I scored a couple of music DVD's this week. I don't buy many DVD's anymore, for reasons I can't entirely explain, but when I stop and think about it, the music stuff I have is some of my favorite stuff. If you still haven't seen It Might Get Loud, check that out.
Venus Hum put out a DVD this year, a live show set in what appears to be a church-gone-studio in Cincinnati. Here's the thing about them... I have everything they've put out, and I've really like about two-thirds of it. In fact, the Songs For Superheroes EP is f'ing brilliant, and contains one of my favorite songs of all time, "Save The World." There's so much crap electronic music, and I really feel that they rise above it. Annette, the singer, has incredible pipes. I first learned of them as they played with Blue Man Group on The Complex tour/video.
But unfortunately, the video just isn't very good. That's not to say that the audio isn't solid, but let's be honest, a couple of overweight guys playing keyboards and computers makes not for a very good concert visually. (Not sure why Annette, who has kind of a cute nosering-librarian look going for her, chose to dress as a frumpy teacher.) Add to that the use of crappy cameras that suffered from all kinds of interlacing artifacts and moire, all handheld, poor exposure, etc., and it just looked kind of cheap.
Like I said, I did enjoy live versions of some of their best songs, though playing only one from Songs seemed strange. I would still see them live if I had the chance.
I also got Imogen Heap's Everything In-Between: The Story of Ellipse. It's a documentary about the making of her most recent album. If you were a fan, you probably watched her many video blog posts on YouTube for the year and a half it took to make the record. On the surface, it kind of seemed like, "Wow, she's so clever, that's nice, looking forward to it," but then one week she gave this testimonial about how she just couldn't finish it on time, and apologized to her fans almost in tears. At that point, it seemed pretty obvious that there was a bigger story.
And the story is simply that being an outright musical genius is really fucking hard. She might have only won the Grammy for best engineered album, but as far as I'm concerned, it was the best thing that came out, period, last year. Her ability to find music in everything, and somehow create things in her head that translate to actual songs is amazing. She plays every instrument. The film on the surface might sound like something a bit self-indulgent, and maybe even a little narcissistic, but imagine being a creative person with impossible expectations and the feeling that you might not ever deliver. She lets all of that hang out at the same time she shows her brilliance. She's weird, charming and fantastic, and someone I would love to talk to for a couple of hours, and I can't imagine anyone wouldn't want to.
I found myself really identifying with her, in that something that is long and hard, and emotionally taxing, provides some of the deepest satisfaction possible in life. I've never had to do anything quite that big in scope, but I totally get it. It's like coaching a season of volleyball or launching a new Web site or spending a year building up a TV studio. I suppose that's another blog post.
Anyone who loves music should check out this doc. It's really fantastic and fascinating.
No comments yet.