Category Archives: Film

Documentary: The True History of Traveling Wilburys 2007

The True History of the Traveling Wilburys

..The real prize of the collection, however, is the film included on the DVD, titled The True History of the Traveling Wilburys.  Watching it makes listening to the albums a totally new experience..
~Michael Franco (popmatters.com)

..a bonus DVD featuring an amazing 24-minute documentary showing unseen footage of the Wilburys and their five video clips, filmed largely on George Harrison’s home video recorder.
~amazon.com

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The 5 Best Music Videos 2015

bob-dylan the night

I like when music videos are made as short films, not just as promo clips to sell the music. I look at the cinematography, the acting, the writing and, of course, how the music fits the images.

We have chosen these 5 videos as the best of the year 2015.

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Nov 25: The Last Waltz with The Band and friends was recorded in 1976

Last-Waltz

This film should be played loud!

This is a message on a title card at the beginning of the film. The greatest concert movie ever made. This post concerns the movie, the audio releases have to wait for it’s own post.

Wikipedia:

The Last Waltz was a concert by the rock group The Band, held on American Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. The Last Waltz was advertised as the end of The Band’s illustrious touring career, and the concert saw The Band joined by more than a dozen special guests, including Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood, Bobby Charles and Neil Young.

The event was filmed by director Martin Scorsese and made into a documentary of the same name, released in 1978. The film features concert performances, scenes shot on a studio soundstage and interviews by Scorsese with members of The Band. A triple-LP soundtrack recording, produced by Rob Fraboni, was issued in 1978. The film was released on DVD in 2002 as was a four-CD box set of the concert and related studio recordings.

Trailer:

I have several versions of the film, and I’ve seen many versions of it. I’ve seen it at the cinema, I’ve played it to death on video casette, I have two DVD releases , a blu-ray release and I’ve seen/heard quite a bit of bootlegs of the show.

This is a film that I’m really passionate about, and I have often wondered if there’s footage, filmed sequences, that is not in the official version. Whatever condition such film would be in was irrelevant, I wanted to see as much as possible of the legendary concert.

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Two fine documentaries about Prog Rock

uriah_1

Two fine documentaries about Prog Rock

I have always shunned prog rock, well, not always. When I was from 7-12 I listened to a lot of it, but I was liberated by garage music and punk rock (and later, folk and country music). Prog will never be my favorite kind of music, but lately a lot of the bands I’ve listened to have had elements of progressive rock, symphonic elements, conceptual ideas, rapid changes and far-out lyrics.

I have liked experimental Beatles, Frank Zappa, a bit of Genesis, two records by King Crimson (Discipline and Three of a perfect pair) and some Pink Floyd, but this was different…

What the hell was happening? I needed to find out some more…

The best way to do this is for me to go to YouTube, and I found several very good programs.

Timeshift: Prog Rock (documentary, 2013):

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Classic concert movie: Sunshine Daydream with Grateful Dead 1972

sunshinedaydreamimage

Classic concert movie: Sunshine Daydream with Grateful Dead 1972

Sunshine Daydream is A Music Documentary Film Starring The Rock Band The Grateful Dead. It Was Shot At Their, August 27 1972 Concert, At The Old Renaissance Faire Grounds, In Veneta, Oregon. Directed by John Norris.

Unreleased for many years, the movie was sometimes shown at small film festivals, and bootleg recordings of it circulated on VHS and DVD, and as digital downloads. A digitally remastered and reedited official version of the film was released on August 1, 2013, showing only one time in selected theaters. It was screened with Grateful Days, a new documentary short that includes interviews with some of the concert attendees. Sunshine Daydream was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 17, 2013.

Sunshine Daydream is also a live album containing the complete August 27, 1972 Grateful Dead concert. Produced as a 3–disc CD and as a 4-disc LP, it was released by Rhino Records on September 17, 2013.

The name Sunshine Daydream is taken from the coda section of the Dead song “Sugar Magnolia”.

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