Over the years, I have only very slowly picked up key videos of my favourite artists.
The first music-related home video I ever owned was a groovy set of episodes from The Monkees TV show of the 60's... courtesy of the Columbia House Club. Columbia House, in case you're too young to know it, was for many years a mail-order service through which you could get monthly shipments of music and movies. Way, way back I participated in the music side of the Club, then when I got into movie collecting, this was how I got started. Anyway, I transferred that VHS videotape to DVD in more recent years, and still enjoy the silly antics and musical interludes of The Monkees.
Still on the topic of The Monkees, I long ago (2000) recorded off TV their biopic called Daydream Believers. It's a fun story of the origins of the band (who weren't really even a band at first), with liberal use of fiction for the sake of drama... and comedy. And the musical bits are cool, too, if that's your thing. That old tape got the DVD transfer treatment before the picture and sound quality began to degrade.
A massive Rush fan for many years, I got my hands on a VHS tape-to-tape dub of drummer Neil Peart's A Work in Progress. This is a breakdown of how he created and played the drum parts on the Test for Echo album of 1996. It is both a drummer's dream and a Rush fanatic's dream to watch this up-close and personal look at the masterful Neil at the kit, meticulously going through the finest of details of both the creative and technical side of his craft. I highly recommend it! I transferred that two-tape set to DVD for future use, though it's not the sort of thing I'll revisit much anymore.
Also within the Rush realm, I somehow found a VHS copy of The Body Electric, an animated made-for-TV short film based on the song of the same title from the band's Grace Under Pressure album. Interesting use of Rush's music within the sci-fi story, but neither the tale nor the animation impressed me much. Regardless, it's in my collection as evidence of my earlier fandom.
Again with Rush, I was extremely pleased with myself for buying - on the day of its release in stores - Beyond the Lighted Stage, an excellent, thorough, and revealing documentary about the band. I loaned this DVD, in limited edition steelcase format, to several friends and was happy to see that everyone loved it, even the non-Rush fans. I think I even brought a couple of people onboard the Rush train with that gesture.
And lastly in the Rush department, I bought just one of their several live concert videos, Exit... Stage Left. There was a time - decades ago - when TV and radio stations collaborated on simulcasts, where the audio from your sound system's radio receiver matched up with the TV broadcast of a pre-recorded concert. I guess modern home theatre has made this practice obsolete. Anyway, that Exit... Stage Left show was originally simulcast back in 1981, and when it was re-aired in later years, I captured it on videotape. I watched that thing endlessly, wearing it down to a fuzzy mess. When after many years it was finally re-issued on DVD, I snapped it up. This concert footage is a time capsule of the glory years of Rush and their greatest songs.
Another favourite progressive rock band, Yes, found a place on my video shelf with their exhaustive and impressive documentary Yessyears: A Retrospective. I have watched it at least a few times and look forward to my next viewing. The facts of the legendary group's career aside, it is entertaining and often funny. I originally bought that on VHS and have since transferred it to DVD. It's still hanging in there.
I made a point of getting both of the Beatles' first two big-screen features, A Hard Day's Night and Help!, first on VHS tape and later on Blu-ray. A Hard Day's Night, released in 1964, qualifies as a pioneering and influential piece of work that led to the "artform" of the music video. The movie has little in the way of story, with just interludes here and there for banter and comedy, but its linear "story" leads the Beatles through the streets, to and from their hotel, and finally to their evening performance. I leaped on the Criterion edition of A Hard Day's Night... lots of extra features and info on top of the pristine film presentation.
Help!, on the other hand, is a full-fledged movie, with a comical spin on the James Bond sort of adventure. Since I'm a fan of both Beatles and Bond, this is a magical combination that won me over as a kid and is still a pant-load of fun of watch. Great music and irreverent humour make this a treat. And it's better than ever now that its picture and sound have been fully restored (cleaned up and re-mastered) for the Blu-ray edition I have.
A few years back, director Ron Howard put out Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years. Oh yeah, it's The Beatles! This documentary, unlike all the others, focuses on the band's touring in their early years. I've only seen this once and it did blow me away. There is material here (interviews, concert footage, etc) that I've never seen before. This is revealing stuff even after all these years of behind-the-scenes Beatle-docs. In fact, I'm due to revisit Eight Days a Week. Excellent.
The one true video souvenir of a concert tour I attended is my copy of Heaven and Hell: Live at Radio City Music Hall. Heaven and Hell, in case you don't know, are better known as Black Sabbath... with Ronnie James Dio at the microphone. Back in 2007, I saw this legendary metal band play here in my city. I still get goosebumps just thinking about it. The gothic stage set and restrained use of backdrop visuals complemented the ferocious classic heavy metal standards that assaulted my ears that night. Dio sang like a man on fire, though it was only a few years later that he passed away. And that's what makes the memory of that concert experience so special to me. With Dio, Sabbath recorded two genre-topping albums in the 80's, and one in the 90's. I never had the chance to see them then, so it was a huge deal to see them on their final go-round. And the concert video shows me exactly what I saw onstage back in '07. I feel almost as awe-struck watching the Radio City show as I did seeing them in person. Whew.
A couple of great heavy metal documentaries by Canada's own Sam Dunn are Metal: A Headbanger's Journey and its follow-up Global Metal. The first doc was director Dunn's debut, and it placed him on the map as a solid contributor to the archiving of metal history. It's highly informative, fun and funny. Dunn's second metal doc was Global Metal, which took him around the world to explore the international scene, with band interviews and footage from shows. Not quite as textbook as A Headbanger's Journey, this is more of a roadtrip (well, plane trip, in most cases) to gigs and meet-ups. Essential viewing for metal fans everywhere. Both are on my music documentary shelf.
There's also a smattering of other stuff in my collection:
The Kids Are Alright, the pioneering 1979 documentary of the infamous career of The Who. What more can I say? If you haven't seen it, you should. Experience the madness of Keith Moon and the recklessness of Pete Townshend. The sheer spectacle and volume of their concerts.
Stop Making Sense, a unique concert experience of The Talking Heads, directed by none other than reknowned film-maker Jonathan Demme. It's quirky and fun and packed with terrific performances of the band's timeless hit songs.
There's also The Story of Anvil... about the Canadian metal band Anvil, who enjoyed some small success back in the 80's. But this documentary delves into the personal lives of the bandmates, and their frustrations and career-halting issues. It's kind of sad but also inspirational. A doc with heart, about a band with heart. Sort of.
I couldn't neglect one of my teen years' fave bands, Cheap Trick, so I grabbed their exciting Live In Australia concert on DVD. This was a 1988 show that featured all their biggest songs to date, which of course were mostly their 70's material. Not essential but a very rockin' set.
Included in Cheap Trick's Budokan! CD set was a DVD of the other night's performance. The now-famous At Budokan album was recorded on April 30, 1978; this newer (2008) release is the result of digging back and assembling the film footage of the April 28th show, the first of the two Japanese shows on Cheap Trick's first tour of the country. So this is vintage Trick, live and unbridled, wacky and rocking the house down. Got it.
Cheap Trick's "Silver" is the DVD release of the band's 25th anniversary homecoming concert. It's a cool look at the group knocking out the hits from their lengthy career. Not quite as cool as seeing the old shows, but it's a feel-good occasion... you can feel the pride of the Rockford, Illinois fans young and old.
I've long been into the music of The Doors, and when the documentary When You're Strange was aired on TV several years ago, I recorded it straight to DVD. It's been a long time since I've watched it so I can't recall what all was in it, but I know I liked it. I'll give it another whirl sometime soon.
The Doors: Soundstage Performances is a real keeper. Shot in three different locations, Toronto, Denmark and New York City, this contains material that is rare and never seen before. There is a wrenching 1967 Toronto Soundstage performance; something from their only European tour in '68; and a 1969 soundstage set along with Morrison's only on-camera interview ever. This is The Doors as you've never seen them... without an audience. They still had the magic and intensity... it's riveting.
Then there's the Electric Eye DVD by Judas Priest. I had hoped to get a show from the Screaming For Vengeance tour, but that was a no-go; Electric Eye, filmed during the following tour (Defenders of the Faith), received glowing reviews, to I went with that. It is indeed an exciting concert to watch, big and loud and visually stunning. While there are great songs in the setlist, it is very disappointing that there are virtually no early Priest tunes here. Still, a fun and heavy concert film.
And to finish things off, I'll just say I've got a handful of DVDs and one Blu-ray of Kylie Minogue and Melanie C concert videos. Yes, it's dance-pop for the most part, so the average reader here may have zero interest in that. So that's all I'll say about that.
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