Get To Know Matty C In 13 Music Docs

I run through a baker's dozen of my favorite music docs. Do you have a favorite?

Anvil! The Story Of Anvil (2008)

I don’t enjoy metal, but I love this doc about Canadian metal band, Anvil. The story centers around Steve “Lips” Kudlow and his bandmate Robb Reiner who make up the core of Anvil. We are witness to the band’s early heights, including co-headlining the 1984 Japanese Super Rock Festival with Bon Jovi, Scorpions, and Whitesnake who all went on to huge success. The film then jumps twenty years forward to a pair of fledgling friends trying to corral one last shot at rock and roll stardom.

The story is inspiring, desperate, harrowing and hilarious. Whether you dig heavy metal or not, it’s hard not to be charmed by the band, their friendship, and their own aspirations and doubts. If you want to know the truth, this is what rock and roll really looks like.

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2012)

It’s criminal that Memphis power pop band Big Star never got the accolades they deserved while they were still a band. The band’s first album, the arrogantly titled, #1 Record, is now widely seen as a 70’s classic that in many ways came to define the genre of power pop. Much like The Velvet Underground, who we’ll discuss more later, Big Star were not fully appreciated until long after their demise.

Filmmaker Drew DeNicola paints a portrait of two young men, Alex Chilton and Chris Bell, forming and leading a band sometimes in different directions. Both of these young men were supremely talented and driven. The film shows us the dissolution of Bell and Chilton’s relationship and the downward arc of the band and its participants over the coming years. While the film is effused with a sense of “what if”, it also captures the inherent joy and verve of Big Star at their greatest. We get to hear why they should have been huge, and learn why that never happened. Great stuff.

The Chills: The Triumph & Tragedy Of Martin Phillipps

Most music fans have never heard of The Chills, but in their native New Zealand, they’re a household name. This film follows the wild ups and downs of Martin Phillipps, the creative genius behind the band that has included nearly 30 other members over its four decade history.

We are privy to meetings between Phillipps and his doctor as they battle his Hepatitis. At one point, the doctor tells him sternly, “Martin, if you keep drinking, you will die.”

The film walks us through the turbulent history of the band, including the early loss of bassist and friend Martin Kean to leukemia. That trauma is covered oil depth along with Phillipp’s heroin addiction, his difficulty in keeping band members long-term, and his sketchy financial future in a new musical age.

We also get to see myriad examples of why The Chills are so important, and we get to see Phillipps continuing to make records and tour while he regains his health. It’s a hopeful film with a harrowing narrative and a helluva soundtrack.

Depeche Mode: 101 (1989)

Depeche Mode were my favorite band in the world when 101 was released. I was elated to know they were putting out a live double album as well a brand new documentary/live concert film to go with it. My mom got the double cassette edition for me as an Easter present the spring that it came out. A number of weeks after the release date, our local arthouse theater announced they’d be showing it as a midnight movie during an upcoming weekend.

My friends and I raced to the theater on both nights. We got up from our seats and danced during the concert footage. Everyone there had come to celebrate this wonderful band. The connection felt magical.

A few months later, I managed to get my hands on a dubbed VHS copy of the film. In the days long before YouTube, it took much searching, a great deal of networking, and often a pretty penny to get copies of films like these. I shoved the tape into the player and sat down to be awed. But, the film was only okay.

In retrospect, the film is an interesting time capsule, but I was clearly much more moved by the setting of seeing that film in that theater with those people, than I was by the film itself. Still, it’s a document of a band that meant the world to me at their peak other success and in the midst of the creative acme. Even with its flaws, the film is still a treat.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2006)

The Devil and Daniel Johnston is yet another music doc with a lessor known star living a tumultuous private life. Daniel Johnston became a fixture of the early 80’s underground scene in Austin, Texas. With a Brian Wilson like ear for melody, and a prolific approach, Johnston churned out a series of legendary home-recorded tapes that became the bootleg treasure of the scene.

Filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig brillant captures Johnston and his living situation in 2006 while also recounting the singer and songwriter’s remarkable arc toward notoriety. The film also deals in stark honesty with Johnston’s serious mental health woes which include severe manic-depressive behavior.

This film is gentle look at a troubled soul possessed by a genius and drive that is both beautiful and wholly unexplainable. If you are looking to see the life of a true artist, watch The Devil and Daniel Johnston.

Dig! (2004)

Dig! is a mess. It’s a glorious, cacophonous, rock and roll mess, because the truth is messy. Well, it’s messy when you’re spending time on the road with The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Warhols’ frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor and BJM’s Anton Newcombe are staged as collaborators cum rivals as we watch their two respective bands and their critical and commercial success and failures over the course of seven years.

Many viewers have reveled at the excess and debauchery of the film, or they have obsessed at the snotty bickering between the two main parties, but they’re missing the point. This film stands as an important look at the downward arc of the music industry already happening in 2004. The behavior might be questionable and the framing might be suspect, but this is a fascinating look at our very recent history.

Don’t Look Back (1967)

This was the first music doc I became obsessed with. I was a teenager and had fallen in love with Dylan’s words, his punk attitude, and his aloof persona. I was fascinated in watching Dylan toy with the room of reporters and then turn around to captivate a packed concert hall.

Director D.A. Pennebaker deftly incorporated behind the scenes footage of Dylan’s 1965 tour of England with a series of concert performances and staged art film sequences. The film was somehow a celebration/encapsulation of Dylan’s triumphant English tour as well as a look at what made the man tick and the famous folks who came along for the ride.

For all of the greatness in Pennebaker’s approach to capturing the tour and presenting the results, his greatest achievement as a filmmaker was simply being there to capture it at all. The 1965 tour is Dylan’s true coronation in England and marks, in many ways, his true ascension to that of a great artist appreciated in his own moment.

Gimme Shelter (1970)

If Don't Look Back is a look at the sixties in mid-swing, Gimme Shelter is the end of the dream of the 60’s and the beginning of the nightmare of the 1970’s.

The Rolling Stones, in a sort of response to Woodstock, decided to stage a concert at the Altamont Speedway in northern California. The band had already been filming a series of shows at Madison Square Garden with filmmaking brothers, Albert and David Maysles. As the plans for the Altamont show came into being, the brothers stayed around to capture the entire event from planning through to completion.

The story that follows is nothing short of legendary. There is footage of the Stones recording tracks at the world famous Muscle Shoals studios. We get to see the band killing it on stage in New York City and we see all of the planning that leads to Altamont. Sadly, the story also involves the Hell’s Angels, the murder of a young woman and the end of flower power. This one is as much a cultural history as it is a music doc.

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (2002)

Wilco were in turmoil as they prepared to release their fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Over the course of less than a year, bandleader Jeff Tweedy would fire his original drummer, Ken Coomer, jettison his musical collaborator and right-hand many, Jay Bennett and he would see his album summarily rejected by his label.

Amazingly, all of these twists and turns were captured by filmmaker Sam Jones and compiled into an incredible story of musical self-confidence and genuine success. As the film builds through the challenges mentioned above, we see a band and a songwriter (Tweedy) come to find a bold and brilliant collective voice.

This film captures a band on the edge of breaking apart and on the cusp of breaking through. Whether or not you know how that cliffhanger turns out, this one is a real treat.

I Called Him Morgan (2016)

Lee Morgan was as smooth as silk on the trumpet. He began taking lessons as a teenager with the great Clifford Brown and was gigging professionally before hitting the age of twenty. Morgan would go on to make some of the great trumpet based jazz this side of Miles Davis, but he was not without his demons.

I Called Him Morgan recounts the tumultuous, and eventually deadly relationship that Morgan had with his common-law wife, Helen Moore. The film recounts Morgan’s massive talent and his battle with heroin addiction. We learn that Moore is key in getting Morgan clean but provides a different form of toxicity to his life.

This one is a tale of talent and promise squandered for oh so many reasons.

The Last Waltz (1977)

The Last Waltz is regarded by many as the greatest concert film of all time. I have to admit, it’s way up there on the scale. As much as I love music and I love movies, filmed concert performances are often a bit lackluster for me. They so regularly fail to capture the electricity and excitement of the room. Scorcese manages to capture all of that and then some in the concert sequences of The Last Waltz.

Filmed on Thanksgiving night in 1976, the concert was a farewell to The Band, who were calling it quits after ten years or more as an outfit. The band planned a huge send-off show with a wide array of special guests that included Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Neil Diamond, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr and more. Scorcese brought along a film crew to capture the festivities and included a number of backstage interviews with the band members.

To be honest, the film is far too Robbie Robertson-centric in the interview sections. I could do with more Levon Helm and less Robbie across the board. It’s clear that Scorcese and Robertson bonded during the making of the film and the film might suffer a bit for that fact. Still, it’s a blazingly great live show with once in a lifetime guest appearances. Crack a beer and turn this one up loud.

Storefront Hitchcock (1998)

Robyn Hitchcock is an odd performer, if we’re being honest. He writes eccentric, often psychedelic pop-songs that seem to have little actual meaning to them, at least until you delve a bit deeper. Filmmaker Jonathan Demme figured, if we have a unique performer, we might as well present him in a unique way.

Storefront Hitchcock is a concert fit like no other you have ever seen. There are no lasers, no lights, no massive sound system. A small audience has assembled in an abandoned storefront on 154th street in Manhattan. Hitchcock plays songs from throughout his long and varied career, and spins a variety of wildly eccentric and fascinating yarns on religion, ghosts, the Great War and more.

The Velvet Underground (2021)

Todd Haynes was the likely the perfect filmmaker to tackle the mythical art rock wunderkind that was The Velvet Underground. The Velvets myth has been perpetuated almost from the moment that the band broke up. Dozens of books and TV specials have been churned out attempting to contextualize the genius and influence of the Factory house band. It seemed as though there was nothing new to learn about the band and its history.

Haynes uses previously unseen footage, archival interviews, new footage and intense research to create a three dimensional portrait of one of the most influential bands in the history of rock and roll. With an immersive, in your face style, Haynes drops the viewer into the world of New York in the 60’s with Warhol, Edie, Lou and the gang.

Cheers,
Matty C

What music doc is your favorite? Tell us all bout it.