As different as they are, both films showcase Copeland’s dynamic range and knack for emotional arrangements (he’s a favored collaborator too, having worked with various filmmakers multiple times, including Loach and Dickerson). And they give you something to enjoy during the wait for Copeland’s next project, the profoundly awesome-looking Ben Hur Live, to hit a town near you!
Has anyone ever reflected that it isn’t just STUPID that music video channels no longer run music videos, but WRONG as well? Isn’t it a bit silly that MTV spends more time showing artists’ homes than they do their videos?
The internet has pretty much overtaken music video channels for showing music video. And even though music companies are cracking down on users posting music videos without their permission, more sensible companies are setting up their own YouTube channels to show archival music videos from their artists. Though there’s still plenty that’s not available on line, there’s still several libraries worth of audiovisual wonders – I startled myself this morning by finding an Arcadia video that a friend swore existed over 20 years ago but that I never saw (directed by Russell Mulcahy, no less).
And if, like me, you’re musically stuck in the 80s, do check out Australian Made, a lively concert documentary featuring many of Oz’s finest musicians. INXS’ performance of “Melting in the Sun” which opens the film is worth the rental fee on its own - there are other great performances from Models, The Saints, The Divynls, and I’m Talking (half of whom this 80s-loving scribe hadn’t even heard of).
The creation of LincVolt (Young’s beloved 1959 Lincoln Continental, now a fuel-efficient, zero emissions, environmentally friendly dream machine for the 21st century) has been Young’s obsession for the last year. The issues surrounding both the pollution of the world and the LincVolt’s role in reducing it are explored in Young’s brand new album, Fork In The Road. And now Jaman users around the world can see the LincVolt tearing down America’s highways in the exclusive music video Get Around.
Directed by Bernard Shakey (Young’s filmmaking alter ego), Get Around offers a real-time trip in LincVolt, with Young himself behind the wheel singing the songs from Fork In The Road. Reminiscent of the road movies of Wim Wenders (with perhaps a bit of Zabriskie Point era Antonioni in there as well), Get Around continues Young’s career-long exploration of other media. Bernard Shakey’s first feature, 1974’s Journey Through The Past, captured the members of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young both on the rock stage and in the mundane realities of touring. More recently, Greendale took on various lives as an album, a film, and a multi-media stage performance.
So it should come as no surprise that the LincVolt project should manifest as a film in addition to its other iterations (a documentary website; the album Fork in The Road; and the planned journey to Washington). In the end, Get Around is a remarkable (if minimalistic) music video, both a calling card for the ambitious and politically charged LincVolt project and a compelling portrait of life on the American road, ca. 2009.
A classic car on an open road, with rock ‘n’ roll blazing on the stereo, is as iconic and American an image as apple pie. In Get Around, Young (and Shakey) give the image a profound (and ROCKING) 21st century update.
Get Around is available to Jaman’s users all over the world FREE. Take the ride!
The Jaman universe was all abuzz last summer when we brought you the powerful and rockin’ documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad. Uncertainty and concern continued in office for the band, who continued to try and rock out amidst the dangerous cultural reaction to their band. We just got word that they have migrated to the States and on only their second day in the country, the got to celebrate their new home with the Godfathers of Metal: Metallica.
Here are some highlights from the recent New York Times article:
Acrassicauda had been through hell as a rock band in wartime Baghdad. Its practice space was bombed. Its members were branded Satan worshipers and received death threats for making Western-style music. Then they suffered through two purgatorial years as refugees in Syria and Turkey, killing time and dreaming of rocking out in the land of the free.
And on Sunday night, two days after the last of the band’s four members was resettled in the United States, they enjoyed what any metal fan would have to call heaven: bearhugs and “Wow, dude” heart-to-hearts backstage with Metallica at the Prudential Center in Newark. It probably wasn’t necessary for James Hetfield, Metallica’s lead singer, to surprise them after the show by handing over one of his guitars, a black ESP, and signing it “Welcome to America”; their minds were already blown.
“That’s for keeping the faith,” Mr. Hetfield said, adding as he disappeared with his entourage down a corridor, “Write some good riffs.”
Acrassicauda’s rock ’n’ roll faith was traced in a documentary, “Heavy Metal in Baghdad,” released in 2007. That film portrayed the members as ordinary if tenacious rock Joes amid the most extraordinary circumstances, and they continue to embody those roles in their new lives. (click here for full article)
Gogol Bordello is one of my absolute favorite bands. Me and accordions and gypsy music, we all just get a little crazy together. When Jaman first got the Gogol Bordello documentary The Pied Piper of Hutznovia I dragged friends over to all watch it together. And then I watched it again. Honestly I think the folks in the office were happy when I got some headphones since they were just hearing the same addictive bouncy amazing accordion songs over and over coming from my desk. I’ve been sharing the link to the film with countless accordion buddies in anticipation for the Gogol Bordello appearances this weekend in San Francisco at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and at the Benefit for Muttville at Slim’s music club.
Today though, my excitement and joy just went through the roof when I got a link to the below trailer in my email. First of all, it’s Madonna’s directorial debut - and that alone would make me want to check out the film. However, Madonna AND Eugene Hutz?!?! The film is called Filth and Wisdom and it just looks so good. Funny, smart and totally sexy.
As a teenager in the 1980s, my ears and eyes became gradually attuned to New York’s East Village music and art scene only after its heyday. As a result, though I’d heard her work and seen the occasional video here and there, it was only after the peak of her fame that I started seriously looking at and listening to the work of singer/model/actor/force of nature Grace Jones.
In addition to showcasing her otherworldly and often intimidating persona, the music of Grace Jones often seems to define entire genres. In particular, her video/concert A One Man Show from 1980 (conceived and directed by her key late 70s collaborator Jean-Paul Goude) captured a moment and a place where disco and funk turned into new wave.
Jones’ mercurial (difficult, some would argue) nature means that she’s not a prolific artist. And so the video for Corporate Cannibal, the first salvo from her forthcoming album Hurricane, is both a welcome surprise and a surprise attack. Directed by visual artist Nick Hooker, it retains many aspects of Jones’ earlier work, from the distortion of her physical appearance to a musical outlook that both summarizes the past and lays groundwork for the future (some hear 1990sMassive Attack in it; I hear Bowie’s work from the same period). Hooker’s deceptively simple and very stark visual approach both to the song and Jones herself completely suit the song’s lyrics, which give every indication that Jones is ready, once again, to conquer the world. Her battleground is you.
Steven Shaviro’s incisive commentary on the video is here; a cleaner (but non-embeddable) version of the video is on Hooker’s site, here.
and the movie ain’t too shabby either! Check out the movie Dil Se for the song “Chaiyya Chaiyya”. For non-Indian cinema people, you may know this song from the first scene from Spike Lee’s movie, “Inside Man”. Dil Se
