Music Documentaries | Episode 23

Music Docs
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Adam: All right. Welcome back everybody. Welcome to another exciting adventure here in perf damage Land. It 

Charlotte: is, and this week we have a special guest with us, so it's not just the two of us returning. A returning. Yes. Our first returning 

Adam: guest. Yeah. So he's a repeat offender, , and they fed me this time. Our first one.

Charlotte: Yeah. We got him over here with some food and some wine. . Yeah, we just broke out the mics. That's 

Jeff: right. I'm all sauced and ready to go. . 

Charlotte: So who is this mystery repeat 

Adam: guest? This is our close personal friend, Jeff McCarty. Aw, thanks. Also a colleague of mine. Yeah. Yeah. He restores films 

Jeff: I do with 

Charlotte: Charlotte and we had him on last season to talk about micro-budget 

Jeff: films.

Jeff: Talked about our favorites. Cause I never have any money to make movies, so that's why I chose it. 

Adam: Yeah. He's also a filmmaker. Yes. He does micro-budget films. Yeah. And so we chose that topic to talk about anything under a hundred thousand dollars. That was our 

Charlotte: topic. Yeah. And Jeff also has a special connection with the topic today.

Jeff: Oh yeah, he does. I love music. 

Adam: I, yes. What is that topic? . Today's topic is going to be music docs. That's right. And I chose this one. Yeah. Last time I let Jeff choose. But this time I chose because every time we hang out together, we end up talking about. 

Jeff: And this is the one you wanted to start off with? Originally with me it was music docs. Cuz I have watched a lot of them. I've sought them out 

Adam: I would say more than most people that I 

Jeff: talk to, I was telling you earlier off, Mike, that I do love music practically as much as I love cinema.

Jeff: Perfect. So it's as much a combination. Yeah, it really is. 

Adam: Yeah. We go see a lot of live music. I don't think I collect music as much as I used to. I used to buy a lot of music. I 

don't 

Jeff: anymore. Yeah, me neither. Cause it's hard times. Yeah. . 

Adam: I just I can't forego the latest 4k, collector's edition of Right, robin Hood Prints of Thieves. 

Jeff: Sometimes I've probably seen as many music documentaries in a year as I have regular feature films, cuz there's been so many that have been made in the last 20 years especially.

Jeff: If a band does not have one made yet, there's almost like something wrong with them 

Charlotte: and they're making them on music festivals 

Adam: I think there's a lot more outlets now too yeah. Yeah, there are, what was really hard to get distributed theatrically before, now can put on Netflix.

Adam: And it's just content for people. 

Jeff: Yeah. It's a relatively new genre, really. I can't think of many classic music documentaries that predate the 1960s. No, there were 

Charlotte: no silent film music docs you can 

Jeff: think of. The only things I can think of . . Yeah, that's a good one.

Jeff: Some of the shorts we've done, like the band shorts and stuff, but those aren't really, they're like performance pieces really. Which is a music documentary. It is, yeah. That's a type 

Adam: We actually discussed the rules of what we were gonna talk about today. All right.

Adam: All right. Remember we said, Hey, are we gonna open this up to performance? Films, there's different kinds as well as music documentaries. And I said, let's not put any caveats on this time. Maybe if we have part two in the future we'll just do performance ones because none of us picked a performance movie 

Jeff: in this.

Jeff: I would've, I wanted to pick certain ones that people 

Charlotte: had talked about. That's like a concert film, though. That's not really a music documentary. I would argue. 

Adam: documentary. Is it a documentary? Cuz you're there at a set time experiencing it. So you're 

Jeff: documenting like a real experience almost journalistically.

Jeff: So I would qualify, but yeah, I 

Adam: would classify it as a er. Yeah. A lot of people consider Woodstock one of the greatest music docs of all time. Oh, for sure. And that is a performance doc at heart. It does get a little bit of the culture , but that's just the back background 

Jeff: But half the movie is really the culture going around.

Jeff: Maybe not half, I wouldn't 40% but there's a lot of footage of the happenings going on all around the festival, building the festival, playing the festival, getting people, 

Charlotte: excavated. But that's different than just recording a concert, which is what I'm talking about. Yeah, 

Adam: no, I know.

Adam: Yeah. But that was the ultimate performance. 

Jeff: documentary, but Stop Making Sense is often considered like one of the great rock documentaries and it is a concert movie. Yeah. And think it qualifies and there's different types of documentaries that aren't concert movies.

Jeff: Recently 

Adam: there was that Aretha Franklin one , 

Jeff: they had Aretha Franklin one, they had that, 

Adam: Summer Soul. 

Charlotte: Yeah. 

Adam: We decided that, we wouldn't have any sort of limitations on what we could talk about this time, but weirdly enough, everybody picked actual documentaries.

Adam: True. And not performance films. 

Jeff: What do you guys think? The first music documentary was like the first one that really like a, narrative or a feature film length That was a music documentary 

Adam: You mean ever made or the first one we saw? 

Jeff: No, the first, yeah. Like ever made. That kind of kicked off the, a pop genre.

Jeff: Pop quiz. Yeah. I have a pop quiz too.

Adam: There's 

Jeff: not even a right or wrong answer. I'm just don't, I'm just wondering. Don don't really, you guys would qualify 

Charlotte: as, I don't know. I didn't even think about 

Jeff: that. I'd say don't look back the day Pennebaker movie. I'd say Da Pennebaker in some ways might be the father of the rock. Oh, I 

Adam: would absolutely say that. Yeah. Cause he didn't just follow Dylan Monterey Pop.

Adam: How many Dylan films did he produce? 

Jeff: He did two with Dylan. The don't look back and eat the document. And then he did Monterey Pop and Ziggy Stardust. He did one A Depeche Mo in the eighties. He kinda made a career out of it. But here's what the first I can think of that really?

Jeff: Is that the 

Adam: 1 0 1? The Depeche Mode 1 0 1? Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good one. They play a lot of pinball in that. I actually haven't seen that one. See, I almost 

Jeff: picked it, honestly, cuz Oh, see, I wish you had, cause I would've had a reason to watch it this weekend. That's for part two. All right. Part two.

Jeff: There's a lot to talk about. Cause there's been, especially the last 20 years, there's been like the boon of the rock docs. There's so many all the 

Adam: time. Yeah. And there's all the offshoots too about Muscle Shoals and. , the, oh, that's a great one. Yeah. I love those. Yeah.

Adam: The ones about like specific recording 

Jeff: studios. , or, oh, the wrecking crew had a documentary. The session players and the backing singers. What was that one? 

Charlotte: 20 feet from stardom? 

Adam: To 

Charlotte: hear us talk about our favorite music documentaries. Stay tuned.

Charlotte: We're gonna each recommend two music docs or talk about two that we really like 

Adam: all right. So my first pick is searching for Sugarman 2012. I 

Charlotte: think this was everybody's Pick 

Adam: Great movie. Yeah, it's a fantastic film. 

Jeff: Yes. Maybe not the absolute best, but it is one of the best. Rock docs certain, 

Adam: certainly recently.

Charlotte: All right. So what hit us with 

Adam: the synopsis? Synopsis, great art always survives. Two South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero. The mysterious 1970s Rock and Roller Rodriguez, the film won best documentary at the 85th Academy Awards, 

Jeff: I had never heard Rodriguez prior to that movie.

Jeff: Same. We never heard of a Yeah. Which is rare for a lot of music docs. Usually I go in cause I'm interested in the artist already. And yeah, that's 

Adam: usually how I select it or it's somebody I've never heard of and Ooh, this sounds interesting. Yeah. 

Jeff: This one really blew me away, but tell me your impressions first since you picked it.

Jeff: Yeah. 

Charlotte: What do you love 

Adam: about this one? I chose this because it works on so many different levels. 

Adam: So what happens in this doc? There is this South African guy that owns a record shop and they grew up during apartheid.

Adam: And there was this artist named Rodriguez that was a gigantic artist. He was an American. . But when his album was published in South Africa, it became their rallying cry. This cold Fact is the name of the album by Rodriguez. 

Jeff: I find it surprising though cuz the songs are not all that overtly political, for such a, really difficult political movement 

Adam: When they gave the records to a radio station, they would scratch out the first 

Jeff: track, because that's crazy. Once you pull 'em out of the 

Adam: library Yeah. They're all scratched out so that nobody could accidentally play it on air.

Adam: Yeah. 

Jeff: Pretty oppressive. But the whole thing turns into a, it's a solving a mystery. Yeah. 

Charlotte: What's great is that this guy was a huge hit. He was as popular as the Beatles, or 

Adam: more popular than Elvis. They share more popular than Rolling Stone stones. Yeah. 

Jeff: It was like Beatles, Simon Garfunkel Rodriguez.

Jeff: Yeah. I said, yeah. Yeah. 

Charlotte: I He was super popular in South Africa. Only in South Africa, in America. Nobody knew 

Jeff: him. Yeah. Six people bought the record in America. . 

Charlotte: And those were family members and friends. . 

Adam: And then they cop 6,800 copies of it. . 

Charlotte: And the thing was he had no clue that he was this big important figure in South Africa and in South Africa.

Charlotte: They had all these. Myths around how he died or how he lived his life. Crazy 

Jeff: nuts. Yeah. Like he, he shot himself on stage. He sums 

Adam: up, let him off fire, set himself on fire around stage. It's always, it always ended with him committing suicide on stage. Crazy stage, odd stage, which really kind. He just had enough.

Adam: He like, hurt himself 

Charlotte: alive. It really stood for what they wanted him to stand for, though. Yeah. Yeah. 

Adam: So very few actual artists die on stage. I can think of mark Sandman from morphine. He died on stage. Even Gigi Allen threatened to kill himself on stage over and over again, and ended up ODing off stage. 

Jeff: Probably would have though. 

Adam: I'm sure that eventually that guy probably would've done 

Jeff: it.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. There's a Gigi Allen documentary called Hated, which is interesting for anyone I was 

Adam: toying with picking that one. Yeah. Who is that? . He was like a shock rocker. Yeah. Who would, beat himself up, cut himself on stage?

Adam: All of his concerts would usually end before the. Because people would get in fights. He would literally get in fights with the 

Jeff: audience. Oh, he'd urinate on the audience. Defecate on the audience. His song titles, I can't even say here cause I think my mother listens to this podcast.

Adam: . 

Adam: Yeah, . Yeah. he was a shock rocker in the true sense cuz his music wasn't wonderful. There is a great documentary called Hated. 

Jeff: Yeah. It's pretty good. It's 

Adam: interesting. Todd Phillips did that, right? Yeah. Early. That was like the first thing he did.

Adam: That wasn't 

Jeff: early. Todd Phillips. Yeah, I saw it at midnight movie at the New Art in the nineties. 

Adam: It's what made his name. 

Jeff: But yeah. Searching for sh sugar Man. It's a really moving film. I cried again watching it today, and I was not expecting that.

Jeff: I really love this guy. It's just he's so pure and 

Adam: He thought he had his chance and he just went on with life afterwards. It's a morally uplifting, true art will persevere type of story. Stay true to yourself, stay true to your morals and your artistic integrity, and you eventually will get acknowledged for it.

Adam: Oh, 

Jeff: thank goodness. . 

Adam: It's still coming. Jeff's still coming, Jeff. It's still coming. Thank goodness. 

Jeff: After all that, he goes back to South Africa, he, it's a big reunion show. Goes back home and he goes back to construction, right?

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. He goes home. 

Adam: Yeah. He's, because in America he's just another guy. Yeah. 

Charlotte: And he gave away all of his earnings to family and friends who needed it. Yeah. He lives simply and still 

Adam: lives the 

way 

Jeff: he did before. Okay. Like your favorite R Kasam. What is it? How's of all the ones in the. . 

Adam: I wonder that's the one you had sex. I wonder if you know 

Charlotte: who we knew. . . . That's the next line. Yeah. I 

Adam: didn't make it up. That's the one though, that the South Africans like really? I know. 

Charlotte: I love that. Really slow one that's, I lost 

Jeff: my job. That's the song that kills me.

Jeff: That's my favorite song. 

Holy 

Adam: Movie two. Yes. The full Christmas But Fact it's not on Cold Fact, right? Isn't that on? No. It's on the, I found the second one. The second one coming. Coming 

Jeff: from Reality. Yeah. It's the last song and I actually learned it today cause I loved it so much. Oh it's such a good song.

Adam: That's the thing. 

Charlotte: Rodriguez has so many good song He does. Yeah. And when you listen to it, sugar Man. Yeah. You wonder how did I never hear of this guy before? This music is so good and you understand why he was as popular as he was in South Africa. 

Jeff: And it's just such a well constructed film. It really is like a like a edge of your seat mystery.

Jeff: To figure out who this guy is. Cuz as the South Africans are uncovering details, they call up like the liner notes and they see, 

Adam: oh, what about that clearance Avan guy Dearborn ran, where's Dearborn? The Rand Sussex? Yeah. 

Jeff: Oh, do you remember him? That guy is sketchy. Oh, he was so sketch sketchy.

Adam: So this guy, Clarence Avant, ran the record label that signed Rodriguez, and he sold, they said close to 500,000 copies in South Africa.

Adam: Yeah. And all of the royalties were sent to Sussex records. All these companies were sending them over the years, decades of money that just went into a black void cuz sussex folded in the mid seventies. Yep. But all the royalties still kept going too. You know where it went. Yeah. We 

Charlotte: all know, you can see the guilt in this guy's face.

Charlotte: He face. 

Adam: He's like, I 

Jeff: don't know anything about 

Adam: that. . Yeah. You know everything about that. Yeah. Yeah. Just the fact that he was just so instantly defensive. No, he was guilty. You just 

Charlotte: didn't know it. I like what you were saying about the mystery 

Jeff: aspect where they're, it really is, yeah.

Jeff: It's very suspenseful cuz Yeah. They're finding clues in his lyrics about his life. There's one where they see something about Dearborn, Michigan. They're like Dearborn. So they call like an atlas and they're look in Atlas in South Africa, the United States and, oh, it's near Detroit, Michigan.

Jeff: And so you start connecting the dots and get closer and closer to 

Adam: the true idea. Detroit is a music singer. Because 

Charlotte: This was all mid nineties when they were trying to solve this mystery who is Rodriguez? And more so it was, how did he die? That's what they were really trying to find out. Yeah.

Charlotte: Originally. And they got really clever pre-internet. Yeah. Lots of phone 

Jeff: calls. Yeah. It really is like an electrifying film. It's fantastic. It's really moving. The director killed himself afterwards. He had manic depression. I can't imagine making a film like that.

Jeff: And you get the Oscar and Yeah. Stood in front of a train. 

Charlotte: You, maybe it's, that was your high point. 

Adam: Yeah. Geez. He achieved what he wanted to achieve, 

Charlotte: so, No, just trying to repeat that. Or what are you gonna do next? 

Jeff: Wait, so you guys are saying not to achieve that? No, 

Charlotte: I'm just saying

Jeff: It's true. I remember I'd write a story with William Friedkin after he won for the French connection was the next day he started seeing therapy cuz he was like, I just, I'm pretty sure I hit the pinnacle of my career.

Jeff: It's all down from here. And now 

I'm 

Adam: depressed. Can you imagine the expectation too, once you do something like that, then you're always, yeah, you're always held to that standard, so Yeah. How do you achieve that over, although, and over again he did. He did 

Jeff: follow up with the Exorcist

Jeff: He did, yes, he did think I definitely trumped it, but yeah. 

Adam: So Sugarman. Yeah. I remember when we saw this film those two albums became our summer albums. 

Charlotte: Yeah. Luckily Light in the Attic had re-released the albums. That's cool. And we bought both of them and we just listened to 'em on repeat.

Charlotte: Yeah. I saw 

Jeff: it a few times in the theaters. I liked it so much. Yeah. It was my favorite film that year. I'm pretty sure. I remember 

Charlotte: definitely one of my favorites. Yeah. I that year. I think 

Adam: two. The fact that Rodriguez is. Likable. He is very likable and modest. Yeah. He's very sweet, smart.

Adam: And 

Jeff: he was a good dad. He was like three or four lovely daughters. He was poor, but he took them all to museums all the time and Yeah. Kept them like, culturally engaged and yeah. He was, the 

Adam: fact that he wasn't a total disaster when they found him, 

Jeff: yeah. He ran for city council.

Jeff: Yeah. That was golden. Yeah. 

Adam: He was getting, I forgot about that. 

Charlotte: Yeah. So who should watch this documentary? 

Jeff: Everybody? Mom, I know you're watching. You should watch it. But 

Charlotte: besides her, my mom, 

Adam: you should watch it. Yes. My mom's not listening though but if she was listening, she should definitely watch it.

Adam: Okay. Okay. 

Charlotte: Your mom was on 

Adam: the podcast. I know. I don't think she's even listened to herself. All right. Charlotte, what's your first pick? Oh, you want me to go to next? 

Charlotte: Yeah. Okay. So the first one I'm gonna recommend is called Orion, the Man Who Would Be King. And this was from 2015. 

Adam: It's 

Charlotte: about a guy who sounds a lot like Elvis and came out and was singing after Elvis died. So this is how that whole myth that Elvis is still alive started.

Charlotte: Oh, it started with Orion. And that's what's really fascinating about this documentary. 

Adam: Yeah. They were actually perpetuating that myth. That was the whole 

Jeff: thing. Was he the first impersonator? 

Charlotte: He wasn't an impersonator, that's the thing. But he started wearing this mask and people started thinking when he was performing that this is Elvis.

Charlotte: But he was never able to escape that. His blessing in his curse was that he could sing as good as Elvis. And he sounded like Elvis, but then that's all people ever wanted him to be. And then as he got more famous and he was still wearing this mask, because if he took it off, everyone would know he wasn't Elvis, even though their eye color was completely different.

Charlotte: Yeah. . 

Adam: Yeah. And his face didn't really look all, no, but 

Charlotte: Elvis. He was famous and he was enjoying fame, but he had to hide behind this mask and he didn't 

Adam: wanna do that. He had aspirations to be a real artist. Yeah. And anytime he tried to reach outside that box, they nobody supported him.

Jeff: Yeah. Sounds familiar. 

Adam: And when they were done marketing him as a dead Elvis then they tossed him away and he was left with nothing. Oh geez. 

Charlotte: It started too, when Elvis died, he got called into sun records to. Sing for Elvis on tracks with Jerry Lee Lewis with, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, Johnny Cash.

Charlotte: So they were releasing all of these duets he was singing with these other people and people thought that they were discovering all these lost master tapes. Oh. When it, wow. But the thing was, they would say Carl Perkins and friends, so they wouldn't say Elvis, but it sounded just like Elvis.

Charlotte: So everybody thought this is Elvis. . 

Charlotte: What's interesting to me about this film is you always hear, oh, Elvis is still alive, and I never knew where that came from, and this is where it came from.

Charlotte: So you really get a bigger picture of that story. 

Charlotte: He's got this really good quote in the documentary about how he sounds like Elvis and how that's a bad.

Adam: That's real true Down Home Logic is what that is. 

Charlotte: Is. He even released a song called, I'm Doing My Best Not to be like Elvis . It's bless his heart. Poor him. . Okay. But I wanted to take this opportunity to do a little pop quiz here. Oh boy. Oh, because he sounds like Elvis. So I'm gonna play a couple tracks.

Charlotte: I'm gonna play the Orion version and the Elvis version. I'm not gonna tell you which one it is. Okay. And you're gonna to guess I'm gonna do three different clips 

Adam: here. Okay. I'll do 

Jeff: my best. It's 

Charlotte: very difficult to get these. All right. All right. All right. 

Jeff: Let's see. You ready? 

Charlotte: It's 

Adam: like an eye exam.

Adam: Okay.

Jeff: Any idea? 

Charlotte: One more time? 

Adam: It's 

Jeff: the first one

Jeff: or this one?

Jeff: The first one's always.

Jeff: Is that 

Charlotte: right? 

Jeff: I'd say number one is Elvis. Number two is the other guy. 

Adam: I would say number two is Elvis in the Ooh. All right. Yeah. 

Charlotte: Orion was first. Elvis was second. Ooh, one point 

Jeff: for Adam. Damn. All right. I gotta get the second one then. 

Charlotte: All right. All right. We'll do, here's test number two.

Jeff: It is tough.

Charlotte: I think this is easier. I said 

Adam: it's.

Jeff: I think Elvis is two on that one. I would 

Adam: say Elvis is two on 

Jeff: that one also. Ryan's one, 

Charlotte: Elvis first or Ryan second. Oh, see, 

Adam: I told you I failed on the 

Charlotte: last one. You know what? Those are the easy ones too. You think so? Yeah, because the third one is the hardest one to guess. All right, 

Adam: one more. Ready? All right.

Jeff: Last chance here. You don't know my Elvis vocals cause it's 

Adam: Dylan. I could do it. 

Charlotte: Final quiz. To test your 

Jeff: skills. What? I think they've already been proven terrible. . 

Adam: Yeah. . This is the second time I've failed this. I should have remembered this by now. I know. It's really difficult. It is.

Jeff: I can get you off my mind. I'm just streaming my life.

Adam: I 

Jeff: see you

Jeff: baby. Please save you. 

Charlotte: And here's two.

Jeff: I didn't get you my mind. I'm just dreaming.

Jeff: Your 

Charlotte: face is right now are 

priceless. 

Jeff: I see you.

Jeff: Elvis is one. 

Adam: I'm gonna say Elvis is two on.

Charlotte: Elvis is first. 

Adam: Oh, 

Jeff: nice. We're tied. 

Adam: We're tied. Tied. Todd, you don't have a fourth one, do you? No, I don't. Oh, sorry. 

Jeff: We'll just have to share the trophy. It's all right. It's okay.

Jeff: That's all right. 

Adam: I don't mind sharing. I'm okay with that. Yeah, it's a hard, we all get a trophy on this one. It was very hard. 

Jeff: I But it just illustrates I was, yeah. I kinda had to guess to be honest. 

Charlotte: Yeah, it's really hard to tell. think the third one is really the 

Adam: hardest. Yeah. The only one I knew for sure was the first one because I know that vocal by Elvis so well, the only one that's the 

Jeff: recording Sure was none of 'em.

Jeff: I really . 

Charlotte: All right, thanks for playing the Orion versus Elvis pop quiz. . 

Jeff: I wish I had a game like that for mine. Yeah, that, that was really fun. That was fun that me games 

Charlotte: set up. Alright. Right. Right. So Orion, the man who would be king from 2015, if you wanna learn about the Elvis, is still a live myth.

Charlotte: Or you just wanna see a story about a guy who happens to sound like a guy and wants to be famous for not sounding like the 

Adam: guy and had that one little touch of fame for a little while 

Charlotte: this of fame, but he had to hide behind 

Adam: a mask. That's, oh, they also posit something really cool in this too. they make their own conspiracy theory that Uhoh, what is it?

Adam: O Ryan might actually be Elvis's brother. 

Jeff: Oh, the one who died at birth? 

Adam: Not that one. But his dad had an affair. Oh yeah, they 

Jeff: do. Okay. Maybe 

Adam: You, they have 

Charlotte: compelling evidence or compelling reasons. 

Adam: Yeah, I would say that it's certainly not something that you couldn't poke a hole in if you tried really hard, if 

Charlotte: you tried

Charlotte: But if you just go with what they tell you, you might go, huh. 

Adam: Okay. Yeah. It's an interesting idea to it 

Charlotte: is, and I have to say the documentary itself is, it's good. It's not the best documentary I've ever seen, but I think the subject matter is really fascinating and interesting, especially if you like Elvis even in the slightest.

Adam: Yeah. And we own a bunch of Orion albums now because of it. Oh, wow. We do. Hey. 

Jeff: Yeah. It's not Hip to Orion before this conversation, but no, it's the one film I've not seen that we've talked about. 

Charlotte: The mast Marvel. Yeah. There you go. 

Adam: All right. All right. Jeff, what 

Jeff: do you got for us? Uh, So my first pick this evening is the double in Daniel Johnston. 2005 came out directed by Jeff, fewer Zieg.

Jeff: I apologize if I messed up his name. I actually met him one time. He was very nice. I just started talking to this guy at the bar and we were drinking together and he said he was a filmmaker and. I have some films. Where was this? Here? Oh yeah. Here in, in Los SPIs little little Doms, I think.

Jeff: Oh, wow. . That's about right. Nice. Yeah. And he said he made the double in uh, Daniel Johnson. I was like, that's a great movie, . I was like, you're a good filmmaker. Yeah. Good job. I was like, I like you. Alright , buy this man around. That was a good film . It's probably something like that. But I'll read the letter box synopsis.

Jeff: This 2005 documentary film Chronicles the Life of Daniel Johnston, a manic depressive, genius singer songwriter artist from childhood up to the present with an emphasis on his mental illness and how it manifested itself in demonic self obsession. I first got into Dale Johnston, probably like most kids my age. I grew up in the nineties. It's Wayne Nirvana. Kurt Cobain had a shirt that Dale Johnson made with a, hi, how are you? And his weird kind of froggy frog guy, alien looking guy.

Jeff: Oh yeah, I know that shirt, T-shirt. Yeah. Yep. And I, that's how most of us became hip to him. 

Adam: That was the cover of one of his tapes. 

Jeff: Yeah. And then I ended up with the album Fun, which was the one that was produced by Gibb Haynes, and it's a little more polished of a version, but my buddy Steve had all the eighties lofi, the ones that were like hand printed cassettes and which are really primitive Lofi recordings of music.

Adam: One of the most fascinating parts of the documentary is when he talks about how he didn't have the ability to duplicate tapes. So he would just literally record the album again. Yeah. To hand it out to 

Jeff: somebody . Yeah. Yeah. He 

Adam: would. So basically every time you got one of those tapes, it was a unique recording, just was for you, was Yeah.

Jeff: cool. Yeah, definitely. And he had tons of 'em, so much music. A lava was made in what sounded like a Cassio keyboard. . It's really outer spacey, I wouldn't say it's anything musically sophisticated. He later moved it to a guitar and his guitar planes even worse. . But but he really is a great songwriter, I have to say.

Jeff: Some of his songs are goofy. He sings songs about Casper, the Friendly Ghost, and Captain America and King Kong and all these childhood obsessions. He's a lot of obsessions that they never grew past. Yeah, he never grew past. He kinda got stuck at a certain age forever. For instance, there's this girl on the film named Lori, who, he's just obsessed.

Jeff: He fell in love with her when he was 18, and he's written every song, every love song he is ever written has been about Lori. His whole entire life. And he died. Who? He never dated, never kissed, 

Adam: never dated, never kissed, never really 

Jeff: touched, like no, nothing. Nothing. No. I'm pretty sure he was a virgin. He was probably too dangerous to date a girl, unfortunately cuz of his mental illness.

Jeff: Which would of manifest violent every once in a while. Yeah. So his backstory, he grew up in West Virginia, very religious parents and all he wanted to do was draw cartoons and make music. And his parents wanted him to go to church and get a job. And he was like, screw this. And he ended up hitting the road and joined a carnival.

Jeff: And that Carnival , he was He has a Kearney. Yeah. He was a Carney. And he and the carnival took him to Texas. Austin. And that's where his legend was made. He and the particular urban legend of why he stayed in Texas is he was stuck in a porta pot. and he was in there for a long amount of time. No one knew what he was doing.

Jeff: God knows what he was doing in there. But a big Carney was a big muscular guy was knocking, he had to use the bathroom himself. Dan Johnson not open it. Eventually he opened it. The guy punched him in the face. . He had a concussion. He wandered over to this church and they found him some shelter and that's how he stayed in Austin because he just take to put his roots there.

Jeff: Yeah. And the carnival moved on without him. I'm picturing it's without 

Charlotte: him. I'm picturing it's. Like the world's strongest man bald guy with a, with a mustache. That curls up. 

Jeff: That curls up. Yeah. It's like that. It's totally insane. 

Adam: He has one giant barbell in an arm. 

Jeff: Yeah.

Jeff: So he got a job at McDonald's and he was working at McDonald's for a long time. He was writing music all this time and some other bands or a lot of weird. In Texas at the time, and they took to him and thought his songwriting was cool and he was like this crazy lunatic, prophetic, weird folky guy.

Jeff: So he started getting some gigs and MTV actually had a show that they were profiling Austin, Texas. And so he was on, on MTV in 1985. So that was a big deal. Wow. That 

Adam: was how he got his break. Yeah. Yeah. 

Jeff: So he was getting like an audience. He was getting some respectability and then everything went wrong when he went to go see the butthole Surfers , 

Adam: as it does, as it been known to happen at a butthole surfer 

Jeff: show, saw them in 1986.

Jeff: Should have known better. Yeah. So it was a crazy butthole surfer show with like naked women and hell fire and crazy video projection art that I'm sure disturbed his, fragile mental state and someone gave him Ls. And that was just the end. He started taking a lot of drugs after that. And this latent schizophrenia came out.

Jeff: All that religion he was raised with in West Virginia came out. He started seeing demons everywhere, thinking everyone was possessed by Satan. He attacked a friend or a manager. Someone with a metal pipe. Yeah. He attacked a elderly woman in a second floor, senior citizen home. He was trying to exercise her demons.

Jeff: He kicked the demons out of her. He was chasing her around with a knife, which I did not talk about in the movie, but happened. I was just gonna 

Adam: ask, is all this in the documentary? Yeah, it was all in the documentary and she jumped out a second story window and shattered her 

Jeff: ankles. Both of her legs.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. So he was institutionalized. Got out. Still was having a career though. Cause people were pedaling his stuff out there and getting his music out there. So he was getting gigs. 

Adam: had this good friend that was a manager Yeah. Who while he was institutionalized, would push all of his stuff out.

Adam: Yeah. Because he had a following and he would just mail them those tapes. Yeah. He was mass producing 'em and. Keeping him alive. 

Jeff: Yeah. And the craziest thing he did though, I think is with his father. His father had a small plane that he would fly and his father picked, his parents actually ended up in the end, even though they were really religious and oppressive in the early days, they took good care of him in the end.

Jeff: And his dad was coming to pick him up from a concert to fly him back to West Virginia. And of course, Daniel Johnson got the idea that someone was possessed in the plane. It's cuz he was off his meds. Yeah, he was off his meds. He took the keys outta the cockpit, threw them out the window and just in a plane.

Jeff: In a plane? Yeah, in a plane. 

Charlotte: Why does the plane have like keys? ? I know 

Adam: what, he also grabbed the steering wheel. Yeah. 

Jeff: Grabbed the steering wheel, tried to crash it. His dad took it from him. They crashed into a bunch of trees instead they survived. And then he was really super specialized. No, it's all true.

Jeff: No, it's all real. There's photographs of it. There's newspaper clipping, newspaper clippings, articles. It's all there. And And he actually really he documented his life all the time with a video camera. So there's all this footage of him back then in the eighties and the nineties and the, before the video camera was 

Adam: tapes.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. He would run around with a tape recorder and talking to it all the time. 

Jeff: So most of it is just like a ton of home movies and you can just see him as he was in his element. There's not, I mean there's some interviews of course, with people and stuff, but a lot of it's just that, and it's you really feel like you're living his life watching his home movies and 

Adam: it's it's fascinating, like cuz he was compelled to make art.

Adam: Yeah, he really was. He wa it, it wasn't something that he chose or. could do anything else. Like his sickness made him have to produce it. 

Jeff: Yeah. Totally true. And I would say unlike other, we, me and Adam were talking earlier before the podcast about Wesley Willis and other like schizophrenic artists and Yeah, I do wanna talk about that a little bit.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. More too. Yeah. I think he's a major cut above most of these people. I'm not trying to take anything away from Wesley Willis and so forth, but, and yeah, Dan Johnson does have a lot of songs about Casper, the Friendly Ghosts and bunch of silly subjects, speed and motorcycle, even lots of beautiful song.

Jeff: But he has a lot of just beautiful songs about love, really earnest songs, really direct songs, almost like Proverbs wise. There's a lot of wisdom in those songs. 

Adam: In a very naive 

Jeff: sort of way, in a naive way. But there really are like almost mantras to himself, to keep believing in something, keep believing in love and God

Jeff: and I find those songs really beautiful and fragile and painful. And I think he's inspiring even though, he's. Totally crazy and dangerous. . Lizzie tried to interview him actually in the nineties, but they weren't allowed to interview him because he's his manager said he's not safe around girls.

Jeff: Oh really? Yeah. Yeah. He He might try to throw something at you or, oh gosh, , 

Adam: he lives in his parents' basement. Yeah. Or did when that film was made. I think they're probably long gone by 

Jeff: now, huh? Parents? Yeah, he died like six, seven years ago himself. Did he? Daniel Johnson? Yeah. He did seem to reach like a decent, like his medication seemed to be a little better, temper his psychosis later on in life.

Adam: Because of that though, he wasn't as prolific an artist. I guess he drew Yeah, he drew a lot of those, yeah, they sold a lot of those those drawings, 

Jeff: which. Really just crazy. Like 

Adam: they're like a 12 year old 

Jeff: True them. Yeah. They're, They're very primitive.

Jeff: Very primitive. All himself is very primitive. He recorded everything by himself with his own, setups and four track re machines and I just think his, he made great music. He scares me a little bit cuz he is crazy. But 

Adam: so here's a question then. How much of his fame do you think is attributed to the fact that he was crazy?

Adam: Oh, and that was constantly being institutionalized and that he was violent. I think 

Jeff: that's the part that got people interested in him for sure. Because, people do gravitate towards spectacle, but I think what gives him his staying power and for people, serious people to wanna make movies about him, even documentaries, is how beautiful most of his songs actually were.

Jeff: I think the combination of the two things, I think the craziness draws you in. Cuz people always wanna look at a train wreck or look at a car accident. 

Adam: Oh yeah. He would melt down on stage all the time. Yeah. Cry and lose it and then walk off stage and so that's part 

Jeff: of it.

Jeff: I

Adam: Start preaching at people. Yeah. 

Jeff: That's the, I mean that probably even attracted me and some, know, I was like, wow, this crazy guy, he was having his prophetic visions and blah Then, 

Adam: so how is he different than Wesley Willis who was a schizophrenic? I 

Jeff: just think the songs homeless, I think the songs are for the most part are way stronger.

Jeff: think his songs are poetic, they're way better structured. I think his performances are 

Adam: better. Or there's like the, I mean there was the Whitney High thing too back then. Yeah, I don't know. I think. I think maybe what you're saying is true, that people were drawn to that initially and then saw the 

Jeff: truth and Oh, yeah.

Jeff: There, there's songs of his that will just i, that make me cry. I think they're still beautiful. 

Adam: There's something about his voice. He has a, that sounded quality. 

Charlotte: I have no idea who you guys are talking about at all. What do you mean? I've heard of this documentary, but I don't know any of the artists you guys are talking about.

Jeff: So why should I 

Charlotte: watch this documentary then? Because you can learn 

Jeff: all about what we're talking about. . 

Charlotte: Is it about his life? 

Jeff: Does not sound like what we're talking about is 

Charlotte: interesting. No, it does. It does. It is. But I'm losing lines of where the documentary.

Charlotte: Is and where, you're just talking about the stories about the guys. 

Jeff: All this is in the documentary. 

Adam: So it won at Sundance for best documentary in 2005. Yeah. Okay, cool. And it's a really well put together 

Jeff: documentary. It's very well made. Yeah. Yeah. It's very well put together.

Jeff: It's very poetic. It uses all the home movie footage that he took just I think perfectly, right? 

Adam: You hear a lot of his music in it. So supporting, hey, this guy had something I'm not sure in Austin that he wasn't initially supported because this guy is a train wreck and let's. Watch what happens. It was like that ironic, I believe that Austin. Sure. Austin Knight. Yeah. We're too cool for this and so we're going to egg him on to see how far we can take this on 

Jeff: stage. There's some of that for sure.

Jeff: A big part of that, but I stand by the fact that I think his sons actually stand the test. 

Adam: And then, yeah. How many people have recorded 

Jeff: them? A lot of people. A lot. A lot of people will cover the songs. 

Adam: Yeah. Pearl Jam. Nirvana Bunch of people. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of major artists have supported him through this, 

Jeff: Just listen to it. It's beautiful. It's a be it's about true love and he never had it. Yeah. 

Adam: He never did have. , it's unrequited. And I think, 

Jeff: although there is an outtake from that movie that did not make the film, which I think is also proved something about the genius of the filmmaker.

Jeff: So he did reunite with her at one point. They never got together. Lori, the object of his affection for 30 some years. They, she went to one of his concerts later on. There's this beautiful behind the scenes thing where they reunite and they're hugging and talking and he's just telling her how much he loves her and it's just, it's really sweet.

Jeff: But the filmmaker decided he wanted to keep her. A mystery or kind of this, the unattainable thing? The unattainable object. Yep. For Dale Johnston. And to show that would've taken 

Charlotte: away from that. Yeah. No, that's just good storytelling. Yeah. 

Jeff: I thought, and I thought that was a very brave choice cuz it's so hard not to show that footage cuz it really is moving to see them together. So it's, any filmmaker would struggle to not include that footage, but I thought it was brave not to put that in there. Cause it did make the film even 

Adam: stronger. Yeah. It's really interesting when Matt Greening's in the back talking to him Yeah. After the show how childlike he is.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. He is here. Somebody came and paid to see him perform on stage and all he really wants to, he's I really just want to get into comic books. Yeah. I just really want to draw comic books. Yeah. That's what I really want to do. Yeah. It's just, yeah. He never developed past a certain 

Jeff: page.

Jeff: No. And it's always Captain America, Casper for the friendly ghost . Just like the same, like three or four. Yeah. He has his themes. I'll just say that. 

Adam: The hollow headed guy, the hollow headed guy, hollow headed boxer guy. Yeah. I don't know. It's a fascinating documentary. It really is. 

Jeff: The double and Dan Johnston came out a while ago and you can stream it somewhere.

Charlotte: All right, so one of the things that came up when we were talking about doing music documentaries were bands that don't have a documentary on them, but. Should have a documentary on them. And then we remembered that Jeff, you were working on a music documentary Yeah, sure was at one point. 

Jeff: Do Tell. Yeah. So after Pony Boy, which I talked about last time, That was the movie you directed?

Jeff: Yeah, it was the movie I directed and that was trying to figure out the next thing to do. And the first project was a series we were proposing, actually pitched it at vh1 underground Legends of Rock and Roll. It was called, it was gonna be our lawn format, like Petty Smith and Love and, said Barrett, and that sounds 

Adam: legit.

Adam: That sounds good. I would totally watch that. I'll 

Jeff: watch it. When does it come on? The replacement. So I pitched this whole thing to VH1 and it was a pretty good pitch. I'd practice it pretty good. And it was like 20 minutes and by the end of it the lady was like, that sounds really interesting.

Jeff: But have you watched VH1 recently? We don't do music stuff anymore,

Jeff: So 

Adam: I was like, oh shit. Hey, would you like to do bringing up baby behind the 

Jeff: scenes , right? Yeah, I know exactly. It was all like teen and pregnancy stuff. So I was like the total waste of time. But one of the bands I had profiled in this was os Mutantes, not that an American . It was probably a wild one to propose to b H one.

Jeff: But while I was researching that particular episode, I just completely became obsessed with their story. It's so insane. There were basically the Beatles of Brazil in the sixties. It was two brothers, Sarah Gido and Rita Lee. She was the female in the group and she was our NO'S girlfriend and all three were the songwriters.

Jeff: She wasn't just like the female ornament, she was an equal member they all played tons of instruments made to all their instruments by hand. Their older brother Claudia made all the guitars, anything they wanted, like a thein, they'd hear like the beach boys.

Jeff: Good vibrations and What's that sound? And Oh, it's a thein. We don't have 'em down here in Brazil. Let's make one. So they would just make every single thing they did. And they're really young too, right? Yeah, really young. They used like their mother's like soy machine motors to make stuff and, oh, that's, Yeah, they made a voice box out of like a chocolate can, a hose and just, really bizarre contraptions, just do it yourself kind of stuff. But they were brilliant musicians. Their music is I think is interesting and experimental and unpredictable as The Beatles. And they were all of course, performing during a really sense of political time too.

Jeff: It was the military dictatorship in Brazil, which is in prisons. A bunch of artists. Their friends, Katana Veloso and Jaber Jill were imprisoned. And it was, yeah, so you have Revolution Romance with, it was like the whole thing's there. This incredible music, 

Adam: wonderful story. 

Jeff: It was a story so fucking epic

Jeff: And I was gonna animate the whole thing. And people thought it was crazy. Like, when you're not doing like the Talking Heads thing, I was like, no, let's get away from the Talking Heads. I like those, they're like informational documentaries, but I wanna do like an experience like the band, like a yellow submarine, but Brazil, like with that kind of retro animation and.

Jeff: So for 10 years I developed this thing. I had tons of different producers involved. I had Ralph B's company involved at one point. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. I bet him he had a screen of wizard. At lacma and I just walked up to him and gave him my portfolio. And he actually, his son called me back, Eddie bk.

Adam: And he said, we have a restraining order 

Jeff: again. No. They were totally down to to, you to do it. I had some pretty powerful producers who are going to can and we're making deals for and stuff. It all fell apart though, because the three principles, so they split up in 1973 that Bandos mats, they all had solo careers, Rita, and was married to ao, one of the brothers.

Jeff: They went to a horrible divorce. Ado tried to kill himself. 1981. He's institutionalized. Threw himself from the top floor of a mental hospital, Anita Lee's birthday. He'll learn how to walk and talk again. He was in a coma forever. They had a lot of horrible drama and. Every time I would like work with one, the others would think I was like working with that person and that they were being like, shoved outta the thing.

Jeff: Oh no. So I could never find the right balance with these three people, and it eventually just totally fell apart. So on my gravestone someday you'll see Jeff McCarty, here Lies , buried by three assholes in Brazil,

Jeff: I wanna say this real quick. Yeah, their music's absolutely fantastic. Sergio Diaz is still my friend. He is not won the assholes.

Jeff: So music documentaries are very close to my heart. I, I watch 'em all the time. I love music. And that was the one that I was trying to make for a long time. And 

Adam: yeah, Charlotte played with the idea of making a Sparks videos, and then Edgar, right? Yeah. Then there is a Sparks video.

Adam: Yeah. I We were doing that years 

Jeff: ago. Yeah. I remember you telling me a while ago you wanted to do a Sparks video and 

Adam: she started collecting all kinds of footage 

Charlotte: I was talking to a friend of mine who was equally obsessed with Sparks.

Charlotte: Now it's made and yeah. And now our little band is famous and yeah, I don't know how I feel 

Jeff: about that. 

Adam: It's amazing to see how the audience has grown from the first time we saw their first show back in la Yeah.

Adam: 2005 or six? Yeah, they played 

Charlotte: the Avalon. It was the first and over 

Adam: a decade. Yeah, it was 200, maybe 200 people, two 50. 

Charlotte: You could walk up to the front of the stage and see them or just walk to the back to the 

Adam: bar. 

Jeff: It's funny cuz I, for all the music exploration I've dedicated my life to Sparks was not on my radar until I, Charlotte and 

Charlotte: Warren actually. Yeah, you actually connected the two of us. You said, Hey, I know two of you that are obsessed with this band, 

Jeff: you should meet.

Jeff: And that was really surprised. I was like, how have I not heard of Spark? I heard their name, but I didn't really know. And then Warren, 30 albums later, once I heard the full, catalog of stuff and then Lizzie loves them.

Jeff: Yeah. With my girlfriend. So she played me some 

Adam: real, yeah. not, I'm not that cool. Charlotte introduced me to them. They're 

Charlotte: such a hard band to do a mixtape though, because 

Adam: Yeah. They're so much styles are so different. Yeah, They go through different periods too. Yeah. And they're, they don't sit well next to each other.

Adam: Those periods. Yeah. Sparks. Yeah. 

Charlotte: Sparks a documentary made another one. I almost talked 

Adam: about that one. Sparks. Sparks Brothers. Yeah. Sparks 

Charlotte: Brothers. Dumb name. . 

Adam: What you go Edgar? 

Charlotte: Yeah. Edgar Get outta your own documentary 

Adam: too.

Jeff: I loved it, but I thought it was a little too long. 

Charlotte: It was like, you know what would've been great by about a half an hour if Edgar cut his own interviews. Yeah. There was like, don't be in your own documentary about a band you're not in. Yeah. 

Adam: Just don't, he was the famous one in there, so that was what they were selling it on

Adam: No, he wasn't. 

Jeff: I didn't go see it cuz of him. I went to go see it for the sparks. 

Adam: Exactly. 

Jeff: I'm up, right? Am I up? You are up and, oh wow. You got a doozy. Oh, all right. Go for it. All right. Here it is. This may be the most entertaining part of the whole show, . 

Adam: We're not, don't over promise

Charlotte: We set the 

Adam: bar low here. Yeah. Always. The bar is set very low. So my next pick is Dig 2004, directed by Andy Timmer. 

Jeff: I knew her actually. 

Adam: Yeah, she I, I saw I don't know her, but I saw a bunch of docs 

Jeff: with her talking about the film. Yeah. She lived across the street from where I edit Pony Boy.

Jeff: So I'd see, oh, really? Every Saturday walking her 

Charlotte: dogs. You've already lost me. I have no clue who any of this, 

Adam: many of these people are hopeful. Hopefully. So let me explain. Okay. I. This is Dig a documentary on the ones promising American rock bands, the Brian Jonestown massacre and the Dandy Warhols.

Adam: All right. The friendship between respective founders, Anton Newcomb and Courtney Taylor escalated into 

Jeff: bitter rivalry. We've had a little bit of wine folks. , this is what happens in the second part of 

Charlotte: the show. Yeah, this part of perf damage 

Adam: sponsored Bob Rose and Cab Franc. Escalated into bitter rivalry as the Dandy Warhols garnered major international success while the Brian Jonestown massacre imploded in a haz of 

Jeff: drills.

Jeff: They sure did. . It's actually okay. This part's totally bat shit because it's a bat shit band, a batt story, 

Adam: so Anton Newcomb was the lead singer and songwriter For Brian Jonestown Massacre and Courtney Taylor was the lead singer for the Dandy Warhols, 

Jeff: Yeah. They're the two main characters in Dig. 

Adam: I think this movie does a great job of detailing just how crazy they were. How crazy that environment was. How crazy Newcomb was. Yeah. Brilliant in a 

Jeff: lot of ways.

Jeff: Spinal tabish in a lot of ways. 

Adam: Yeah. Musically 

Jeff: gifted for sure. Yeah. He was, I first heard of them I think in the. Like 1994, I'd see the name Brian Jonestowns. Massacre. It's a great name. I love the Rolling Stones. They're my favorite band of all time.

Jeff: Brian Jones, anything. And then, I saw pictures of them with like sitars and stuff, and I was like, oh, no. One in the nineties was 

Adam: doing music like that. And they had that album the 

Jeff: second oh yeah, they're their second the 

Adam: Satanic Majesty. Second. Second Request. Request. Yeah. And I love that record.

Adam: That's such a great, yeah, I love that Rolling Stones 

Jeff: record. First of all, I know that record is maybe the most Maligned Stones album, and I think it's one of the best. Oh, I love albums. I love it. It's just a it's a beautiful odyssey of weirdness and 

Adam: yeah, their attempt at psychedelia is, I like it.

Adam: It's so interesting. It's 

Jeff: good. It's good. Yeah. Unfairly maligned. I think it's one of the greatest records ever made. And and so any band that would harken back to that as they're, they write up Jeff 

Adam: Alley for sure. 

Jeff: Yeah. Right up Jeff Alley. And nobody in the nineties was doing that kind.

Jeff: It was all like grunge and lofi stuff. And so Jeff Alley was just no. And hip hop and but here was empty. Yeah, it was, yeah. Jeff Alley was empty and like they, they did fill it. And I went to go see them then. Cause I saw the ads and I've had a few 

Adam: counter with them. We'll get, we're gonna get into that.

Adam: Yeah, we'll get into that. I'm really just picturing this Jeff Alley. We'll, I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll ease into that. All right. All right. Yeah. Yeah, this is fascinating because it takes the two bands and it puts them together and it starts off chronologically and they're both in the same place at the beginning of the documentary.

Adam: They're both, exploring new sounds and it's It's like sixties throwback, but with kind of a post-punk 

Jeff: aesthetic. Almost a As if Oasis was doing that album. Like Oasis doing say Matches request, 

Adam: but less attempting to be the Beatles Yeah. While doing 

Jeff: it.

Jeff: So that's like a punky kind of energy to it. Yeah, it does. Like a hard driving, like very narcotic energy too. Oh, for sure. 

Adam: Cause they're all super outta their minds. Yeah. So we talked about this with Daniel Johnston too. This was a band Brian Jonestowns massacre that was compelled to make music. Yeah, true. His was a little bit mental instability and maybe a lot drugs. Yeah. And those drugs pushed on that mental instability for 

Jeff: sure.

Jeff: Yeah. There's stuff that, there's some illusions to his background. His father was troubled and killed himself but yeah, I think drugs was a big part of that. Band's problem 

Adam: They followed them for seven years. Yeah. Both bands, seven years.

Adam: Yeah. So you see as that sound, the sound that they both were exploring together Yeah. At first and then the Dandy Warhols get signed to a major record label. Yeah. And then there's mad jealousy from Brian Jonestown, yeah. Because in a lot of ways Newcomb felt that he kind.

Adam: Brought that sound to those guys or yeah. Although that's not the way it's presented 

Jeff: in the documentary. No. Yeah. No, the, 

Adam: He said that we're gonna do a, we're causing a 

Jeff: revolution together. Brian Jonestown were first, and then the Dans and the Dans were a little more radio friendly and played the game a little bit more as far as, how they made their music videos.

Jeff: They actually showed up for stuff. They were 

Adam: more well-balanced 

Jeff: human beings. . Yeah. And the Brian Jones sound just did not, they were total 

Adam: maniacs. And Courtney down the line, Taylor always wanted to be successful. Yeah. Where Anton felt that success. As measured by major label support was a way of killing his creativity.

Jeff: Yeah. He had a very punk attitude towards the whole thing. 

Adam: Which was weird cuz it was all about peace and love. But he was so not peace and love. No. He was like the opposite of it. Be he, like punchy, like people on stage and 

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. I almost got into a fight with him as, you

Adam: oh God.

Adam: We gotta hear the story. So can I I just wanted to say one thing. The director, I watched this documentary with her and she was talking about the making of this film and she said, she boiled it all down to one mission statement. She said, can one maintain your artistic integrity and reach a mass audience?

Adam: And that is what she wanted to explore in this. And I feel she did a fantastic job, especially by putting those two bands together. Yeah. And pitting them against each other. Yeah. 

Charlotte: But artistic integrity is so subjective . 

Adam: It's interesting too because the dandies get signed, they're very excited about it, and then when they don't sell like the label wants them to, then the support from the actual label kind of dissipates.

Adam: And Courtney goes back to the Brian Jonestown massacre and does a bunch of dates with him and goes on tour with him and he's like, man, you guys have it so easy. This is so much better. You're free. You don't have all this pressure above you pushing you to make a hit. You get to do an explore this art on your own and on your own 

Jeff: pace.

Jeff: Yeah. Look what happened with 'em though. They totally imploded because they were totally unstructured maniacs, the Brian Jonestown massacre. So I'm not sure what type of artistic freedom that they really championed cuz. When they, when like, when you behave like that . What? What 

Adam: you . That's Bernard.

Adam: Bernard's back guys. Ripley's favorite tour. He wanted to comment on Dig. Yeah. 

Jeff: It's his favorite. Yeah. I mean I think those bands are a mess, especially Brian Jonestown. But 

Adam: I, I mean in the end, don't you think Brian Jonestown actually kind wins cuz the Dandy don't own their music.

Adam: It's owned by a major label and they do what they want with it. Whereas Anton owns all of his own music. Yeah. Yeah. If anybody wants to license it, they have to go to him. Yeah. He never got a major record deal because, he signed with TV v t for a short period of time. Yeah. But that was a disaster.

Adam: Yeah. 



Adam: I also think too, at the end, despite all the animosity between the two bands, It wasn't, it's not as bad as they tried to make it out, honestly. Anton and Courtney never get in an actual fight. feel like that's what they were trying to lead up to and it 

Jeff: never actually exist.

Jeff: But he isn't tolerable. Anton knew come like he was, there's no way. It he could go back and watch, dig, and think any of his behavior was acceptable in any way, shape or form. He's such a narcissist. He's he had a God complex. He has a weird God complex. He's, could you work with him in any capacity whatsoever?

Jeff: Could anybody, 

Adam: I think no one was capable 

Jeff: of actually doing it. Yeah. And so because of that, he's not really champion artistic freedom if he can't even keep a collective of artists together cuz of his own, narcissism. And so in that way, I he self-sabotage the whole thing. So I don't they never 

Adam: got a major record deal.

Adam: No, lives 

Jeff: in Berlin. . Yeah, he does. He makes music with Roman Lansky's wife 

Adam: and he appears on Anthony Bourdain shows years 

Jeff: ago. 

Adam: The director said in one of the interviews that I watched that she followed 10 bands to begin with. Oh, wow. Oh, I didn't know. And then at one point, Anton Newcomb came to her and said, you don't have to follow any other bands.

Adam: I'm the subject of your documentary . 

Jeff: Yeah. See, exactly that. That's how he was about everything. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I lived in Silver Lake at that time, the late nineties, and yeah, them and the Beachwood Sparks. I mean there was like a whole 

Adam: scene there. Yeah. It was a big music scene 

Jeff: there, there was music there.

Jeff: Scene the warlocks, there was. They were fun bands. A lot of them, they were sixties throwbacks, but they had kind of of punky energy to a lot of them. The Beachwood Sparks was more like in the Burrito Brothers birds vein. Mm-hmm. .. then Brian Jonestown was what we talked about earlier.

Jeff: None of them ever had really big national stardom was, it was all very regional with them. But their shows were always cheap. So I went to them a lot, , and they were 

Adam: fun. . And the music was good enough. Great. The music was good. Yeah. Yeah. Good enough. Yep. It was 

Charlotte: good enough, after a couple beers it was pretty 

Jeff: good.

Jeff: Yeah. A couple beers. It was a good time. Some other stuff. 

Adam: It was good. Brian Jonestown and Danny Warhols both have some 

Jeff: good music. They absolutely do. I wouldn't, I would never say otherwise. So why don't you 

Adam: tell that story? Oh, God. 

Jeff: You thought I forgot about it, but I didn't.

Jeff: No. I because I went to all those shows and I guess in the periphery of my scene, I hung out with rubbed shoulders with the periphery of their scene. I wasn't in their scene, but the first time were you making music videos for their scene? No, No. But my buddy Mike Bruce has made videos for Dandy Warhols, though.

Jeff: Oh, there you go. He's one of the guys who started the Pioneer Town Film Festival. Oh, okay. And so that's why the Dandy Warhols were there. But Brian Jonestown, the first time I saw them, there was like trouble actually. So the, the the Ponzi tambourine player guy, he always had a cigarette and he was doing his thing and those chops.

Jeff: Yeah. And he flicked the cigarette into the crowd, hit me in my glasses, , ricocheted off my glasses and hit my friend Aaron in the face. Oh, hell no. Oh, wow. I picked up the cigarette, I threw it right back at him and hit him in the chest. He actually was cool enough to stop playing the tambourine for a second.

Jeff: Extended his hand, shook my hand, and apologized on stage as they were performing. I thought that was cool. The second time I, this like three times, ran into them. Second time was like this weird party in the Silver Lake. They were just high and being weird the third time my buddy Foss, who was the star of pony boy, we walked into this room with a bunch of instruments, drum sets, bass, guitar all kinds of stuff.

Jeff: And Foss is always trying to get people to play together. He loves jamming all night with people and stuff. And he knew Anton was a musician. He was like, Hey man, you wanna jam? Anton was like, jam man. What do you mean jam? Like Bob Marley, you wanna jam ? 

Adam: He's it's 

Jeff: just being a dick. Huh? It's just being a dick.

Jeff: He was like, yeah, watch this man. I can jam. And he got behind the drums. He's watch this. I can jam the drums. And he's watch this. I'm gonna jam the bass doing come from instrument. And then I was like, man, why don't you just sit down, just chill out. He's just asking to play some.

Jeff: He's what'd you say to you? ? And then his girlfriend came into the room and took him out. And I'm glad cuz he was a psycho, 

Adam: she like took him out. Yeah. She like took him out. She just took him out. I think she sped him into a wall. Yeah. Yeah. That's what happened. Punched him, knocked him out.

Adam: So yeah, knocked him right the hell 

Jeff: out. Yeah. Yeah. She knocked him. And later I found out though, that was dating that girl at the same time Anton Newcomb was . So I think that might've been part of it. Oh. 

Adam: So it's getting too 

Jeff: complicated. Yeah. So that's that story. Tales from Silver Lake. Yeah. Looked like 1999, 2000 

Adam: something times were crazy then.

Adam: Yeah. 

Jeff: Yeah. So after that I was like, ah, fuck these guys. I can't listen to their music anymore. They're just a bunch of, nut jobs. But in retrospect, they did make some good music. I like I still like some 

Adam: of it. Yeah. That song in Niani is amazing. 

Jeff: It really is. Yeah, it is good. It's 

Adam: good.

Adam: Yeah. And that's one of the things that I thought was cool too, that despite all their things, that went on between the two bands. Courtney Taylor said, I can never take away that this guy writes amazing music. Yeah. When it boils down to it, it doesn't matter what your personality is.

Adam: Ultimately, the guy was very talented 

Jeff: musically, although I would argue Dan Johnson wrote better songs, . Just lyrically, I think his songs are, there's no really good Anton Newcomb lyrics. He just has a groovy a good groove to it. 

Adam: That's not the vibe though.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah. Yeah. Dan Johnson's not gonna like, Daniel Johnson is like ripping his 

Jeff: soul apart and Yes, exactly. Whereas Dan, yeah, Dan Johnson's not gonna send you off into the psychedelic 

Adam: groove. Anton Newcomb doesn't have a soul. , he sold it for heroin a long time ago, I 

Jeff: know.

Jeff: Definitely

Adam: I'm gonna pass the baton to you, Charlotte. What is your next pick? 

Charlotte: I'm going in a completely opposite direction, and my next pick is glen Campbell, I'll Be Me from 2014. And if I remember correctly, this movie also made you cry, Adam

Adam: I'm crying and laughing at my songs. . 

Charlotte: It just never gets old

Adam: It did. It made me cry. It 

Charlotte: did, yeah, because this is a documentary not only about the incredible musician, Glenn Campbell, it's also about his battle with Alzheimer's and his last tour, we have a special connection to this because I drug you to the tour, which played at the Hollywood 

Jeff: Bowl I went to that Did you? In 2012? 

Adam: Yeah. Whenever it was. Yeah. show Show 104 on that 

Charlotte: tour. He did not wanna go. I had to make him go and then he had the 

Jeff: best time. I, my buddy was amazing.

Jeff: Yeah. My friend Andrew Jackson loves Glen Campbell and was his birthday, so I treat him to it. Yeah. I had Chris Christon, listen to Williams, right? That one? . . . 

Charlotte: That's so cool. We were all at the same show, , and we didn't even know it.

Charlotte: Yeah. I think it would be easy to look at this documentary and think that they're exploiting Glen Campbell for what he's going through. I think people could look at it that way, but his family's all involved though. His family's involved, and I think it was really brave of them because you're not only seeing.

Charlotte: Him decline through Alzheimer's. You're following him for well over a year as he's going on this final tour, but you're seeing how his family deals with it too, which is really heartbreaking. Especially if you've had anyone in your family that has had Alzheimer's. You can really relate to what they're going through.

Charlotte: But in addition to that, it's also about Glenn Campbell, who is this incredible musician who a lot of people don't really know that much about. They might know, oh, he is a rhinestone cowboy guy, but people might not know that he was in the wrecking crew, although there was that great documentary about the wrecking crew.

Charlotte: But he was one of the guys, he was a session musician that played with all of the greats, and he's an incredible guitar player. 

Adam: Yeah. I think there's a lot of stuff going on in this documentary. There is there's the kind of farewell to the fans. Like this is it, being very open about, I'm going out, what's going the way that I want to.

Adam: on stage, this is the last time we're gonna be able to interact. And I'm thanking you for that. I think there's the whole look, this is an open document showing what's happening to him mentally. As he's slipping away. And it's very raw. It's very 

Charlotte: raw about that. And what's fascinating is that he's singing with a teleprompter because he can't remember the words to any of the songs.

Charlotte: And if the teleprompter goes down, he just is totally thrown. But when he starts playing the guitar, all of that muscle memory just right comes back and he can, it'll say on the teleprompter, it would tell him to play solo and he would just jam for 12 bars because de just let it go and it would just happen.

Charlotte: But then he would try to play songs twice. Like when we saw him, he tried to play, I forget what the song was. 

Adam: I

Adam: think he tried to play Wichita. A lineman. 

Charlotte: Yeah. And twice. And his daughter was like, dad, we just played that. 

Adam: It was really cute.

Adam: But no, it was fascinating. The doctor even said that by being on stage, it was keeping him present. And more aware longer than normal people at his 

Charlotte: stage, keeping his brain more active. So slowing down his 

Jeff: cognitive, that's what I liked about it too. Just showing again, like the power of music and the power of it really is power of music, what it means to somebody and how it can keep your pulse going your energy going, your focus going, everything.

Jeff: I It really did give him a whole, final career there where he was playing and some of it was like terrifying to watch cuz he could really even get through some of those shows. But the crowd was there with him and loved him. And his family was there with him and loved him. And I, yeah.

Jeff: I just thought there was a whole lot of love in that film. Yeah. There was their first condition and it was very brave to show what he was going through. , 

Adam: I think for his wife too, to show what she was going through. Yeah. The fact that he couldn't find a bathroom. Yeah. But he could play in the house a 10 minute solo on stage, that's crazy to think about 

Jeff: that. Yeah. Yeah. Just, just watching the whole movies and oh, who's that? Or, oh, that was your second one. Who's that? Oh, that's so sad. Yeah. All that kind of stuff was, yeah, it was very 

Charlotte: moving. And there's that really sweet song that his daughter wrote for him, the daddy.

Charlotte: I'll do them 

Adam: remembering. 

Charlotte: The part that always brings tears though is the last song.

Adam: I'm not gonna miss you. It's like that Bowie song, Lazarus Right for me. I can't listen to it. 

Charlotte: Can't do it. That 

Jeff: video, it was very frank seeing a person with Alzheimer's, like how.

Jeff: Even process their situation, the doctor's asking questions and he is oh, I got rid of, I got rid of those useless memories. Yeah. Or I don't care about that. Yeah, I don't care about that. What year is it? Who was the first president of the United States? I, it doesn't matter to me now.

Adam: He's ask me about GE guitar playing . But 

Jeff: honestly, I yeah. And he seemed like in a good mood and happy through a lot of that. So I guess that's part of the condition 

Adam: in a 

Charlotte: way. It is yeah. I had a grandfather that had Alzheimer's and he was super happy. Yeah. Yeah.

Charlotte: And just that's, it's that ignorance, bliss kind of thing. Yeah. I think falls in line with that, but that only goes so far until they're frustrated that they can't remember stuff and then it of turns, but it's a, it's an awful disease to see happen 

Jeff: to anybody.

Jeff: I had one small gripe of the document. I wish it had shown more archival footage only because to contrast who he was now versus who he was then there was very little, there was some here and there , but he was on the giant Carson show all the time, just to show like what a great personality he was.

Jeff: He had his own variety 

Adam: show. Yeah. Yeah. He did. Yeah. Like he barely got to 

Jeff: see that. You saw a very few clips from that. I think there should have been more of that in it. 

Adam: It's really, it just wasn't 

Charlotte: the focus. Yeah. It's not the definitive Glen Campbell thing. It's more the this is the 

Jeff: farewell tour.

Jeff: Well, which is true. Which is true. But I think that was just driven home. Like what? Kinda what was lost a little bit deeper. . It was one of the past documentaries I've seen about Alzheimer's and about what that condition's and Yeah.

Jeff: And 

Adam: it's a music doc. I was very moved by it. And it's a music doc. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. With great music. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, do you see that pretty much all of these documentaries we're talking about are dealing with some sort of mental illness or Yeah. Disease of some sort? Yeah. Orion, except for O Ryan.

Adam: So is that 

Charlotte: it for, yeah, Glen, so Glen Campbell, I'll be me. Check it out if you haven't seen it. It is fantastic. And make sure you watch it with a box of Kleenex next to you, because you will probably shed a tear and that's okay. It's true because we did too. Yeah. It made me cry. Yeah. A lot of things make 

Jeff: Adam cry now.

Jeff: Me too. I'm very emotional watching films. 

Charlotte: All right, Jeff, so hit us with 

Jeff: your last, all right. It's the ballot of Rambling Jack is my second part of my double feature from the year 2000 directed by Ayanna Elliot, who is Jack Elliot's daughter. It's 112 minutes, and here is the synopsis after Woody Guthrie and before Bob Dylan came rambling, Jack Elliot, with the help of her mother, family, friends, and fellow musicians, Ayanna Elliot reaches for her father, legendary Cowboy Troubador, rambling Jack Elliot.

Jeff: She explores who he is and how he got there, working back and forth between archival and contemporary footage. Born in 1932 in Brooklyn, busing through the south and west in the early fifties a year with Woody Guthrie, six years flat picking in Europe. A triumphant returned to Ranch Village in the early sixties.

Jeff: While they're really giving away everything here, mentoring Bob Dylan, then life on the road from gig to gig, singing and telling stories. A Grammy in the National Mell of Arts await Jack near the end of a lawn trail. But what will Iana find for herself? I first saw this film, I think at the Newark Theater.

Jeff: when he came out in 2000 and I had not heard of him prior to this film, which is surprising for me cuz I'm a huge Bob Dylan fan and Woody got three. I had never heard of this one. Yeah. Had same, I had never heard of this guy. Yeah. Had been for years. And I saw the document, ball Ramen, Jack Woody got three Bob.

Jeff: Okay. I'm there. was like, I 

Adam: saw them. They had to say was Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan. You were Soul. 

Jeff: You're Soul. Yeah. Yeah. Like I was reading Bound for Glory in all Woody's books in college and everything. I just love both those guys and I think it's a great story.

Jeff: The film is basically about a daughter making this documentary to try to discover and get to know her father's rambling, Jack Elliot. So what's he doing?

Jeff: He's out rambling around. . He's not being, he's not being a good dad. . He's he's like riding, the rodeo and, busk and making music, in New York or wherever 

Adam: else, and basically doing anything to avoid any sort 

Jeff: of responsibility. Yes, it's totally true. .

Jeff: His story's really interesting. He was the son of a wealthy Jewish doctor in New York. He just totally reinvented himself. He grew up loving everything to do with cowboys, the rodeo folk music. He actually left home to join the rodeo, changed his name to Jack Elliot. He had the very Jewish name before that.

Jeff: And yeah, he just, he dedicated his whole life to reinventing himself to be exactly who he wanted to be. So he's a very free individual and I've always been drawn to very free individuals like, like Rambling Jack Elliot. But there's a cost to that. And that cost is, there's no, secure in, Healthy family life.

Jeff: And that's what happened to his daughter and his daughter many years later, made this documentary trying to figure out who he was and why he left her family. And I think all that's very, very moving 

Adam: and she thought she could pin him down and get some answers. 

Jeff: So the thing with Rambling Jack, now not only is he rambling, like geographically, but his mind is rambling all the time too. . He cannot settle down on anything. She'll be trying to interview him about something really serious and he'll be like, look at that cow over there.

Jeff: Hey, what's this over there? Oh, hey, this person just showed up. And there's never a moment to have a real serious conversation with this 

Adam: guy, . Yeah. I think one of the best moments was when they were describing Rambling Jack in a grocery 

Jeff: store. Oh yeah. He'll go in a grocery store and just stare at a piece of fruit for an hour and just talk about it for an hour.

Adam: Yeah. They said they would walk around and then an hour later he would have one bottle of hot sauce or something like that. He's I 

Jeff: heard this was good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. 

Adam: That's what it is. 

Jeff: So he was on the Johnny Cash Show a number of times. He was friends with everybody with you. Dylan Woody Guthrie and Bobby New Worth, and Johnny Cash and Chris Christofferson odea. He was Dylan for a little while. The documentary is not really fair about that so basically Rambling Jack was the bridge between Woody Guthrie and Dylan.

Jeff: What he got through was very sick in the fifties. Ram and Jack met him. They were playing at Washington Square a lot back then. And then he took Dylan under his wing when Dylan showed up years later. And Woody was then in the hospital at that point. So he learned a lot of Woody stuff from Jack.

Jeff: Even Jack's style was, and everything, but of course, but 

Adam: not just Woody's stuff. , he basically stole Jack's persona. 

Jeff: He stole his persona. But the thing about Dylan, And Jack didn't write songs and Dylan did and wrote very original songs. Yeah. And then, played rock and roll and just did all these things that Jack Elliot never did.

Jeff: He just wanted to keep doing his cowboy songs forever and ever. And Jack felt a little sad because Dylan kinda left, just like Joan Baez did. Dylan just kinda left him behind cuz he kept moving constantly. But he did bring them back. He there was the show for what he got through his death, they did, where Jack was on stage.

Jeff: He brought him back for the Rolling Thunder review in the seventies. They did remain friends, but Jack just wanted to be a bigger part of Dylan's circle in life. I think he wanted acknowledgement. Yeah, like more acknowledgement. Yeah, 

Adam: because he did, yeah. Yeah. There was that whole story he told about how he went up and sang a song and then Dylan got up and sang a song and everybody's Hey dude, Dylan sang that song.

Adam: Just like you sang the song before. Yeah. And he is yeah, I know . 

Jeff: Yeah, totally. 

Jeff: 

Jeff: Ram Jack was on Johnny Cash's show. He had the primetime show on for a few years, and he came on it several times.

Jeff: And there's a song that Johnny Cash, a duet that they do together, which really shows off rambling Jack's personality in a really fun way. 

Jeff: Yeah, it's the ball of rambling Jack. So yeah, I've never seen that. I really wanna see it now. Yeah. It's directed by his daughter. I met his daughter, she was a total sweetheart. Where'd you meet the daughter? I saw Rambling Jack a number of times. After that documentary I saw him at McCabe's Guitar Shop.

Jeff: Oh yeah. Oh nice. In Santa Monica a couple times. Saw him at 10 year once and I met Iyanna at one of those shows and she was just lovely. And yeah, it's a great movie and yeah, daughter trying to, come to terms with her rambling dad, 

Adam: and ultimately she gets nothing. Yeah. And that's 

Jeff: the sad thing.

Jeff: Oh, there's that one sweet performance where he addresses her from the stage though. Yes, he does. Which I thought was quite a moving and he is I wasn't a very good father and I assume many of you out here weren't either. Cuz I tend to attract them to my show. 

Adam: Thank you Jeff for being here. Yeah. Thanks for hanging out and thanks for sharing all your music knowledge. Oh yeah. 

Charlotte: And eating our dinner and drinking our wine . 

Jeff: Yeah. I have to get some more of that before I leave. 

Charlotte: Yeah. . Yeah. It's been good talking about music docs. There's so many you guys mentioned that I'd never heard 

Jeff: of.

Jeff: And there's so many more. I I know honestly like the last 20 years have just been a treasure trove 

Charlotte: yeah. It's 

Adam: hard just to pick two. It was, that's why. I changed mine. Yeah. Literally 

Jeff: yesterday. Right before, it was hard cuz my favorites are like, gimme shelter.

Jeff: It's my favorite of all time. , we could talk about the elephant in the room when age daydream, but which I think is one of my 

Adam: favorite documents. Charlotte said, you were definitely gonna mention that. I knew 

Charlotte: That's the new David Bowie. 

Adam: That's Bowie documentary. Documentary 

Jeff: by Brett Morgan.

Jeff: Don't. All right. We'll talk about it real quick. I can't understand what you guys didn't see in that film. Just 

Charlotte: tell me. I believe, weren't we happening sober at the time? 

Adam: And were, we were not. Yeah, we were sober . That's not the only reason. Oh, 

Jeff: I saw a second time with Layla and I was just fine.

Adam: It was just a lot of, bad 

Charlotte: editing, I feel. It was more about the director than the 

Adam: subject. Yeah. Yeah. Usage of the same clips over and over again. Why do you blow them up to the point where you couldn't even see them anymore? . 

Jeff: See, I don't, I definitely not say there's any bad editing.

Jeff: I think he's one of the best editors of music 

Adam: documentaries in research. No, see, it shouldn't be 

Jeff: about the Kirk Coba montage. 

Charlotte: Montage's heck crossfire, David Bowie montage. Just, fuck. Yeah, that's what it was. He kept reusing the same stuff too. We could go on and on about We don't like 

Adam: the trash movies.

Adam: So this is the thing is that it's just it shouldn't be about the editing. It should be about the story. And this was all about the. Like over story 99% 

Jeff: of the time. I Maybe you're looking for something different. It's, it was a poetic documentary. It wasn't like an exposition 

Adam: documentary.

Adam: No, it wasn't pitched as a tone poem. I watch tone poems on YouTube. I don't pay, you can watch behind the music. I don't pay $30 for a tone 

Jeff: poem, . Hey man, I, I watched in the imax it blew our brains out. It 

Charlotte: was such esty footage, blown up 

Adam: to IMAX looks, it looked fantastic, horrible. 

Jeff: Looks like shit.

Jeff: You guys are the only Bowie fans I know who think this way. So 

Charlotte: I was offended by how bad it was. Wow. We saw it together. We saw it and. We hated it, but we could see You guys loved it, so 

Adam: we didn't say loved. You have no idea anything about it. No idea. We 

Jeff: didn't wanna ruin your, we didn't wanna, I thought that was a class 

Adam: act, but I didn't.

Charlotte: We're a class act 

Adam: here people. I did. I did. You heard it here first. You heard it from Jeff McCarty Class Act. We are classy 

Jeff: Class Act . But go see. It's great. 

Charlotte: No, but that's what's great. We love talking films with you because you stand by your opinions. We stand by ours and we don't take it personally. We really like discussing why someone liked 

Jeff: something or didn't.

Jeff: Do you guys see the Bell Underground? One documentary from Todd Haines did. 

Adam: We didn't finish it. We started it and we didn't finish it. Same thing. No. I don't think we disliked it. We thought it was a little long. the way he was getting around to it. And then I think we fell 

Jeff: asleep. So it was, see I guess for me, because, music is obviously so abstract and so about emotion, I've been always wanting to see a documentary which attacked it that way visually 

Jeff: I like informational documentaries too, like the, of the ones we've been talking about tonight, it's, I'm not against them, but I've always wanted to see that. And those two films, I thought nailed it home in a way I've always wanted seen like a big screen visual experience, still a documentary, but a poeticize rendering of an artist's life and with and with that, Bowie won.

Jeff: You got not just his music, you guys art his paintings, his working theater. I, and with only narrated singularly by himself, I just thought, oh, that was unusual and revolutionary for a documentary. So that's my 2 cents. I know you guys disagree. And there you go. , we had to 

Adam: talk about it, right?

Adam: We had, you can't say anything nice. . Geez. Just mute. 

Jeff: Mute my mic, please. All right. Everyone should just go out and see it for themselves. 

Adam: No, I agree. I think everybody should see that film. Yeah. I think decide for 

Jeff: yourself. 

Adam: Yeah, 

Charlotte: decide for yourself. I'm gonna say I'm not recommending it, so at least have that voice.

Jeff: I'm recommending it. Yeah. Along with Cracked Actor. Another great one from the mid seventies about David Bowie. I don't think I've seen that one. Yeah, that's just as good in a different way. 

Adam: I thought we were gonna mention cocksucker blues and we didn't, so we could, yeah. Let, we should wrap it up.

Adam: We should wrap it up. There's just so many we could talk 

Jeff: about. My mother does not wanna hear about 

Adam: cocksucker boots. . 

Charlotte: Thanks for joining us. As we chat about music documentaries, if you wanna send us a note, we are perf damage podcast@gmail.com. We're also on Twitter at perf Damage and Adam will have a really great time putting together his letterbox list to list every documentary that we've mentioned today. I feel like I should just mention a few more 

Adam: right now.

Adam: Yeah, me too actually. , yeah, it's just throw 'em out there, do it. 

Charlotte: Just do it. There's hit me with Them Jingle Bell Rocks. That's about people that collect weird Christmas music, which I happen to be a part of that. Yeah, that was a fun one. There's 

Jeff: Jeff. I know a poem is Naked Person by about Leon Russell.

Jeff: That's a pretty good one. . 

Charlotte: There's an awesome Tom Petty one. There's that Eagles documentary. That's really long. 

Adam: Yeah, I mean we could go on. What about the one about industrials? That one was really good too. Bathtub Symphony. Sure. Have 

Jeff: fun adding that one too. That one was good. Oh, it was a brand new one about Judy Sill.

Jeff: It's great. By who? Judy Sill. She was a kind of weirdo folky in the early seventies. It's good. David Crosby, who died recently and there was a great documentary about him. 

Charlotte: I'm gonna, I'm gonna cut this off, so You're welcome . And 

Adam: until next time, thanks for joining us here On Perf Damage.

Adam: Woo. 

Charlotte: I'm just wondering, is this conversation interesting to anyone other than you 

Adam: two? Oh I guess we'll find out. Anybody that's seen that documentary, probably that's a very 

Jeff: popular documentary.

Jeff: My mother will be riveted. . 

Adam: Oh man, I wish my mom listened to this. 

Charlotte: Maybe one day out someday. If she only knew how much it hurt your feelings. 

Adam: how butt hurt you get if she doesn't tune in every, this is the personification of butt hurt right now, .