DVD, Blu-ray and TV

Crowd control: Minor Threat’s Ian MacKaye

PUNK THE CAPITAL: BUILDING A SOUND MOVEMENT

WIENERWORLD

8/10

AStheybickered throughout the fnal days of Minor Threat, drummer Jef Nelson told singer Ian MacKaye that – as unwashed jocks from the ’burbs started to infltrate their well-marshalled scene – he wasn’t really enjoying playing with the DC hardcore giants any more. Righteous fre forever burning in hiseyes,MacKayereplied:“It’snot supposedtobefun.”

Packedwithgreatfootageand interviews,JamesJuneSchneider andPaulBishow’sexcellentdocon theevolutionofWashington,DC’s mutantstrainofpunkshowshow ateenagepassionmorphedintoa full-oncrusade.Thecomic-store nerdsandClashcopyistswhofrst thrashedouttunesatTheKeg(“a heavymetaldumpnexttoastrip bar”,sosaystheSlickeeBoys’ Howard Wuelfng) in the late ’70s were crowded out by shavenheaded, middle-class hellions seeking a riot entirely of their own.

DC was a musical hinterland in the 1970s, with foundational punk acts such as Overkill and father-and-son shock-rockers White Boy (Google with care) pairing ripped T-shirts with fares and long hair as they sought new ways to tell the world that disco sucked. However, that tiny world began to expand when Bad Brains – black, jazz-fusion heads inspired by “positive mental attitude” self-help guru Napoleon Hill’s 1937 manual Think And Grow Rich – heard the Sex Pistols and the Dead Boys and decided that they could do it better.

“We listened to the Ramones and The Damned and we said, ‘Well, they’re jumping so we’re gonna jump too, but we gotta be able to jump higher, quicker,’” remembers guitarist Darryl Jenifer. They raised the musical tempo as well. As Jenifer puts it: “If the Ramones think they’re playing fast, watch this.”

High-energy footage confrms Bad Brains’ reputation as a life-altering live band, but if their departure for New York – and back-fipping singer HR’s subsequent mental health issues – was a setback for DC, the baton was taken up by Woodrow Wilson High School classmates MacKaye and Nelson. Their frst band, the Teen Idles, achieved moderate local success before splitting in 1980. With the fnal $600 in their band account, they made a record. The frst release on their Dischord label, it was the start of a campaign to defne and document an inward-looking Washington sound, unsullied by the need for critical approval they perceived in nearby New York. As Nelson puts it: “When you’re working in isolation, sometimes you come up with the best stuf.”

Nelson and MacKaye’s next act proved that – as important as Black Flag or Ramones in defning the evolution of the US underground, Minor Threat were lightning fast, with killer shout-along choruses. When future Black Flag singer and DC scenester Henry Rollins saw their frst shows, he thought: “Finally we have our Beatles.”

Minor Threat also had a message. Annoyed at the Sid Vicious-style “self-destructive junkie culture” prevalent in punk circles, MacKaye evolved an aggressively wholesome no-alcohol, no-drugs, no-casualsex ethos, which Minor Threat espoused in songs such as “Straight Edge” and “Out Of Step”. Footage of a topless MacKaye inviting audience participation at one gig shows how efectively he got that across.

Punk The Capital perhaps downplays how obnoxious and violent MacKaye and his crew were at this messianic peak, but it shows how increasingly intense male bonding at gigs fractured the once small, supportive, women-friendly DC scene. Headcases, misogynists and white supremacists entered the moshpit, while MacKaye’s ascetic values seeded more intolerant scenes in Boston, New York and beyond. Determined anti-careerists, Minor Threat got out while they were up, dissolving along with the other key Dischord bands – SOA, Faith et al – to regenerate into a next wave of less didactic DC acts: Rites Of Spring, Dag Nasty, and MacKaye’s Embrace and Fugazi.

The wealth of great video footage in Punk The Capital underlines what made DC hardcore unique; the main protagonists were not marginal dropouts, as they were in New York and California, but the well-heeled, eloquent children of admirals, diplomats and journalists, with the will and means to succeed without outside support. They were young hotheads with a genuine vision; abrasive but, in their determined rejection of lax values and espousal of DIY thrif, as American as the Mayfower. “It wasn’t a dressup thing,” says the still saintly MacKaye. “We were going to live it.” Not fun: fundamentalism. Extras: 7/10. Plentiful bonus minifeatures, including dedicated pieces on Void, the Slickee Boys and Foo Fighter Dave Grohl’s frst band,

The main protagonists were young hotheads with a vision

24 HOURS: THE WORLD OF JOHN & YOKO

CODA COLLECTION

7/10 Adayinthelifeattheendofthe‘60s

Shot for the BBC in 1969, when writers and fans were already asking about The Beatles breaking up, this very short documentary follows John Lennon and Yoko Ono as they do mundane chores: give interviews, discuss concert promotions, open mail, argue with journalists, laugh maniacally, drink tea, and launch what John calls “a very big advertising campaign for peace”. This documentary/art flm (currently available via Amazon Prime Video in the States) simultaneously punctures and infates their myth, ofering an intimate portrait of the couple’s increasingly tense relationship with celebrity.

STEPHEN DEUSNER Indian metallers Parikrama; (below) director Abhimanyu Kukreja at the Beatles ashram in Rishikesh

DON’T AFILM GOGENTLE: ABOUTIDLES

DOC‘N’ROLLFILMS

7/10 Rowdyrockdochitsonmentalhealth

Chartingtheriseof Bristolianemo-punks Idlesoverthepastdecade, MarkArcher’sconcise, fast-paceddocumentary blastsalongwithsome ofthesameexplosively kineticenergyasthe band’sriotousshows. Interweavinglivefootagewithsoul-baring interviews,notablysingerJoeTalboton severalwrenchingfamilybereavements, Don’tGoGentle…alsohighlightsthe passionateonlinefancommunityAFGang, whouseIdlesasasafespacetosharetheir ownmentalandemotionalstruggles. Archer’sflmislightoncontextorbackstory butstillalivelyandengagingprimer.

STEPHENDALTON

LASTMANSTANDING

DOGWOOF

8/10 NickBroomfieldfollowsupBiggie&Tupac

Broomfeld’s2002 documentarysuggested thatDeathRowCEOSuge Knightwasresponsible forthedeathsofBiggie SmallsandTupacShakur. ButwithKnightsafely imprisonedoveranother death,Broomfeldhopes thatpeoplemightbemoretalkativethistime round.There’smuchlessofBroomfeld’s signaturefourth-wallbreakingthanusual andthisisabetterflmforit:theinterviews furnishanintimate,terrifyingportraitof themaelstromKnightsetwhirling,andthe livesitconsumed.

ANDREWMUELLER

JUSTAGIGOLO

SHOUT!FACTORY

5/10 Bowie’s’78flop,remastered

Deep into his Berlin phase, David Bowie took the role of a Prussian WWI soldier who hires on as a gigolo for wealthy widows. Directed by Blow-Up’s David Hemmings, the flm is a bizarre melodrama, featuring a stif performance by its star and a cameo by Marlene Dietrich. Bowie later disparaged Hemmings’ flm as “my 32 Elvis Presley movies rolled into one” – but it’s still an intriguing footnote for fans.

WITCH:WEINTEND TOCAUSEHAVOC

BULLDOGFILMDISTRIBUTION

7/10 Zambianpsychedelicgemunearthed

Gio Arlotta’s deep dive into Zamrock, the sub-genre of psychedelic rock that fourished in Zambia, focuses on Emmanuel “Jagari” Chanda, a quartz miner who bewitched audiences in the 1970s. Afer a spell in jail and a religious conversion, Jagari is happy to revisit a musical career that encompasses a variety of infuences, from blues, prog, and Osibisastyle funk to a less rewarding firtation with disco. The efervescence of the recordings is undeniable, and Zambia’s Jagger is an engaging guide.

ROCKUMENTARY: EVOLUTION OF INDIAN ROCK

STREAMING

7/10

DOZENS of fgures in pop history can claim Indian ancestry – from Freddie Mercury to Jaz Coleman, from Clif Richard to Charli XCX – and many more have borrowed from Indian music and culture. But there has been scant record of the music that has actually emerged from India itself. This documentary – written, directed and co-produced by Abhimanyu Kukreja – is a fascinating and sometimes infuriating attempt to redress this omission.

Western music has always occupied a curious position in India’s stratifed, diverse cultural world. As this flm explores, jazz music and dance bands were popular under the British Raj and in the decades afer independence, usually with the millions of mixed-race Anglo-Indians and Goans who were scattered around the country’s big cities. A similar rock scene started to develop in the ’60s, building up a diverse audience of Anglo-Indians, elite Indian teenagers from English-speaking private schools and also poorer people from Indian Christian communities who had developed a strong gospel tradition, particularly in parts of the north-east.

Kukreja tries his best to link these isolated and disparate scenes across Bombay, Bangalore, Madras, Calcutta and Shillong throughout the ’60s and ’70s. A host of articulate and fascinating interviewees explain how Indian radio stations afer independence started to expunge western music from their playlists, leaving die-hard fans to get their rock fx from other sources – from the BBC World Service, the Voice Of America and radio stations in Sri Lanka and Burma. We hear about Iqbal Singh Sethi, “the Elvis of Bombay” who became a cult fgure in the ’50s; and about the Simla Beat competitions in the early ’70s (rock festivals organised to promote a brand of cigarette). We hear how the local scene was infuenced by every British rock group’s visit to India – The Beatles’ arrival in Rishikesh in ’68, Led Zeppelin jamming in a shabby Bombay bar called Slip Disc in ’72, The Police’s date at Bombay’s Rang Bhawan stadium in March 1980, and Iron Maiden’s 2007 Eddfest in Bangalore. Some of the music here is brilliant – Mumbai psych-rock act Atomic Forest, the herky-jerky Madras rockers The Mustangs, and many of the contemporary heavy metal bands such as Indus Creed, Millennium and Parikrama. But Kukreja’s script needed a rigorous edit. He needlessly pre-empts interviewees, pursues blind alleys and endlessly repeats himself (there are at least three points in history that are dubbed “the golden age of Indian rock music”). And there are plenty of areas that deserve more investigation. Kukreja talks about Bollywood but doesn’t explore the rich varieties of rock created by Bollywood music directors such as SD Burman, RD Burman, Shankar-Jaikishan, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji, Bappi Lahiri or AR Rahman. Kukreja briefy touches on the rather touchy subject of Hindu sectarianism and the BJP in contemporary India, but never really explores what efect they have had on anglophone pop music. But what’s fascinating for western audiences is how utterly un-Indian most of this music sounds. For Indian musicians, Anglo-American rock’n’rollistheexotic.