I went on a Netflix Watch Instantly music doc binge

[mathias]

Last of the Mississippi Juke Joints

Buena Vista Social Club

Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco

The Flaming Lips: The Fearless Freaks

To watch yet: The Moog documentary.

I didn't watch these all today, but I did finish the Last of the Mississippi Jukes and Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart tonight. I've slowly been watching them when I have time.

Also, I saw the Les Paul exhibit at our science & technology museum today with my awesome girlfriend. Here's Les Paul's "Log" guitar:

[sjtele]

Great flicks! I've been trying to make my way through a similar list when I have time. The Wilco one is really good, also check out Ashes of American Flags, incredible footage. Loved the Moog documentary, great insight into the man and the impact his work had.

[mathias]

Great flicks! I've been trying to make my way through a similar list when I have time. The Wilco one is really good, also check out Ashes of American Flags, incredible footage. Loved the Moog documentary, great insight into the man and the impact his work had.

Yep - I own the Ashes of American Flags DVD I'm a huge Wilco nerd. My last.fm is testament to it; I've listened to more Wilco than The Beatles according to it.

[sjtele]

Very cool! I've seen them a bunch of times, always an amazing show. Really love what Nels has brought to the game too.

[imonthestereo]

YHF is one of my favorite albums. Really wish Jay Bennett was still alive/in the band, though. I feel like he was a really good foil to Jeff Tweedy and was instrumental in making those songs on YHF really transcendent. Obviously they had their issues, as I've had with bands of my own, but I wish they could have worked it out. It seems to me, at least from the evidence in I'm Trying to Break Your Heart that Jay basically conceived of all the cool noise/soundscape stuff on the record and worked out a lot of the clever/interesting arrangements. This kind of also explains why their more recent output has been a little more straight-ahead. For an album of primarily ballads, YHF still manages to cover a ton of ground.

[imonthestereo]

P.S.

Slow Century, Power of Salad and Milkshakes, and the Scott Walker movie are worth watching. I was a little disappointed in Slow Century, but it was fun to see those guys dicking around and gain the tiniest bit of insight about them as a unit.

In fact, I find a lot of these type of docs don't necessarily fulfill a lot of the questions and things I'm interested in, but still have merit as entertainment.

[mathias]

YHF is one of my favorite albums. Really wish Jay Bennett was still alive/in the band, though. I feel like he was a really good foil to Jeff Tweedy and was instrumental in making those songs on YHF really transcendent. Obviously they had their issues, as I've had with bands of my own, but I wish they could have worked it out. It seems to me, at least from the evidence in I'm Trying to Break Your Heart that Jay basically conceived of all the cool noise/soundscape stuff on the record and worked out a lot of the clever/interesting arrangements. This kind of also explains why their more recent output has been a little more straight-ahead. For an album of primarily ballads, YHF still manages to cover a ton of ground.

Yeah, I've been hearing Wilco described more and more as "dad rock" with their latest albums. It's also a reason why I've started trying to proactively listen to more and more different music. I don't want to fall into that trap of simple chord progressions and uninteresting songs/lyrics.

Although I was listening to a lot of stuff through high school (I bought some music history books and bought records to give myself a tour of blues, jazz, country, early rock, etc.), my mainstays were listening to YHF & A Ghost in Born during that time. It's what I had in the car CD deck, what I had on my computer to listen to, etc.

[Seedy]

Please watch WE JAM ECONO: The Story of the Minutemen. Great band, great clips, great doc all around.

Also watch "You're gonna miss me" about Roky Erickson (13th floor Elevators) slowly (or rapidly) going crazy.

[imonthestereo]

Oh yeah, We Jam Econo is one of the best I've seen, as it actually gives a sort of narrative of the band instead of just plopping you in the middle of a particular album or whatever. I guess the end isn't great, though. Kind of peters out.

[mathias]

They didn't know about tuning strings. They just thought some guys liked loose strings and some guys liked them tight.

[imonthestereo]

I still lol at that. But it's a kind of beautiful naivety, really.

[StudioShutIn]

Some of the Classic Albums series are pretty good...they tell the stories of how certain classic albums were created (info about the artistic side..how the songs were developed, and then the more technical in-the-studio stuff..pretty cool in my book )

[kbit]

I tried watching the Moog documentary, but it didn't keep my attention at all.
/shinfo

[jfrey]

I really liked Anvil! The Story of Anvil, and Until the Light Takes Us.

[mathias]

Oh yeah, We Jam Econo is one of the best I've seen, as it actually gives a sort of narrative of the band instead of just plopping you in the middle of a particular album or whatever. I guess the end isn't great, though. Kind of peters out.

Some of the Classic Albums series are pretty good...they tell the stories of how certain classic albums were created (info about the artistic side..how the songs were developed, and then the more technical in-the-studio stuff..pretty cool in my book )

I am not a fan of the music documentaries that treat the band dynamics as some sort of dysfunctional family, rather than trying to show how it works for them and pointing out that it's their /job/.

Also tired of documentaries presenting musicians as some kind of prodigy, instead of going over all the hard work it took to get them there. Most music docs seem to follow the format of: mix live performance with discussing their early lives / where they came from, show the main talent as incredibly gifted and maybe just plain lucky, and ignore the creative process, hard work, years on the road, etc.

I also hate when they interview people who are only tangentially related and have nothing real to offer -- I want to hear from the people themselves, not the editor of a magazine or someone who was listening to their music a decade ago.

Also, yes, fans are great, but panning shots of the crowd / fans for five minutes while music plays does not make me want to watch your documentary.