News

After about 32 years of being a slavishly devout fan of Killing Joke, the job of reviewing their new studio album with any semblance of balanced objectivity is a tougher task than you might imagine. Those who have embraced the music, mythos and accompanying sensibility of Killing Joke tend to do so with a bug-eyed fervor that borders liberally on myopic zealotry. In short order, no other band matters nearly as much.

That was me for many a year. Sure, I listened to loads of different stuff, but no one touched Killing Joke. Not even close. Even their less salubrious moments -- say, their first divisively populist single, “Me or You?” or Jaz Coleman's beleaguered ersatz-prog opus, Outside The Gate -- still seemed a thousand times more intriguing than any contributions from the rest of the rock rabble, despite any inherent flaws or deviations from the script. Simply put, there...

Diy, dark arts and chartbusters pepper this idiosyncratic story of the Joke’s four-decade career

Shaun Pettigrew’s exhaustive account of Killing Joke’s four-decade career is really a fans-only job, although it gradually loosens the cloak of mystique drawn around this band’s shoulders. Possibly spooked by frontman Jaz Coleman’s thousand-yard stare, Pettigrew takes his subjects’ dabbling in the darker arts seriously, devoting entire sidebars to runes and numerology. (Less serious: guest witness Peter Hook, who shrugs off such Kerrang!-friendly Satanism with the priceless: “I’m from Salford. Why would the devil scare me?”) Between wobbly VHS footage of continental music shows and spinning NME headlines, Pettigrew uncovers ample evidence of erratic personalities, yet he’s equally attuned to fluctuations in their scowling sound – the initial Diy flourishes, the artful lacquer of their mid-80s chartbusters, the harder edge regained once the spotlight moved elsewhere. Throughout, Coleman remains fascinatingly idiosyncratic,...

Kevin Williams Associates has closed a multi-territory deal with the Sundance Channel for its music doc, Killing Joke - The Death & Resurrection Show.

Sundance has taken the film for France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Eastern Europe, Poland, Greece, Turkey, Malta, Asia (excluding India) and Canada.

The film, a UK/New Zealand coproduction directed by Shaun Pettigrew, was made through Ilc Productions, Jaz Coleman and Coffee Films.

It tells the story of cult post punk Goth rock band Killing Joke, formed in London in 1978. It features interviews with Jimmie Page and Dave Grohl.

Killing Joke lead singer Lead singer Jaz Coleman, who features prominently, was recently made Chevalier dans L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France for his services to music.

He has conducted classical music and has worked extensively with ethnic Arab musicians. The film follows him and the band to Iceland, Peru, Scotland and New Zealand.

Sundance is planning to roll the doc out to...

It’s lucky 13 — as in 13th annual edition — for Switzerland’s Lausanne Underground Film Festival, an epic celebration of cinematic weirdness, violence, filth and everything else that makes life worth living. The wild debauchery runs October 15-19.

The fest opens on Oct. 15 with the feature film debut by Leah Meyerhoff, I Believe in Unicorns, which tells the story of a troubled teenage girl who runs away with an aggressive older boy.

Other new films include the misanthropic comedy Buzzard by Joel Potrykus; the deep woods psychological thriller Mother Nature by Johan Liedgren; the complex Japanese drama Kept by Maki Mizui; and more.

Luff this year is really stuffed with great retrospectives beginning with a tribute to Beth B, who has been churning out controversial, thought-provoking flicks since the New York No Wave era to know. There will be screenings of her classic films, such as The Offenders and Salvation!, and her latest documentary,...