Transmission on BBC Radio Four this evening, then presumably moving to BBC Sounds afterwards. Link to programme page in next post. Looks interesting!
Bowie in Berlin Documentary this evening
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Down In the Groove: A Vinyl Documentary (2021) on Amazon Prime
Solid amateur documentary about an interesting subject.
From IMDB: A Documentary film exploring the history and evolution of vinyl records. Featuring Interviews with the experts, musicians and fans alike, ‘Stuck in the Groove’ takes you on a journey of vinyl-mania, music and nostalgia.
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Also Squaring the Circle: The Story of Hipgnosis (2023) on Netflix: Competent and enjoyable documentary that told me nothing I didn’t already know.
Sheryl (2022) on Amazon Freevee
Good documentary about Sheryl Crow (mostly just a feature length interview with her). I learned a few things. It’s not exactly deep and probing as it’s another one of those self-produced and therefore controlled docs that are more of a vanity project or advertisement. Having said that it was good for what it was.
Hallelujah – the movie
Thought the gentlefolk here might be interested in this long ( too long? ) interview with the producers of the documentary about Mr C’s greatest hit. Some of it is a tad…Californian…but if you’re up for a deep dive, jump in.
https://www.westdoconline.com
Good doc on 70s Throbbing Gristle
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This fair took me back to the messy side of the 1970s (at least that which I saw around me, given i was at school for all but a year of it). The number of greatcoat gurus and confused art ponces trying to get their brains back in to their heads after a little too much acid was remarkable, and this is very much how I have seen Genesis P Orridge, the other members of the Throbbing Gristle collective being a little saner but no less weird. Abba, they weren’t. But strangely enough, TG rather defined how things would go in other ways. Maybe that’s the Chris and Cosey element.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0012950/other-like-me-the-oral-history-of-coum-transmissions-and-throbbing-gristle
They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
As seen on BBC2
Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) directed documentary about the British experience of World War 1.
The big deal is that he’s taken creaky black and white footage and colourised it and dubbed on recreated soundtracks (including dialogue identified by lip readers). The intention is to make the Charlie Chaplin figures of war documentaries come alive and feel less like old people from a very long ago time. The technique works and looks great (if a little 40s Technicolor) with only the very occasional odd looking moment (one man’s black hair looked like an oil slick). It achieves the desired effect and brings the footage to life with an immediacy that it previously lacked. A large portion at the start (circa half an hour) and a small section at the end (circa five minutes) are in black and white with maybe an hour in the middle made up of newly coloured material.
The soundtrack is made up of voiceovers by servicemen reminiscing about their experiences. I assume they were recorded several decades after the events described. These voiceovers dominate and we get very little of the newly dubbed soundtracks, but little is said by » Continue Reading.
Don Letts “The Story of Skinhead”
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Well this was a surprise. UKers are probably aware of this from back in the day when it was released, but I’d not seen it on Oz TV. The only reason I watched it was because it was Don Letts and I had enjoyed his ‘Punk’ doco so much. I have to admit, my knowledge of skinhead history was down around the Daily Mail/Express front-page level of ignorance and mis-informed garbage.
It doesn’t help that ‘skinhead’ is now synonymous with ‘fascist’, ‘racist’ and ‘thug’, particularly in other countries. I think I’ll show it to my kids, mainly because the period footage from the early 70s is absolutely how I remember the UK as it was before I left in the 80s (pre-Cool Britannia), and it was why I left. Things might have been better elsewhere around the country at that time, and certainly things have improved since then (but not everywhere), but jeez it was bad. And it was amazing to find out Gary Bushell wasn’t quite as big a tool as I had thought (he’s still a fairly substantial tool though).
Link below.
The Beach Boys Story klaxon
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This six part documentary on The Beach Boys has been broadcast on BBC6 before, but it holds up for another spin/stream. Originally from 1973 and hosted by Bob Harris.
Enjoy!
Gregory Porter’s Popular Voices
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Well worth catching this if you haven’t already been watching it. It’s a fascinating look at different singing styles and how artists have adopted/influenced them.
First two episodes are on iPlayer, final one goes out on BBC4 this Friday.
Documentaries
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Having just signed up with Netflix I have been hammering my documentary addiction of late with Making a Murderer, Kung Fu Elliott, Finders Keepers, Gore Vidal doc as well as revisiting old favourites like Thin Blue Line & Aileen.
I have The Square, West Of Memphis, Central Park 5 and Chuck Morris v Communism lined up but any recommendations of unusual, oddball or just plain great factual films you’ve seen lately?
Non musical as I’ve pretty much done those
Psychedelic Britannia
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Friday 23rd October, 10pm on BBC4:
“Documentary exploring the rise and fall of the most visionary period in British music history. Five kaleidoscopic years between 1965 and 1970 when a handful of dreamers re-imagined pop music.
When a generation of British R&B bands discovered LSD, conventions were questioned. From out of the bohemian underground and into the pop mainstream, the psychedelic era produced some of the most ground-breaking music ever made, pioneered by young improvising bands like Soft Machine and Pink Floyd, then quickly taken to the charts by the likes of the Beatles, Procol Harum, the Small Faces and the Moody Blues even while being reimagined in the country by bucolic, folk-based artists like the Incredible String Band and Vashti Bunyan.
The film is narrated by Nigel Planer with contributions and freshly-shot performances from artists who lived and breathed the psych revolution – Paul McCartney, Ginger Baker, Robert Wyatt, Roy Wood, the Zombies, Mike Heron, Vashti Bunyan, Joe Boyd, Gary Brooker, Arthur Brown, Kenney Jones, Barry Miles, the Pretty Things and the Moody Blues.”
Maximum R&B
BBC 6Music have a two-part documentary on the Birth of The Who starting this Sunday, for those ageing Mods amongst us…..
http://www.modculture.co.uk/coming-up-on-bbc-6music-maximum-rb-the-birth-of-the-who/
… and the next band to get the Documentary treatment: The Damned
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Official trailer for the film THE DAMNED: Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead, the authorized documentary of the punk pioneers. Directed/produced by Wes Orshoski (co-director/producer of “LEMMY”), the film features all four original members of the Damned (Captain Sensible, Dave Vanian, Brian James and Rat Scabies), plus appearances by Chrissie Hynde (Pretenders), Mick Jones (The Clash), Steve Diggle (Buzzcocks), actor/comedian Fred Armisen, Nick Mason (Pink Floyd), Duff McKagan (Guns N Roses), Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead), Keith Morris (Black Flag/Circle Jerks/OFF!), Dexter Holland (The Offspring) and many more. Shot around the world over the past four years, the film makes its debut at SXSW in March 2015. The third prong in the holy trinity of UK punk, with the Sex Pistols and the Clash, The Damned were the first U.K. punks to release a single (“New Rose”) and album (“Damned Damned Damned”), and the first to tour the U.S. Having logged hits in the punk, new wave and goth eras, they are one of the only surviving bands from punk’s first wave.
(the above text was nicked from the YouTube page)
One to add to my “Must See” List
