Music doco, Mutiny in Heaven, which is directed by Ian White (Before the Fall) traces the tumultuous life of groundbreaking Melbourne band The Birthday Party, the film’s title coming from one of their songs. The iconic band featured Nick Cave at his most musically and visually punk and experimental and his most self-destructive; multi-instrumentalist and song writer Mick Harvey; bassist
Read moreIn 1972, at the pinnacle if her career, Aretha Franklin chose to record an album of the gospel music she had sung as a young girl in church with her father. Rather than turn to the recording studio, Aretha decided to record it in a church with a congregation as the audience. That venue was the New Temple Missionary Baptist
Read moreI’ve never been a big INXS fan, I thought apart from ‘Don’t change’ and the rawer sounding early work, too much of their music was bland white funk. Still, that doesn’t mean that a documentary about INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence won’t be fascinating, even to a non-fan. Written and directed by Richard Lowenstein, the documentary Mystify: Michael Hutchence pulls
Read moreThe Wrecking Crew were a group of gun LA studio musicians who, often unknown to the public, played on many of the big pop music hits of the 50’s and 60’s. They provided much of the musical accompaniment to The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Sonny and Cher, The Byrds and perhaps most famously The Monkees. They also worked on
Read moreThe National: Mistaken For Strangers appears at first to be a documentary about indie rock darlings The National as they embark on a world tour in the wake of their breakthrough album High Violet in 2010. It soon becomes apparent that this is a very different type of documentary. Prior to the tour, dapper lead singer Matt Berninger makes the
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