Beautiful Noise

I finally got around to watching my DVD of the "Beautiful Noise" documentary directed by Eric Green - and while much of it was what I expected, it was still great to hear the artists behind the music I've loved for so long discuss their influences, the scene they got lumped into and how their bands folded up shop, so to speak, as well as the current resurgence and interest in this type of music.

I question how useful or entertaining this doc will be for the uninitiated to this style of music. For the rest of us, it's a great walk down memory lane, and with interviews from rock luminaries like Billy Corgan and Trent Reznor, a validation of what we've known all along.

But my favorite part was the interviews of Kevin Shields and Alan McGee inter-cutting between each other as they talked about the recording process of MBV's "loveless" (they are basically ripping each other a new hole about the whole experience by recounting how, basically, they thought the other person was disrupting their lives, and in McGee's POV business). This just goes to show that history is determined by those who write it (or talk about it in this case).

Personally, the most important outcome of watching this documentary was that it made me pull out all of my shoegaze/dreampop CDs to rip them into FLAC format so I could revisit it all during a long trip I have coming up.

If you get a chance to see "Beautiful Noise", by all means do: the artists are interviewed in intimate settings where one gets the sense they were able to relax and really reflect upon the music they've made and their larger cultural impact. It was definitely worth the wait for this doc.