TV eye

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

If you are like me (and God help you if you are), you had to move on July 1, and you’re probably only now finishing up the horrendous task of unpacking. Of course there are plenty of shows this week, in mid-summer Montreal tradition, but if you really want to break in your new digs with some serious couch-time, there are also some great rockumentary DVDs, mandatory viewing for any rock nerd, being released this week.

A friend gave me the DVD of The Transatlantic Feedback (Play Loud!), a documentary about the Monks, directed by Dietmar Post and Lucia Palacios. It’s just two hours of pure, fucked-up garage bliss (thanks, Alexis!). The Monks were American G.I.s stationed over in Germany in the early to mid-’60s, when the British Invasion and beat music took over the planet. The Monks, however, chose to reduce their sound to a primal thud laced with nonsensical lyrics that was probably the first germ of what we would later recognize as a little thing called punk fuckin’ rock. Rare archival footage shows the band clad in monk robes and shaved pates doing hits like “I Hate You” and “Shut Up” to bemused German crowds. These cult figures are interviewed over 40 years later and finally set the record straight. The film ends when the original members reunite in 2002 for a killer performance during the New York Cavestomp festival. Like any good documentary, it doesn’t matter if you are familiar with the subject matter, or even garage or punk rock. The band’s amazing story is more than enough to keep you glued to your seat for two hours.

NO VOW OF SILENCE: The Monks in 1966

Punk rock documentaries have always been a coin. It’s a Herculean task to try to squeeze the music’s history into a couple of hours but Susan Dynner’s Punk’s Not Dead (Aberration/MVD) skips the well-documented first wave of punk, touches on Thatcher/Reagan-era hardcore and concentrates mainly on the state of punk today, presenting mall punk, MTV and the Warped tour without passing judgment or offering answers. It includes great current footage of prune-juice punks like Charged GBH and Subhumans, and great commentary from the usual punk-rock peanut gallery—Henry Rollins, Ian Mackaye, Jello Biafra etc. True to the film’s title, the last quarter of the movie is dedicated to D.I.Y. organizers and basement venues that are truly keeping real punk rock alive and out of the mall. The two hours of bonus footage is worth it alone.

If you were lucky enough to check out the Germs biopic What We Do Is Secret at Fantasia last Sunday, and want to dig a little further, seek out the amazing Germs DVD Live at the Whisky (Target). As good as What We Do Is Secret is, it can’t hold a candle to footage of the live-in-the-flesh, nihilistic, smacked-out Darby Crash as his bandmates scramble behind him to keep up with the chaos.

If you couldn’t give a fuck about DVDs, you have to see what promises to be the rock show of the year when Japan’s Boris and Miami’s Torche obliterate la Sala Rossa on Tuesday. And remember to crack open that piggy bank—Boris’s merch table is huge and full of rare treats that can only be purchased at shows.

DO DAMAGE…JONATHAN.CUMMINS@GMAIL.COM