Rock Docs

My boyfriend added a couple of documentaries to our Netflix queue that I highly recommend if you're in the mood to rock.

"We Jam Econo
The Story of the Minutemen"

I was a little late in my appreciation of this seminal punk band so I was surprised how much I enjoyed this low tech tribute. With such a rough and ready subject I guess I was expecting something else but it can only really be described as heartwarming. The surviving members, friends and lots of famous fans are all interviewed and have nothing but good things to say about the band, especially founding frontman D Boon. I loved the story of how Boon and fellow band member, Mike Watt, met. Boon was playing army and dropped out of a tree onto Watt, who he mistakenly thought was also enlisted. (If that's not the boy equivalent of "meeting cute" I don't know what is.) A family friend also described how other parents gave Mrs Boon a hard time about her son's musical pursuits. Her answer was a mom classic, "As long as I hear that noise I know where my son is." The same friend was almost in tears as she described how broken up the whole band was when Mrs Boon, their earliest champion, died unexpectedly.

This is a documentary about a punk band remember.

But our favorite part was where Flea, of Red Hot Chili Pepper fame, was describing how rudimentary the Minutemen's musical understanding was when they started. They apparently didn't get any lessons at all so on the subject of tuning they were completely ignorant, they just thought it was a preference thing-some people liked their strings loose, some liked them tight. (That's now worked its way into our household vernacular, anytime there's a "to each his own moment".) "We Jam Econo" gets our highest marks.



"Let's Rock Again"

This one features the late great Joe Strummer post Clash. It's interesting because Strummer is (I forgotten how darn cute he was). My favorite part, which had me shaking my head in disbelief, was shot while Strummer was on tour in the US and during the day was making cold calls at radio stations and not getting in. It's Joe Strummer for god's sake. Crazy. The performance footage in this one shows why Strummer was a star.