI SHARON), was more compelling than "Streets" in U23D.

9) You will find yourself scanning the crowd, at least I did. You are looking for the people like you, the people like your friends, the people that are like the annoying people you don't want to be near at any concert. But I liked that. The commonality is refreshing.

10) Cutting between cities/venues in one song was terrible. I felt cheated later. This isn't a Disney ride.

While it was definitely U2, it didn't really give you the feeling of seeing them, I don't think. I think "Streets" in Rattle and Hum, in all its one-dimensional simplicity, gives you that feeling a million times more than U23D did. I am glad I saw it for free, if I had paid for it I would have felt more than a little ripped off.

joe strummer: the future is unwritten

So I've been waiting to see this for I don't know how long, and it HAS been a long time. This was supposed to be it, this was supposed to be THE definitive documentary about Joe. I bought tickets in advance, we got to the theater early and stood in line for half an hour to get a good spot. That kind of obsessive.

On the one hand I loved the unconventional approach taken, not yet another boring documentary with hours of headshots and voiceover gravely intoning the details of the subject's childhood. And I knew who the players were, so it was fine for me. But all I could think was, what about the people who haven't read every word written about John Mellor and the Clash? We're documenting Joe's legacy and we can't be bothered with a small unobtrusive caption identifying who the person was? I mean, ya know, I *think* that was Bobby Gillespie, but I wasn't sure, and would it have not been punk rock to let people in on the secret?

And maybe that was it, but the whole "punk is a secret world only for the insiders" ended a long time ago, especially for Joe. The whole point of the campfires was inclusion, and Joe was INCLUSIVE. Wouldn't it have been meaningful for people to know that Mick Jones was doing the interview from the same counsel block (if not the same apartment) that his grandmother lived in, with its view of the Westway, the ledge he purportedly wrote "London Calling" on? Why deprive someone of that if they don't know it? People weren't born knowing punk rock legends, they learn them. Why not teach a whole new generation and the generations after this one?

Even if the film wasn't meant as definitive, but more of an oral history, I'll point out that none of the major players are getting any younger. It's hard to get them all in one place and it may never happen again. Just the most basic of conventional documentary standards would have served Joe's legacy well, without choking on conventionality.

The campfires. They became so important to Joe, but we don't learn this until the end of the movie, which is filmed from the vantage point of someone looking into the campfire, not as a member of the campfire, another thing that seemed exclusionary and foreign and, well, not Strummer, ya know? I felt excluded, and I consider myself a distant member of the tribe, the girl who skipped her senior prom to see the Clash at Bond's Casino. The boyfriend, who values Joe's place in the rock pantheon, felt that even more strongly: "Okay, I get it, we're not invited."

Maybe I'm reading too much into it but for two different people approaching the movie from the two places people are likely to approach this work, it seemed a valid sample size.

I don't know why Simonon wasn't part of it. If it was his ego, get the fuck over it already. If it was the ego of the filmmakers, I don't even know what to say. Even Mick showed up and was, I felt, reasonably honest about things. Not, of course, that I pretend to really know what went on - only the men involved will ever truly know - but I felt like he stood up and honored his friend and their band and their work with his honesty.

Finally, a touch of brilliance to overlay Joe's BBC broadcasts. It was like he was there, and had never left.

It just could have been so much more.

the petty documentary

I have to say that when I heard about a 4-hour documentary about Tom Petty, even if it was directed by Peter Bogdanovich, the last thing I wanted to do any night was sit down and watch it. But it was taking up 4 hours on the DVR and it was either watch it or not, so I agreed to watch an hour.

And watched all four. Avidly.

It will probably sound ignorant in the extreme when I offer that on one level it amazes me that there was a significant enough story to comfortably fill four hours without feeling thin. It's not so much ignorant as myopic, I think; I was never an *enormous* fan and kind of stopped following his career around Wildflowers. And probably ignored some of the commercial releases after Damn The Torpedos, because, well, it was everywhere and you didn't have to work for it or look for it.

But I liked Petty, even if he struck me sometimes as an absolute bastard. He was definitely one of the good guys.

The documentary is priceless for many things (including the fact that someone around Petty had a video camera since the band's VERY FIRST TRIP TO CALIFORNIA, not to mention every single other moment after that), but the winning footage to me is the evolution of the Wilburys. What luck to have such great interview footage with George. What serendipity that the camera was there the whole time. How sad that they never got to tour. The footage of him working with Johnny Cash - even more breathtaking than Petty and Orbison.

I sat there the entire time going, "Oh, yeah, *that*, I forgot about that." The tour with Dylan. The fight over the $9.98 album price. Filing for banktruptcy, which at the time I didn't even begin to understand. How good the videos were, and how many of them were so iconic and still hold up today. The unsung talents of people like Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench.

I also felt that the coverage was fair but not fawning. Howie Epstein's death, Stan Lynch's departure - these were the things that were not ignored, not glossed over.

Even if you think you don't care about Petty, if you are at all interested in the history of rock and roll, this is worth the investment of your time. And for Petty, it's a dignified representation of his legacy; there's no other word for it. Would that other artists of his stature use this as a model. (Hint, hint.)

dammit keef

this is fucking awesome:

Keith's scene in the new Pirates movie.

[via undercover, via rocks off]

THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN.

JOE STRUMMER - THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN: trailer online NOW.

review: New York Doll

Probably goes without saying, but at least rent this one. This is one of those oddly serendipitous documentaries, putting the cameras in the right place at the right time, and capturing a story that we would have lost otherwise.

It's a document about how anger fades to -- well, it just fades. And, truth be told, much of what Arthur said and felt I would bet that David and Syl felt at one time or another: the anger at watching the disciples of the Dolls make millions of dollars while for years you couldn't even buy the Dolls albums in the U.S. except used, or imports of Dutch reissues. One could probably write a thesis about this, but, again, anger fades, and people move on.

Arthur's life is portrayed with dignity and sympathy but also objectively, and the religion isn't shoved down anyone's throat, it's presented exactly as it was for him. You can feel sorry for him but he doesn't ask anyone to do that. The film captures perfectly and cleanly what was swirling around this reunion: was it going to happen? Would everyone actually show up? If they showed up, would they be able to play together? Would they implode before making it to London? And even worse, would it suck? Bob Geldof (one of many luminaries nicely assembled to speak passionately about the Dolls) relates how his children, fans due to their access to his record collection, utterly refused to go to Meltdown "because it wouldn't be like the poster". Mick Jones, Chrissie Hynde, heck, even Fern, who has been in the front row of every Dolls related show since the beginning of time was there. The tears in (Dolls and JT biographer) Nina Antonia's eyes as she speaks about the upcoming shows are genuine and moving.

And it wasn't like the poster, but even most of the people who were there Back In The Day barely remember what it was like. It was what it was, and it was big and glorious and even watching badly filmed live performance of that first moment when the three of them, the reformed Dolls, stepped onto that Royal Festival Hall stage and played those first notes will give you goosebumps.

Well, provided you give a fuck. And if you don't, why on earth are you reading this blog? Because, as Morrissey said, without the Dolls, I wouldn't be here, doing this.

no direction home

Amazon's No Direction Home info page includes a trailer which is an absolute MUST SEE.

The footage of early Dylan is mindblowing; and someone, thank Allah, got Dylan to sit down and spell it all out before he's not here to do that.

It seems kind of amazing that Dylan - Dylan! - would be so willing to do this, but it feels like he has enough of sense of his legacy and how he wants it to be presented when he is no longer on this earth that he's being willing to let us in behind the curtain.

Thank god someone is doing this. Thank god Dylan is letting them. And why can't some people get over their large freakin' egos to let a Scorsese do the same thing for them, before it's too late?

(Thanks, H., for the tip off!)

punk: attitude! on IFC next week

“All you need is one guy or girl to stand up and say 'Fuck this,' and everyone goes: 'Voice of a generation! Thank you. I’ve been thinking that, I never had the guts to say it' - and all of a sudden - 'Fuck this' has a backbeat.”

--Henry Rollins

July 9 (thanks, BP) on IFC at 10pm (for the six people who have it as part of their cable package), and July 20 on A&E! So you have, actually, no excuse not to see this. (Also, coming soon to DVD, I hear.)

My review of "Punk: Attitude!"

we jam econo: the story of the minutemen

The film opens with grainy color footage of a very, very young d.boon, Mike Watt, and George Hurley sitting in a field, waiting to be interviewed. (The interview footage seems familiar and I'd bet that I saw some if not all of it on IRS Records' "The Cutting Edge" in the MTV alternative rock ghetto one Sunday night in the 80's.)

"Two-shot on Mike and d.boon."

The story begins with Mike Watt telling the story of how he and d.boon met, that d.boom jumped out of a tree and fell on him.

CUT TO:

An older, greyer, more grizzled Watt in 2003: "This is the tree, right here."

If your heart doesn't plummet at that very moment -- at the contrast, at the fact that Watt remembers, at the constant subtext, that d.boon has not been on this planet for 20 years now, then this isn't the film for you.

we jam econo is the story of the late, lamented Minutemen, West Coast punk rock pioneers out of San Pedro. Over the course of the almost two hours of footage (including over 53 interviews, covering everyone close to the band (including Watt's mother), up to John Doe, Thurston Moore, Raymond Pettibone, Byron Coley, Greg Ginn, Keith Morris, Ian Mackaye, Richard Meltzer, Flea, and of course, Watt and George Hurley, you come away with an incredibly intricate, thorough understanding of this band and its history and, the impossible task, comprehending why this band was so important and meaningful to so very many people.

The latter is a task that is the most difficult, in my opinion. You've taken on the task of historian and archivist but in the burning need to capture all the details, sometimes it is hard if not impossible to retreat and find some perspective, and push through to be able to convey import to outsiders, to those who weren't there, to those who were but didn't have the entire picture. This is something that producer Keith Scherion and director Tim Irwin (childhood friends who discovered the band together) have excelled at; it makes the film more cerebral than flashy, but the Minutemen and the music they created also fit that description.

The film has a good balance of interview and live footage, and I especially appreciated their willingness to let a live clip play out in its entirety (then again, easy to do when few songs were more than 2 minutes; Watt's incredulity when he realizes one song - the first song to go over 2 minutes - was actually 2 minutes and 30 seconds was priceless). Still, it's tempting to cut live songs short, especially when the quality is 80's camcorder and you have 53 interview subjects to try to cram into a short span of time.

But live is where the Minutemen came alive for me; West Coast punk rock, to me, was this inpenetrable wall of dark blackness that I could not relate to (with very few exceptions, such as X); Double Nickels On The Dime (the explanation of which I won't spoil, as it's one of the best moments of the film) changed that for me, but it wasn't until I saw the Minutemen live for the first time, opening for R.E.M., that everything fell into place.

I saw a series of at least a dozen R.E.M. shows in the fall and winter of 1985 during which the Minutemen were the opening act, and watching d.boon perform his cannonball-cum-Townshend jumps around the stage every night was nothing short of joyous. So for me personally, it was heartbreaking in the extreme when the film ended with the band discussing the upcoming opening band slot (which was incredibly controversial at the time), and hearing Watt talk about how the last show of the tour, in Charlotte (which I can still close my eyes and remember) was the last time he ever played onstage with d.boon, who died in a car accident several weeks later.

You are left with the indelible sense that d.boon's absence still affects those close to him on a daily basis; Watt most obviously (and heartbreakingly); Ian Mackaye holding up a note he's clearly held onto all these years, alerting him to d.boon's death.

we jam econo is a labor of love, a fitting tribute, a thoroughly professional and well-thought out piece of documentary filmmaking. If you weren't there, it gives you the keys to the kingdom; if you were, it will fill in the holes and leave you smiling and bittersweet and just a little misty. It's loud, it's direct, and it does this band justice. Go see it if it's playing anywhere near you -- but if you can't, there will be a DVD in the fall, which will also contain at least three live shows in their entirety.

[disclaimer: i have contributed to this project in the way of photographs and memorabilia, and appear in the end credits as a result.]

Don Letts' "Punk: Attitude"

This documentary by the infamous Don Letts had its big screening tonight at the Tribeca Film Festival. By 'big' I mean there were so many legends in attendance I gave up sending text message updates to my friend Heather, because it was going to be easier to say 'Everyone was there' in a phone call after the screening. There was also supposed to be an introduction from Letts before the screening (which we mostly got), and a Q&A with him afterwards (which was disappointingly perfunctory at best).

For those of you who aren't aware, Don Letts was the DJ at the Roxy in London, the club of the infamous "100 days of punk" at which every band in the UK punk scene in its heyday performed. When the Roxy began, there were no punk rock records to play, so he played hardcore reggae and dub and is widely credited for helping bring that influence to UK punk rock. He also had his video camera with him, and filmed the embarassingly amateurish Punk Rock Movie, which is nothing more than a bunch of raw footage crudely spliced together (a three year old with a pair of scissors could have done an effective editing job).

The point is, Letts had the access, and the footage, and certainly has the credentials. I remember seeing Don Letts in the car with the Clash as they arrived at Shea Stadium to open for the Who in 1982. So the thought of a documentary on this subject from Letts now was goosebump-inducing.

The film opens with Henry Rollins stating, "All we need is one person to say 'Fuck this' and everyone points at them: 'Voice of a generation! Thank you! I've been thinking that all this time but haven't had the courage to say it myself!" Rollins ends up serving as de facto narrator simply by virtue of the fact that he speaks in soundbytes, is incredibly articulate, and is more than a little knowledgeable on the subject.

Letts operates from the assumption that the audience for the movie will know who the bands are and why they are important, and it doesn't pander; it will be slightly alienating to an outsider but so is punk rock. He nails many important points that so many of his predecesors have gotten wrong: connecting the likes of Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis with punk, pays the proper homage to the MC5 and the Stooges, more than acknowledges the likes of the Sonics, ? and the Mysterians, the Count Five and the rest of the bands that appeared on the original Nuggets compilation put together by Lenny Kaye (who would end up as second in command of the Patti Smith Group, of course). Warhol gets props for his vision of the Velvet Underground: "When their record came out, it was actually listenable," says David Johansen.

The chronology is precise, moving through the early punk bands, getting Hilly Krystal on camera, going to the UK and while he doesn't get it absolutely right, giving the Ramones credit where credit is due, there is at least an acknowledgement of the difference between US and UK punk and a good basic explanation of the political aspects behind UK punk. David Jo gets to diss Malcolm McClaren ("He claims to have managed us, he was there for the last 10 minutes of the Dolls.") There is priceless interview footage with Sylvain Sylvain and the late Arthur Kane that are worth the price of admission alone. There are great interviews with Jim Jarmusch (also another de factor narrator), Roberta Bayley, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon, Siouxie, Steve Jones, Tommy Ramone, Handsome Dick Manitoba, James Chance, Glenn Branca, and Thurston Moore (just to name a few).

But then, once punk has ended, the film begins to flounder. There's an exploration of post-punk and Sonic Youth gets some time on camera, but there is no mention that Thurston used to play with Glenn Branca's guitar orchestras (or even a mention of the guitar orchestras, despite the fact that Branca was interviewed and appears about half a dozen times in the film). Although they certainly belong, it feels like Sonic Youth are worked into the film because Thurston agreed to be interviewed, and there's very little attempt to tie them to the rest of the scene.

However, that's not as bad as what felt like the three minutes the LA punk scene got, a segment that rightly devoted a lot of time to the Screamers, but nothing to the Avengers or the Germs (except in passing), and somehow, John Doe and Exene Cervenka don't exist at all. (I was going to ask Letts about that in the post-screening Q&A, but he tired of it after two questions and cut the session short.) DC punk somehow gets tied in with straight edge (for about thirty seconds), and there's some early Minor Threat and great Fugazi footage, but I can't believe he couldn't get Ian Mackaye to be interviewed for the film.

But none of that compares to the sudden introduction of Nirvana as the prodigal son of punk rock, the master plan come to fruition. There's no discussion of the entire American independent rock movement spearheaded by R.E.M. that was singlehandedly inspired by all the bands that had just been discussed; no Replacements, Husker Du, Minutemen, Pixies -- just suddenly, Nirvana (and zero discussion of Olympia and the K Records scene, also inspired by punk). Even Rollins gets it wrong, saying that once Nirvana were signed, then Alice in Chains got a deal (true) and so did Soundgarden (wrong, they had one about FOUR YEARS EARLIER). There were so many bands in Seattle and "grunge" that were influenced by punk rock that it is an absolute crime that Nirvana are held up as some kind of messiahs.

Then, Letts closes the film by having people -- but not everyone, which I don't understand -- talk about what punk rock meant to them, what the message was. All due respect to Roberta Bayley, but I would have liked to hear more of the musicians chime in on this subject than Letts managed to capture.

In short, "Punk: Attitude" is nice to have, but hardly essential. It is great that we have so many legends captured on film talking since we seem to be losing them every five seconds. But where was all of Letts' fantastic Clash footage? And, he couldn't talk Bob Gruen (who was interviewed for the film) into loaning him two minutes of the Dolls footage that everyone knows he has? Almost all of the live footage has been seen before, and that was probably the most disappointing element of all.

On the other hand, for the 13 year old kids, wearing Ramones shirts, who were there with their parents, this was probably like watching The Ten Commandments, so maybe I've seen too much and expected too much. In the end, I got to sit in a room with Martin Rev and Tommy Ramone and Handsome Dick Manitoba and Arturo Vega and Danny Fields and watch them watch themselves and their friends onstage, so I'm going to stop complaining and feel lucky that I got a chance to do that, and I'd still recommend that you go see it if it comes to your town.

end of the century

I loved the Ramones with all my heart. Like anyone who loved the Ramones, hearing them changed my life, my beliefs, my dreams, it literally altered my spirit. I couldn't be Patti Smith or Chrissie Hynde or Pete Townshend or Keith Richards, but I could put on my ripped Levi's and a white t-shirt and a pair of Converse, and save up my babysitting money to buy a motorcycle jacket and look JUST LIKE THEM. More importantly, they said themselves that they weren't that good, that anyone could do what they did, that everyone should start a band. I was never brave enough to do it but knowing that I could was almost enough in itself. They were freaks, geeks, outlaws, outsiders, comic book characters to some, superheroes to me.

An important part of the Ramones was the characters, the story, the myth, essentially. There wasn't tons of backstory or hours of indepth interviews in the NME you had to commit to heart in order to truly understand them - all you had to do with the Ramones was buy the records, go to the shows, and that was it: you got it. If you wanted it, it was yours to have, to believe in. Despite being one of those obsessive losers who needs to know as much as possible about the music I am listening to, you never really needed to with the Ramones. It was all there on the surface.

So for all these years I have been happy with this fact. But then, back in March, a friend gave me On The Road With The Ramones, written by their road manager, Monte. It's absolutely, utterly fascinating, and well-written to boot. I couldn't put it down, but when I did, my reaction was: "I really wish I didn't know all that stuff about them." The myth was shattered and I don't know whether I'm smarter or a bette r person or if I understand or enjoy their music more because of it. And, my prevailing feeling was that Johnny was a right-wing Republican asshole.

Thursday night, I went to the premiere of this movie tonight, as part of the East Village Festival. It was almost impossible to find out anything about the premiere ahead of time; I finally decided to just walk up to the theater earlier in the day and see if I could buy a ticket. They told me to be there half an hour early, and I was; however, I don't understand why. There was almost no one there, the theater was maybe 1/3 full, and the promised cast and crew attendance was nowhere in sight. I mention all of this because it seems to somewhat parallel what happened with the Ramones: a lot of sound and fury but in the end, they never got the attention and success they deserved.

There was a lot of controversy surrounding the movie; despite being shown at film festivals and gaining approval, they couldn't release it because of what amounted to internecine warfare. Joey left this planet before the filmmakers had a chance to interview him, and therefore the interview footage with him in the movie was insubstantial. Danny Fields (as in "Danny Says," as covered by the Foo Fighters, so I know you know it), former Ramones manager, was quoted as saying that Joey was afraid it was going to be from Johnny's perspective and Johnny was afraid it would be from Joey's perspective. It isn't until you read the book and see the movie that you start to understand what that really means. (I'm not going to spoil it for you if you don't know and wish to remain blissfully ignorant.)

But somehow it all worked out, Joey's story does get represented in the film, and now it's out for everyone to see (follow the link above for the nationwide schedule). This isn't the best rock documentary you will ever see, and it's absolutely not the definitive Ramones story on film. However, it's likely to be the only one we ever get. Joey's gone, Dee Dee followed soon thereafter, and I can't see Johnny being willing to go through all of that again. (Not only was my opinion of Johnny from the book confirmed, it was reinforced from the movie; however, now at least I just feel sorry for him instead of thinking he's just a total dick.)

The Dee Dee footage alone is worth the price of admission. Additionally, some of the last interview footage ever with Joe Strummer is also a centerpiece, Joe relating yet another mythological story, that of the then-fledgling Clash, Sex Pistols, Damned and the rest of the soon-to-be London punk elite turning up at the first U.K. Ramones show and meeting the band (while getting them to sneak them into the gig). Fantastic footage of the hysteria in Brazil surrounding their tour there, courtesy none other than Ramones fan club member Eddie Vedder. Debbie Harry making the unintentionally hilarious observation: "They were very organized." Legs McNeil getting emotional and ranting, "Those songs were classic American pop songs. Why weren't they played on the radio??!"

I understand him, though, because by the time the movie ended, I felt the same way. I felt as though the fact that the Ramones didn't become the biggest band in the world was the biggest travesty of musical injustice the world has ever known. To quote Chris Stein at the beginning of the film, the Ramones should have been like the Stones. There was no good reason they didn't make it. Of course, if they had made it, would they have still been the band that we all looked up to and worshipped, the band that caused dozens and dozens of known and unknown bands to be formed in their wake? Would they have been so beloved and so influential? Probably not.

I walked by Joey Ramone Place on the way home after the movie. As long as I live in a world where such a thing exists, it can't be all bad, can it?

the mc5: a true testimonial

Somehow, astoundingly, Seattle managed to rate a screening of what's turned into an incredibly controversial documentary about the MC5. The fur has been flying in the media and online to such a degree that I turned up at the theater fully expecting to find it had been cancelled. I have been waiting years to see this, and as a fan, it did not disappoint.

I wish I could remember the exact moment I discovered the MC5, or how it even happened; probably some random comment somewhere in a rock magazine or book, and it was authoritative enough to make me dutifully go off and try to find out more about them.

So I've been listening to them for years, and I've even heard bootlegs, I had but I had never SEEN them, you know? It wasn’t anything I ever tracked down, never struck me as that elusive IT that you must see, unlike the Dolls or the Stooges, video footage of those two you could find if you wanted to, easily enough, hell, that footage of Iggy smearing peanut butter on his chest got broadcast on ABC prime time in the 70s... So this was the first time I ever really SAW the MC5.

It was astounding. And astonishing. And it broke my heart because I was not old enough to have been there, to have SEEN that, because it was so truly huge and wonderful and perfect in its rawness and fuck-you-ness. Very few of us can appreciate how truly dangerous it was to get up on a stage in the MIDWEST in the 60s and scream the word "Motherfucker". And there is no way that any of us can know the liberation and danger that Rob Tyner likely felt every time he got to call on the audience to "Kick out the jams, motherfucker!” I mean, talk about the shot heard round the world. It really, truly was a CALL TO ARMS.

When I was younger I always felt left out. I missed the Who with Keith Moon. Missed the Stones when they were "good" (75 and earlier). Should have been a Warhol superstar getting my 15 minutes hanging out at the Factory in the 60's. Should have been at Woodstock. But as I got older and I found my own bands to love in real time, that lessened to an extent.

Saturday afternoon, watching this documentary, that feeling of having missed out was back with a vengance. "Oh my god. I MISSED that!" And yeah, I know, I'm not idealizing anything, I’ve read about how women were treated in the 60s and John Sinclair especially, it’s not like the Trans-Love Energies house was exactly a hotbed of feminism. I didn’t even care, I wanted the rock and roll.

So, jesus.. Fuck! I missed that. I missed it. I missed it and it is gone, gone forever, and the DTK/MC5 tribute tour going out with Wayne and Dennis and Michael - I can’t see the 5 without Rob Tyner’s spirit, or without Fred Sonic Smith. (Although I would go just to see Mark Arm and Mark Lanegan having the time of their lives...)

I don’t understand 1/10th of what all the infighting is between the surviving members of the MC5, the surviving spouses of the deceased members, and the documentary filmmakers. I’ve even had a friend who is an expert at bankruptcy proceedings go through some of this crap in his copious free time and while I am slightly smarter, I am certainly no wiser as to what the real problem is. After seeing the documentary, I came to the realization that I do not care.

I don't care, because at the end of the day, I'm just a fan. I am a fan of this band. And without a doubt, they influenced me profoundly. And as a fan, this documentary is important. It’s not perfect, there are moments that are needlessly hokey, while I feel there are some gaping holes (Where were the interviews with the fans? Or even Dave Marsh and the Creem gang from detroit?) But as a fan, this film moved me. It moved me not because of the actual filmmaking necessarily (I know fuck all about cinema and I won't start to pretend I do now), but because of the story, and of the music, and the energy. That is what moved me.

I loved the story about how the 5, once they became the house band at the Grande Ballroom, and once the Grande Ballroom became part of the circuit and attracted name bands from England and elsewhere, how the 5 would taunt them. "We’re the MC5 and we are going to wipe the floor with you, just so you know." How fucking PERFECT that is. (Why doesn’t anyone do that any more? Are there any opening bands these days that come out to fucking search and destroy? Anyone who gets an opening band gig and goes out there with the sole intent to blow the headliner off the stage?)

What else did I get out of this movie?