Good online documentaries about music...

Taking a look at the Beefheart doc now, watching Switzerland-Ecuador out of the corner of my eye.

Wow, Zappa in a mellow tone.

And making a reference to young Don as the protagonist of "Institutionalized."

And Ry Cooder doing an excellent imitation of the good captain!

This documentary is bringing out the best in everybody.

Zappa is mellow in the movie mostly because he's dying.

Of course.

When "Hothead" started playing, could have sworn it was Television playing "Friction."

Rush video blocked in my country on copyright grounds.

Use a chrome extension called Hola :)

Hawkwind doc up thread was excellent

This one about NYC in 1977 was amazing. NYC rap, disco, punk in their social context.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSOj9UUjtCk

yeah that 1977 doc is really well done.

oh cool I need to watch that

"We Jam Econo: The Story of the minutemen". Really well edited, with some fantastic rare live footage. The story is told in chronological order, but the live clips are not -- they are used to illustrate various points made about the band in the story and interviews, and it's very effective. Also the drummer made me cry at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmKGusadv08

"we jam econo" is indeed fantastic, and i was close to tears from start to finish.

yeah it's the greatest. very teary

Will check that and the one about NYC in '77. Just now watched this 'un about The Fall, I get about 3-4 words from most of Mark E.'s offstage sentences, but they're always apt 3-4, and very good comments from all hands on deck. Had totally forgotten about the shows with Michael Clark's dance company! Excellent excerpts; hope to find the completes. Must check current Fall too. Anyway here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InXwZc4RS7M&feature=kp

Every time I watch We Jam Econo I go through a couple of days feeling like minutemen were the only rock band that was worth a shit in this world

otm

really enjoyed the rush doc! they seem like great guys, and love the fandom of it too.

My god, youse guys are so write about We Jam Econo---ideal music/talk ratio, as well it might be considering how short so many of their songs are: can do 2 sentences/whole song---but many directors would not manage this (gotta say, that's understandable too, considering how intriguing a lot of these uncommentaters are). Wonder what ever happened to those ten sets of song lyrics Meltzer gave them for the proposed collab, with him singing and playing sax?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmKGusadv08

Cant link atm but the Mark Sandman doc is on Vimeo (with Spanish subtitles) also incidentally features Watt

Thanks. Just watched this good Can documentary, from 1999, 1 hour, 27 min. Mostly music, mostly long performances.Would like to see full-length "I Want More," with the disco gold dust women, and this is the only one where audience, well some of the audience, move with the music, rather than staring, like the students in The Blow-Up. From 1971 on, we get various vocalists, the funk-and-then-some, tophatted bassist, when Holger transfers to his tapes, shortwave and Morse key; excerpts from previous Continental docs, stretching out on The Old Grey Whistle Test, in the home stretch with comments and remix excerpts from Carl Craig, Sonic Youth, James Lavelle and U.N.K.L.E, the Orb ("The first time I heard about Can was in this thing about the Sex Pistols"). The music never stops, or takes a backseat to talk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNhuwkmmzak

Nico_Icon---starts with some sordid road stories (thanks, James), but they pertain, as does his "We were sort of planets around her moon." And it gets better, though some of the comments are in German, French, Italian. Music always sounds great, and a very nice performance surprise at the very end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1vkiQdEU7M

Brilliance and sadness. Links make this a nine-parter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC0DayWUY64

Well yeah, I've posted this elsewhere, but this was the perennially shared DVD of "the best music doc ever" round my friend circle, of course now on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WahnZ1HcW00

More pain from Daniel Johnston,,,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usP3dUJBrQo

sorry... DJ is not free

I've had Step Across The Border's soundtrack for ages, gotta see the doc. Here's one about The Church of Saint John Coltrane, via WFMU--haven't watched it yet, but I have faith:
http://aeon.co/video/culture/the-church-of-saint-john-coltrane/

Trailer for A Band Called Death, streaming on Amazon Prime, Hulu, and sometimes YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzxnnQHrZBQ

Well worth watching, especially once you get past introductory celeb endorsements.

from geeta, via the twittervine:

Great, rare doc by Charles Atlas on NY noise, feat. John Zorn, Lydia Lunch, Arto Lindsay, & more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-2sb9DcgUI … via @visaforviolet

Another via Twitter (another haven't had time to watch yet): My Nashville---BBC doc, intrepid Bob Harris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mg0cbPObxA

Worthwhile Crass Documentary -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LQ1CvwF7BQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAfJZxi0hio

^^^^ Documentary with English subtitles about Polish new wave rock under Communism in the eighties.

Flying Nun: Heavenly Pop Hits includes really old NZ videos you've probably never seen:

http://youtu.be/sjUDemQFznA

haven't seen that since it was first shown here, but the sight of m4rtin phi11ips' dead possum art is bringing it all back :-/

5 seconds into part 2 and you can see a roof/chimney just down the street from where i'm sitting.

TRIBUTE, an early-'00s look at tribute bands, is one of my favorite documentaries

http://vimeo.com/78953694

Intriguing, thanks! Hope Lez Zep is in there.
Dunno if this is the whole thing, but looks promising; will check both of these when more time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyzL6D-5znY

"From $3.99" on YouTube and well worth it: 20 Feet From Stardom, about back-up singers (I saw it in a theatre, was blown away, plus it got me thinking about white male classic rock superstars' reliance on black female & some male supersources, even aside from white male etc. w music of Chuck Berry etc.; also still quite evident---no big lectures here: more show than tell, though lots of cogent lines from all concerned)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWyUJcA8Zfo

20 Feet is on Netflix instant too

February 9th only. Not perfect but worth seeing

Starting right now, for 24 hours only (until 10 a.m. Eastern tomorrow), Pitchfork.tv is hosting a full stream of Kiley Kraskouskas' film The Last Song Before The War, a feature documentary about Mali's Festival in the Desert.

Festival in the Desert was a music festival held annually near Timbuktu, beginning in 2001. In 2012, Northern Mali was taken over by separatist rebels and Islamic militants, and the festival was forced into exile. The Last Song Before The War tells the festival's story, featuring performances from the 2011 edition.

The film features Vieux Farka Touré, Tinariwen, Leni Stern, Oumou Sangaré, Habib Koité, Bassekou Kouyate, Amy Sacko, Group Amanar, and Tartit, with appearances from Bono of U2 and writer Banning Eyre.

Watch the full film below, for 24 hours only.

Christ is there ANY music documentary Bono hasn't insinuated himself into? Now he's an expert on Malian desert music? GO AWAY.

haha i almost didn't watch the excellent muscle shoals doc because he was the first human you see in it

Bono, Thurston Moore, Henry Rollins - the worst

order of preference
rollins
thurston

bono

whither Fricke?

oh i like fricke actually just because dammnit the years come and go but old david still looks that same sinewy vaguely-40ish and same damn ramones haircut

He cut a fine figure a few years ago at SXSW. Very pleasant dude.

The world needs more 55 year old alt rock statesmen to be ubiquitous in documentaries

Someone should do supercut of Bono's incisive commentary in films about

The Ramones
Leonard Cohen
Phyl Lynott
Frank Sinatra
Mississippi juke joints
Morrissey
Paul Robeson
Abba
The Pretenders
Jack Clement
Joe Strummer
Nueve Cancion songs
John Lennon
Muscle Shoals
The Beatles
Paul McCartney
Ronny Drew
Quincy Jones
Woody Guthrie
Arthur Fogel
Luciano Pavoratti
Horslips
Mick Jagger
Tony Bennett
Kirsty MacColl
Ivan Kral
Roy Orbison
B.B. King
Eminem
Victor Jara
Tina Turner
Johnny Mercer
Kylie Minogue

that's not to mention Bill Clinton, Charles Bukowski, soccer, apartheid, Anton Corbijn, the evangelical movement, Michael Caine, AIDS, Cirque de Soleil, Billy Graham, George Clooney, competitive robotics, the 9/11 attacks, Island Records, Oscar Wilde, and Mississippi