Admittedly, I’ll watch nearly anything Zappa related, from live footage to bootlegs to documentaries. Much has been written about Zappa and the Mothers, they have been very well chronicled. From how many times Zappa stretched his legs while writing The Dog Breath Variations to how many cigarettes he smoked in the studio while recording Magdalena, to dense intellectual interpretations of his work and ponderous forays into his political activities. There comes a point when, like with the beatles, everything that needs to be written about certain portions of their lives just may have been covered in excruciating detail by this point.

When I sat down to watch the doc Franks Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in the 60’s I was interested, yet skeptical. It starts off slow, with various Zappologists shedding light on the mans early years and musical influences using pretty much the exact same words as every other verbose Zappologist. Perhaps these people only have one book to base all of their learned opinions on. There are some cool interviews with Jimmy Carl Black, Bunk Gardner, Don Preston and Kim Fowley, but very little live footage of the band in action. You can actually find a million times more ‘rare’ footage looking on youtube.

If you happen to be new to Zappa and the Mothers, you just might dig it. If you know anything about them, this is rehashed, watery gravy. It’s safe to say that the turning point for me was having to suffer through the most irritating accent I’ve ever heard by an aged, self important hippy intellectual wearing a giant scarf with skulls on it while blathering inane facts he likely gleaned from the back cover of Freak Out! I’m sure if I wasn’t subjected to this pompous poof for over two hours, I might have enjoyed it more.

If you think I’m exaggerating:

Although it’s hard for me to dislike anything Zappa related, in my humble opinion: save your money, buy any Mother album or official Zappa dvd, and enjoy your life without fear of sitting on your deathbed lamenting the two hours you wasted one hapless evening.

Be sure to watch the final clip in the series, where the interviewer asks one too many dopey questions (approx 6:30).

Click here to view the embedded video.

To watch the complete series go to the Music World page @ VBS.TV

We went to Norway to interview Gaahl, lead singer of the band Gorgoroth. Gaahl really believes in this whole ideology behind what he’s doing—he’s not just some rockstar fronting a band. The thing with Black Metal is, in Norway, everybody is exactly the same. There’s nothing to rebel against, because everybody’s really well off. It’s one of the richest countries in Europe. There is no lower class, it’s like middle-class white kids everywhere—no one has anything to complain about. And he’s this sort of eccentric figure amidst this sea of contentment and sameness. The way I see it is, in America you have guys like 50 Cent who are supposed to be the “villain.” Kids like him cause they’re parents hate him, and that’s basically what Gaahl is. He’s their musical villain so to speak. But there’s a lot of different sides to the scene.

Thanks to the kindness of strangers, here’s a youtube playlist containing the entire documentary:

But, if you’re a completest like me, you’re gonna need the hard copy.

DVD Blurb:

Show biz wasn’t enough. Andy Kaufman’s true dream was to be a wrestler: a star, a pro wrestler. However, he had his obstacles. He was too small, too weak, and had no talent at the sport. To make up for these inadequacies Kaufman decided the only way he could be a champion in the ring was to start wrestling women. One night, in the midst of a heated battle, the great champion Jerry “The King” Lawler stepped into the ring to defend a woman’s honor when it seemed that Kaufman might go too far. This incident began an obsessive, yearlong vendetta against the mighty Lawler, leaving Kaufman’s friends to wonder, “Has Andy truly lost his mind?”

When I saw the trailer for his new film Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, my first thought was, ‘Damn, this guy is hardcore!’ I’m sure the politico’s will crap on this film for his lighthearted approach to the subject, but if there’s one thing Spurlock can do well, its to get his point across to the masses. Even if he doesn’t and the film flops, you’ll have to admit this guy has balls, and I’m going to stand in line and pay to see them.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Fat Possum is one of the only labels putting out blues worth listening to these days, and this movie documents how Matthew Johnson started the label with credit cards and his student loans so he could record Junior Kimborough and R.L. Burnside. This music is raw, dangerous, desperate, savage and alive, and nobody exemplifies this more than T-Model Ford.

Aside from the aforementioned artists, there are also has interviews and clips of Cedell Davis, Asie Payton, Johnny Farmer, Kenny Brown, Iggy Pop and Bono, who for some reason needs to be in every single documentary from the past 15 years.

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“T-Model’s life reads like a horror story. At the age of eight, his father beat him so badly between the legs with a piece of firewood that he lost a testicle. His ankles are scarred from the chain gang. His neck is scarred where one of his wives slashed his throat. He has been shot, stabbed, pinned under a fallen tree with a broken ribcage, beaten unconscious with a metal chair. He watched his first wife go off with his own father, watched another die after she drank poison to try and induce a miscarriage. The only woman he ever really loved poisoned him at the breakfast table; he woke up in hospital that afternoon and never saw her again.”

–”Delta Force,” The Observer, November 16, 2003

Click here to view the embedded video.

“T-Model’s life reads like a horror story. At the age of eight, his father beat him so badly between the legs with a piece of firewood that he lost a testicle. His ankles are scarred from the chain gang. His neck is scarred where one of his wives slashed his throat. He has been shot, stabbed, pinned under a fallen tree with a broken ribcage, beaten unconscious with a metal chair. He watched his first wife go off with his own father, watched another die after she drank poison to try and induce a miscarriage. The only woman he ever really loved poisoned him at the breakfast table; he woke up in hospital that afternoon and never saw her again.”

–”Delta Force,” The Observer, November 16, 2003

Click here to view the embedded video.

This movie is available for rental from GreenCine.

This short clip describes an episode during an out of town gig.

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You can only get this film from www.derailroaded.com until they clear the rights to some of the music in North America.