All Things Must Pass (screening at the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival)

[ALL THINGS MUST PASS screens Thursday October 5th at 7:00 pm at the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Filmmaker/actor/Hollywood royalty Colin Hanks - staying offscreen for the duration here – shows a gift for nostalgia beyond his young years as he directed ALL THINGS MUST PASS, the chronicle of Tower Records. Remember them? It was a giant music/entertainment retailer and tastemaker that seemed unstoppable  until it collapsed, seemingly overnight, at the start of the 21st century.

Founded in Sacramento as a humble scheme to sell used jukebox 45s at a Tower drugstore, the chain grew by leaps and bounds, as the initial success spurred CEO Russ Solomon to move into vending all-new vinyl LPs at prime locations on the West Coast, under the slogan “No Music No Life.”

What Hanks does quite well is show how Russ Solomon ended up one of those unsung-hero retailers who steered creative industry choices, as the artists themselves began finding their own muses via the inventory. His LA emporium, in fact, observed special hours to accommodate star shopper Elton John (John is interviewed here, as are Bruce Springsteen and David Grohl). 

Monterey Pop (June 17th and 18th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[MONTERY POP screens Saturday June 17th at 7:05 pm and Sunday June 18th at 4:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Music (and film) producer Lou Adler, who helped stage the Monterey International Pop Festival, proudly boasted that a "phenomenal" 1,100 media people covered the event (press arrangement handled by the ex-publicist for the Beatles), thus guaranteeing that the weekend of June 16-18, 1967 would go

down in history as the apex of the "Summer of Love." From that mix of cultural revolution, undeniable talent, and stage-managed corporate hype came MONTEREY POP, first in a cycle of widely-released,

mass-audience "rockumentaries."

The feature directed by D.A. Pennebaker skims highlights of the three-day, 33-act festival. First the hippie music fans arrive, one predicting that the concert in Monterey, California, will be "a love-in...like Easter, Christmas and your birthday all at once!" Even the many police patrolling the Monterey County Fairgrounds are shown smiling benignly.

The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (August 20 at 10:10 p.m. and August 21 at 6:30 p.m. at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

 

Director Penelope Spheeris came to prominence in 1981 with her punk-rockumentary THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION. In 1988 she encored with a second installment of rock-musical freak sideshow stuff. This one was shot on a visibly larger budget. And for this go-around it's a carnival of preening black-leather hedons and poseurs of the hair-metal decade, resplendent in lurid arena-rock excess in Los Angeles, onstage and in self-aggrandizing interviews.

The mullet-wearing interviewees render opinions of drugs (against), alcoholism (for! for!), selling out (for), satanism (for), exploiting women (you betcha!). "Rock and roll is basically music made by people who were thinking with their crotches," said Paul Stanley of KISS, cuddling in bed with three Stepford groupies.

Meanwhile future reality-TV dad Ozzy Osbourne states if weren't a rock star he'd be in prison (almost immediately gangsta rappers stole that line for themselves in practically all their hip-hopumentaries). On a similar note, a probation officer discusses "de-metaling" lawbreaking rock fans.

The Decline of Western Civilization (July 9 at 9:10 p.m. and July 10 at 6:30 p.m. at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

 

In 1981, this famous look at the American west-coast punk-rock musical underground was an eye-opener in those halcyon, post-disco days of Olivia Newton-John and the Bee Gees. Fights broke out frequently at screenings (imagine that; today people would only be shot). Shock-rockers of later years may have raised the bar of ridiculous indulgence and post-adolescent nihilism (or, if you're a fan, heroic revolt against yuppie consumerism), but there's historical import here for those interested in the time period. Or the mere concept of musicians who don't seem to care about Billboard charts or Red Bull sponsorship.

Ron Reyes, the frontman of Black Flag before Henry Rollins came along, shows us the spray-painted closet where he lives for only $16 per month. Exene Cervenka, back when she was still dwelling in domestic bliss with fellow X member John Doe, displays her collection of fire-and-brimstone Christian evangelical tracts picked up off the streets of LA. Staff of the essential punk journal Slash assemble an issue, despite the typesetter complaining about all the cigarette burns on the pages (thanks to desktop PC publishing not a problem much anymore).

Good Ol' Freda (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Remember Abbey Road on the River, that free downtown Cleveland Beatles festival/expo? It was a regular summer event for a few years in the Rock Hall city. And then, like LeBron and other things/people that have a taste of success here, left town for down south (Kentucky, I do believe). Amazing how often that happens. In 2013, a scaled-down version of Abbey Road on the River did come back to Cuyahoga County, but it kind of blindsided me by happening in Independence - at least a Strawberry Fields where one is less likely to get mugged. And there was an admissions charge now, that I was too poor to afford. Still, better than nothing.

Beatles methadone for me instead was GOOD OL' FREDA, an okay little nonfiction picture that purports to offer a narrative of the Beatles from an insider who, prior to now, had never told all in big-book/movie deal form (unlike, say, every last person who was involved in the Ariel Castro/Seymour Avenue affair).

Teen A Go Go (now on video)

[TEEN A GO-GO is now available on home video.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I'm still kind of amazed, even three decades after the announcement, that pariah metropolis Cleveland actually got the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The thing is, as everyone should remember, cities from New York to LA all campaigned mightily to build the official rock museum. Memphis, I understand, put up a particularly strong fight. That the facility wound up in Cleveland I can only ascribe to the most astounding act of diplomacy since Jimmy Carter brought Israel and Egypt to the peace table...or maybe blackmail. Someone in Cleveland City Hall or the old Growth Association learned that top Rock Hall guys were really Watergate informant "Deep Throat," skyjacker D.B. Cooper, the true JFK assassin, missing heir Michael Rockefeller, the bushy-haired stranger who killed Marilyn Shepard, and an incognito Jimmy Hoffa, all hiding out together. If we didn't get the Rock Hall, Cleveland would release to the media the secret files J.Edgar Hoover had on all of them. Can you prove it didn't go down that way?