Very cool look at the music scene in L.A.'s Laurel Canyon. Interesting way of telling the story...Jakob Dylan, Beck, Cat Power and others alternating playing songs by and interviewing memmbes of names including The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, and The Mamas and the Papas. Lots of cameos. Definitely worth a watch for music fans of the mid-late 60s.
Speaking of Beck. I have never come close to figuring him out. Sometimes I believe he's the most brilliant artist I've ever heard and others I have no clue what he's doing. Definitely a unique talent.
That said, it didn't really feel like there was a story to be told, there. We're all familiar with the music, but it just didn't feel like a unique "scene" vs. any other musical scene. A group of like minded musicians living in the same area jam together. That's the story.
I wanted to like it more than I did, especially with it being one of Tom Petty's last interviews.
I think the story was just as you described, how the scene came together. I liked hearing from Crosby, Michelle Phillips, Brian Wilson, Roger McGuinn...always like hearing their perspectives
California Dreamin’ was me 7-8th grade cafeteria and Go Where You Want to Go with Cat Power singing You Don’t Understand after Michele Phillips explains exactly why John Pihillips wrote the song about her many sexual betrayals of him, with Denny and others? Is that not both great music and great documentary?
And the Byrds, and CSN, and Buffalo Springfield, one of the greatest R&R bands of all time.?
I’m not quite sure what those of you want out of a music documentary...
It should have had more to the interviews, or more of the performances, or more of the history & archival footage.
California Dreamin’ was me 7-8th grade cafeteria and Go Where You Want to Go with Cat Power singing You Don’t Understand after Michele Phillips explains exactly why John Pihillips wrote the song about her many sexual betrayals of him, with Denny and others? Is that not both great music and great documentary?
And the Byrds, and CSN, and Buffalo Springfield, one of the greatest R&R bands of all time.?
I’m not quite sure what those of you want out of a music documentary...
I'm 44 (as of yesterday), and I love that era of music.
My knock on the doc wasn't the music itself, but rather a. Jakob Dylan's relentless self promotion in it, and b. it didn't tell me anything I didn't really already know.
You want to see what a good musical doc/film? Watch something by Danny Clinch. Or Peter Bogdanovich's 4 hour Tom Petty Doc Runnin Down a Dream, or Cameron Crowe's Pearl Jam 20 doc.
Festival Express - ( New Window )
For me, I'm a Neil Young homer, so I greatly enjoyed all the Buffalo Springfield stuff, LOVED the emotional buildup at the end to 'Expecting to Fly' - a underrated, under-the-radar, absolutely phenomenal song by Young.
I love the music of the era tho, so I will see it soon.
Happy Birthday Britt!
Also, I think think I was wrong - it was Jade, not Cat Power, who had that great moment in Go Where You Wanna’ Go. And I agree that Jakob and his co-producer could have used some less screen time. As to Joanie, maybe the simple answer is she wasn’t interested in being in the film. Neil only appeared during the credits playing guitar by himself in a studio.
Also two British movies: Yesterday and Blinded by the Light.
Finally, Ken Burns' series on Country Music. I'm not a big CM fan but watching the series I realized that a lot of the musicians I like are considered to be Country Music. It was excellent.
Here's a picture from a party at Mama Cass's house. Eric Clapton with the best seat in the house.
"Julien Temple's "Oil City Confidential" is the last film in his trilogy on British music of the 1970s. It is a prequel to his landmark films about punk figureheads the Sex Pistols in "The Filth & The Fury" and Joe Strummer in "The Future Is Unwritten." Oil City Confidential is a film noir feature length documentary and about Dr. Feelgood; it's the story of four men in cheap suits who crashed out of Canvey Island in the early '70s, sandpapered the face of rock'n'roll and left all that came before a burnt-out ruin, four estuarine John-the-Baptists to Johnny Rotten's anti-Christ. Cannibalizing the visual flotsam and jetsam of our society, welding into an emotionally engaging and humorous whole, "Oil City Confidential" sets out to explore this unique time, place and social landscape - all of which was responsible for shaping the identity of the band and which, more than any other, defined the strange cultural vacuum which existed before the coming of punk rock."
I had never heard of Dr. Feelgood before seeing the documentary several years ago, and I was astonished by Wilko Johnson and his guitar playing style. Blown away. He's a demon on stage. This is a GREAT flick to watch late on a Saturday night with a good scotch....or a shitty beer...