Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison

By Christian Lipski

I took a class on Ancient Roman history once, and slogged my way through the textbook and its dry recounting of the emperors’ lives. Later I discovered Robert Graves’ historical fiction I, Claudius and suddenly the facts came to life. The personalization of the information made it more real to me, and I actually learned more through that book than my class. Presentation can mean a lot, even when the material is lifeless. This is what director Joel Gilbert puts into effect with his film Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison, which gives a living voice to the “Paul is dead” phenomenon.
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GOLD: Before Woodstock, Beyond Reality DVD

By Matt Keeley

GOLD: Before Woodstock, Beyond Reality is a 40-year-old lost film starring a comedy hero, Del Close. Like another film by a comedy hero, Savages (a Merchant-Ivory film written by Michael O’Donoghue), it’s a noble failure.
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The Rolling Stones 1969-1974: The Mick Taylor Years DVD

By Danny R. Phillips

It would’ve been easy to make a documentary about The Rolling Stones’ golden age (Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street) completely flattering and slanted. That is not what the makers of this DVD did.

They recognize glaring mistakes (the two or three albums past Exile) as well as acknowledge The Stones’ experimentation and expansion into country, due in no small part to the presence of guitarist Mick Taylor (who had just left The Bluesbreakers) and Gram Parsons (The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers) and his own fast friendship with Keith Richards as both drug buddy and musical touchstone.
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Howe Gelb, ‘Sno Angel Winging It (Live) CD + DVD

By J Howell

A few years back, I read about what at the time seemed like the most bizarre thing I’d ever heard of: a Howe Gelb record that featured the Giant Sand mainstay with a Canadian Gospel Choir.

Now, I’d been a Giant Sand fan for a while at that point. I’d seen Gelb solo live a couple of years before, opening for John Parish. During his set he improvised a song about the wobbly fan onstage; at one point he even played guitar with his hands while banging on the piano with his feet. His only instructions to the soundman that night were, and I quote, “Can you make this guitar loud as fuck?”
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John Lennon: Rare and Unseen DVD

By John Lane

The problem with the release of The Beatles’ Anthology video in the late ’90s is that it has spoiled Beatles fans the world over. Add to that the ever-flowing river that is YouTube, which has made curiosity-seekers even more complacent. Want to see a Beatles 1966 press conference? Bingo, with the click of a button you have your pick.

Perhaps it is the veritable abundance of organized material available to the average and dedicated fans that makes the DVD release of John Lennon: Rare and Unseen all the more disappointing and confusing. If I was in the eighth grade and had not yet seen the release of the Anthology or the birth of YouTube, then I might consider this DVD to be a kick. As it stands, maybe I’m just too jaded.
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Kinks Kommentary: CD, DVD, And Live Reviews

By Julie Finley

My fandom with the Kinks goes back as far as pre-school age. They are the reason I love and obsess over music as much as I do, and they raised the bar of excellence for my tastes to follow throughout my life.

They are not a recent fad with me. I didn’t decide they were great once I heard The Village Green Preservation Society, like bullshitting journalists out there claim to give themselves street-cred. I even obsessed over them during the ’80s when it wasn’t cool to like them! So, my reviews come from a lifetime commitment of love and knowledge. . . which are going to be exceedingly honest. The following reviews are listed in chronological order based upon when I first observed them.
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Arcadia, So Red The Rose Special Edition

By Less Lee Moore

One would think that with so many Duran Duran CDs, at least six Duran Duran DVDs, and a box of VHS tapes, I’d have enough to satisfy me. But as Hamlet used to say, it’s “As if increase of appetite had grown/By what it fed on.” And if you think that sounds pretentious, you should listen to Arcadia’s So Red The Rose.

Now now, calm down. I kid. I kid because I love. For those who haven’t been Duranies since the dawn of the ’80s, I’ll fill you in: Arcadia was a side project of Duran Duran members Nick Rhodes, Simon LeBon, and Roger Taylor. The band came to fruition in 1985, after the release of Duran Duran’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger album.
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Suburbia Collector’s Edition

By Less Lee Moore

One weekend in 1986, a friend of mine invited me and a bunch of other freak friends over to watch Suburbia, Penelope Spheeris’ quasi-documentary look at the early ’80s punk scene. My memory is fuzzy on the details of the plot; I mostly remember being disturbed by the other movie we watched, Faces of Death. I do remember that everyone else in the group, some of whom looked somewhat similar to the punk teens examined in Suburbia, were merciless in mocking it; to this day, I still recall the particular scorn they heaped upon the T.R. “gang” depicted in the film, T.R. standing, of course, for “The Rejected.”

I had not seen Suburbia again until this latest Collector’s Edition DVD, so like with Rock ‘n’ Roll High School’s reissue, I was curious to see if the movie was actually good (or what actually took place in the movie). I think it’s actually worse than I remembered.
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I Need That Record! The Death (Or Possible Survival) Of The Independent Record Store

By Less Lee Moore

I Need That Record! purports to be a “documentary feature examining why over 3,000 independent record stores have closed across the US in the past decade.” But it’s much more than that. In truth, the film does a splendid job of not only showing the causal links that led to this somewhat alarming situation, but also asking, answering, and ultimately, allowing its viewers to weigh in on what this really means.
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Rock ‘n’ Roll High School 30th Anniversary Special Edition

By Less Lee Moore

Although for many, The Ramones represent the birth of the US punk scene in the ’70s, I was only about three years old when the band first formed in 1974. For me, The Ramones were the four weird-looking, tall dudes who kept popping up in promos for MTV in 1981. Most of the videos in the early days of MTV were fairly bizarre; at that point the channel would show any videos they could and the shift to glamorous, new wave pretty boys had not yet occurred. However, even amongst Loverboy, Meatloaf, Split Enz, and The Tubes, The Ramones looked pretty damn strange.

I didn’t see Rock ‘n’ Roll High School until a few years later, when I’d officially hit my own teenage years. I remember feeling confused and vaguely uncomfortable, not totally grasping why it was supposed to be so great. The news of the upcoming release of a 30th Anniversary Special Edition made me curious to see how the film as aged. Would it be funny? Would it be relevant?

Thankfully, the answer to both questions is, “YES.”
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