 I NEED THAT RECORD!
IMAGE: Courtesy of Reel Music 27 |
I Need That Record!
For music nerds, there is no safe haven like the local independent record store. A small shop isn’t just about used CDs—it’s a meeting place for people on the fringe of popular culture. Director Brendan Toller’s documentary chronicles the rise and fall of indie stores by talking to shop employees and music luminaries (including Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Dischord Records’ Ian MacKaye) about the communities based around dusty crates of vinyl. The problem with I Need That Record! is that it says the same thing over and over again: Major labels are the devil, and the Internet is killing record sales. In the past decade, over 3,000 indie stores have closed and the market has gradually shifted to big-box retailers like Walmart, which claimed 65 percent of all music sales in 2008. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you knew this already. The film is a nice capsule of the drastic shift in the fragmented music industry, but I’d rather browse the aisles at Everyday Music than hear the same sad story for 77 minutes. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. 7 pm Thursday, Jan. 21.
Bill Frisell Meets Buster Keaton
Often the best soundtrack work subverts the listener’s expectations. On Bill Frisell Meets Buster Keaton, the acclaimed experimental jazz guitarist re-imagines slapstick comedian Keaton’s famed Wild West as a playground for sparse, laconic improvisation. It’s a striking contrast—instead of the usual ’20s ragtime ballads, three of Keaton’s short films (The High Sign, Go West and One Week) are presented atop a drifting landscape of picked, heavily treated guitars and rolling drums. Keaton’s silent stories beg for a proper score, but Frisell is smart enough to realize that trying to stay accurate to the time period isn’t as much fun as cutting loose. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. 8:45 pm Thursday, 7 pm Friday, Jan. 21-22.
Wheedle’s Groove
You’re not going to believe this, but Seattle had music before Nirvana! And not just Jimi Hendrix or Sir Mix-A-Lot, either. The Emerald City was home to a thriving soul scene in the ’60s and ’70s, and this documentary digs up exquisite odds and ends from a rich musical past largely eclipsed and forgotten by the booming ’90s. It was Seattle DJ Mr. Supreme who stumbled on local soul and funk masterpieces in Goodwills and record shops, only to find that many of the once-celebrated artists he’d discovered—players from funky, outrageous acts like Black On White Affair, Cookin’ Bag, and Cold, Bold Together—were living in obscurity around him. It’s the incredibly funky tracks from those bands that make up the, ahem, soul of Wheedle’s Groove. Between archival audio and exhaustive interviews, the film plays out kind of like a Pacific Northwest version of Wim Wenders’ Buena Vista Social Club. The documentary isn’t just an eye-opener for regional musicheads or vindication for these bands, who almost unilaterally disbanded when disco DJs took over the clubs and airwaves; it’s also more proof that one doesn’t have to work for Smithsonian Folkways to uncover important pieces of music history. Pop giveth and pop taketh away, but these artists are finally gaining national exposure three or four decades after their heyday. It’s moving (both emotionally and ass-shakingly) to see them rediscovered before your eyes. CASEY JARMAN. 7 pm Saturday, Jan. 23.
SEE IT: Reel Music screenings are held at the NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. The series continues through Feb. 7; see additional showtimes at nwfilm.org.
