Not So Fabulous Lifestyles...

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Fabulous Stains (1981)
Director- Lou Adler
Starring- Diane Lane, Ray Winstone, Laura Dern

Corinne Burns (Lane), an orphaned, angst-ridden teen living in a washed-up town forms a band with two of her cousins and strikes a chord with other disillusioned youth. Soon the band finds themselves headlining with the Looters, and Burns sees all the good and bad sides to touring.
Her fans imitate her, seeing in her that part of them that wanted to scream out all their lives and thinking themselves unique, when the Looters' frontman Billy (Winstone) gives them--and Corinne--a rude awakening.

It was cool to see some vastly different personalities in these bands. Billy and Corinne are both brooding and insecure, trying to give the audiences something different while keeping their integrity somewhat intact. Corinne's cousins act and feel as if they're simply along for the ride--which they are. They can barely play any instruments, have little money, and soon miss their home lives as the road becomes longer.

There are also some interesting personalities in the Metal Corpses, essentially a has-been band trying to keep itself alive with a strange frontman who managed to so far stave off STD's and a drugged addled guitarist who probably never knew where he was.

All roles were played very well, very convincingly. The advice from the "has-beens" goes unheeded, and ironically makes sense. It's a good depiction of band relations/tensions, broken families, and also kids coming to the realization that for all the bad in their lives, they are in fact still kids.

Rating: 4/5 Bonedaddies.

Blues Legends Collide

Crossroads (1986)
Director- Walter Hill
Starring- Ralph Macchio, Joe Seneca, Jami Gertz

Classical guitar prodigy and aspiring blues musician Eugene (Macchio) discovers that Willie Brown (Seneca), a blues legend and friend to the (in)famous Robert Johnson is holed up in a hospital nearby. Eugene finds him and manages to smuggle him out of the hospital so they can find the "Crossroads" where he and Johnson both made their deals to become famous, and Eugene can learn of Johnson's "final song", which was never recorded and which Willie supposedly knows. Along the way, they trade out Eugene's guitar for a Fender Telecaster & pignose amp, Eugene learns to play with a slide, they cross paths with teenaged drifter Frances (Gertz), Eugene falls in love & gets his heart broken, and finds the real meaning behind blues.

There is tons of great guitar playing, some great interaction between Eugene and Willie (especially in tense moments, like when he accuses Willie of being a fake), and an unlikely-but fun scene in which Willie saves Eugene's bacon by getting him to play on stage in a bar full of black people in a heavily segregated part of town.

In the end, they make their destination, and Willie meets up with the "grandson" of his dealmaker. H invites Willie to a contest, which Eugene accepts in his stead, and we're treated to a real guitar duel between Eugene and "Jack Butler" (Steve Vai). The contest is incredible, and Eugene finds he must employ his classical training to help get an edge on Butler.

I had a little theory that Willie Brown is the Devil himself in this movie, shaking hands with Eugene at the end and promising to make him a great blues musician. It would have been a pretty good punchline, but I don't think the theory holds much weight. Just a fun thought.

Rating: 5/5 Bonedaddies.

The "Rock 'n' Roll N****r Experience"

Afro Punk (2003)

Director- James Spooner

African Americans are present in the punk scene, though not in large numbers. The question that is asked, and apparently affirmatively answered, is "Can Afro and Punk go together?"

I have some problems with this documentary. First, I cannot take much more of punks (or every other subculture for that matter) thinking that they're incredibly unique in their philosophy of life and music. "This is a fresh and original sound," "we were playing this music/dressing like this before it was cool"... Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. Blues was accepted by rebels when it first appeared. Bluegrass as well. Your music is a cultural trend, just like Rock, Country, Blues, Classical, etc. When you get old, chances are good that you won't like the music of today's youth for one reason or another. And stating you did anything "before it was cool" is essentially nothing more than an attempt at aknowledging that you are "ccol" because you were somehow original. I'm heavily into Rockabilly, but I don't kid myself that it hasn't been done. I just love the sound, whether it's Buddy Holly, Reverend Horton Heat, or the Koffin Kats.

One guy stated in the documentary that he was an anarchist who believed in peace. Peace implies maintained order, which is only attainable through structure. Anarchy politically existing without a government, without state/county/city police departments, without a judicial system. Without a judicial system, there is no mandated form of punishment, giving free reign to violence, whether it be present in a crime, or in the punishment. No peace. Sorry, guy, you're an idiot just trying to sound cool.

My last problem is the percieved racial exclusivity of certain genres of music. Whites stole the blues from blacks. Whites are trying to steal rap and R&B from blacks. Blacks steal rock (or rather rock samples) from whites. A couple musicians implied that Punk music may have had more black origins and was more influenced by black music. True or not, it implies that once again, whites have taken black music. This seems to imply that white people should stick to their European classical music, their pianos and lutes and such. Again, bullshit. On all honesty, Puff Daddy didn't steal the melody from Kashmir any more than Elvis stole blues from Robert Johnson any more than Rockabilly stole country from God-fearing whites any more than Sid Vicious stole fashions from the Furious Five any more than Screamin' Jay Hawkins stole piano from Beethoven. It's music, people. Just get a beat going, play something, and shut the fuck up...unless your the singer, that is.

The documentary did, hoever, bring up the important issue of the role of race/culture in influencing musical interests. Many blacks interviewed aknowledged a certain amount of self-loathing at not being accepted by other blacks for prefering to attach themselves to the punk subculture. It is followed by self-acceptance, fortunately, but bitterness still accompanies. There was also a curiously frequently feeling of jealous covetousness involved when one black punk saw another black punk in the same club.

Rating: 2/5 Bonedaddies.

Walkin' Hard, or Hardly Walkin'?

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)

Director- Jake Kasdan

Starring- John C. Reilly, Tim Meadows, Jenna Fischer

This Biopic spoof takes a look at the life of Dewey Cox (Reilly), a man who lives in the monstrous shadow of his older brother whom he had accidentally killed in boyhood by slicing him in half with a machete. As pennance, Cox realized he must become "double-great" to redeem himself. His father, throughout the movie finds every opportunity to mutter "the wrong son died!" and doesn't forgive him until he accidentally cuts himself in half.

In the meantime, Dewey Cox realizes he has a gift for music that people respond to. Despite his wife's disapproval, he pursues his musical career and becomes one of the biggest, and in some cases most infamous name in music. Along with the fame, however, comes all the weirdness and dark spots: monkey-owning, drug-taking, sex-with-strangers-having, wife-cheating, etc. He also meets the love of his life in Darlene Madison (Fischer), and gets married to her, "forgetting" about his first marriage. After getting hooked on LSD, Cox attempts to write his "opus", and practically invites members of every culture in to help, create a giant saturated mess of a song that no one knows the meaning of. It gets so out of hand, that his own band members--who were not given parts to play in this mega-song, quit the band.

Cox loses the love of his life, quits music, makes peace with his dad, and reconnects with his many sons and daughters. Life becomes peaceful for him, and when Darlene walks back into his life it's almost complete. Soon after, he is beckoned back onto the stage after being gone 25 years by his legions of fans, old and new. He writes one last great song called "Beautiful Ride", an equal to his first great "Walk Hard", and according to a postscript dies three minutes after performing it with his old band on stage.

This movie was funny on a lot of levels, though it tried too hard a couple times. The Cox jokes and the sexually suggestive duet between him and Darlene are juvenile but clever nonetheless, and hey- I still laughed. Every time he comes into contact with a music legend, he makes sure to say their full name, just in case we don't recognize them, I guess. It got old, but how else would we have known Frankie Munez was playing Buddy Holly (I did appreciate the humor in that one, though--especially contrasted with John C. Reilly playing a 14 version of Dewey and looking like a full grown adult) Jack White as Elvis was pretty awesome, too.

The music was well-written, probably with help from SNL cast members, and there was even a touch here and there of sadness. "(Have You Heard the News) Dewey Cox Died" was actually kind of haunting.

Rating: 4/5 Bonedaddies.