Blowing Fuses Left & Right: The Legendary
Detroit Rock Interviews (MVD
Visual DVD)/Chrome Dreams CD Music
Archive Series: George Harrison’s Jukebox + The Lowdown: David Bowie (w/DVD) + The Lowdown: Paramore + Townes
Van Zandt: Down Home (concert)/Jupiter’s
Darling (1955/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)/Love
For Levon (2012 Concert/Star Vista DVD w/CD Set)/Solomon Burke: Live At Montreux 2006 (Eagle DVD)/Tanglewood 75th Anniversary
Celebration (2012/C Major/Naxos Blu-ray)
Picture: C/X/C/X/X/C+/C+/C+/B- Sound: C+/B-/C+/C+/B-/C+/B-/B/B- Extras: D/C/C-/C-/C-/C-/B-/C-/C+ Main Programs: B- (Jupiter: C)
Now for a
wide range of new music releases…
Gil
Margulis’ Blowing Fuses Left &
Right: The Legendary Detroit Rock Interviews is a vital compilation of
three interviews with three key rockers: Ron Asheton of The Stooges and two
members of the MC5: Rob Tyner (singer) and Dennis Thompson (drummer). A raw, rough set of interviews by a big fan
who knew what questions to ask, fans, musicologists and musicians interested in
the genre and history will want to get this disc.
Even if
you are not a fan, these are unedited and deserve to be on DVD. There are no extras.
Next we
have more interviews, this time from the Under
Review gang in what we’ll call the Chrome
Dreams CD Music Archive Series. George Harrison’s Jukebox is actually a
collection of 27 wide-ranging songs we are told influenced the young Beatle and
we get a booklet that explains it all. The Lowdown: David Bowie has an audio
CD with a bunch of vintage interviews including with familiar TV personalities
(thus it is TV audio) with Mike Douglas, Dinah Shore, Don Kirshner and Dick
Cavett plus we get a DVD of his early years with none of his original music but
good interviews of people at the time who were there with film, video and
stills, The Lowdown: Paramore is
just two CDs of endless interviews for those who are big fans of the trio and Townes Van Zandt: Down Home is a
classic concert from 1985 by the singer-songwriter that fans and scholars
consider a major show done on the radio.
All the
CD packaging comes with thin paper pullouts, but only Harrison
comes with a bonus booklet talking about how each song influenced him.
Set
during the time of Hannibal (Howard Keel), George Sidney’s Jupiter’s Darling (1955) has to be the most bizarre musical the
studio ever greenlit, with odd, forgettable songs, a storyline that all over
the place, Marge & Champion Gower dancing and celebrating slavery (she
looks like she is ready for I Dream Of
Jeannie, while Keel looks like he is auditioning to play The Jolly Green
Giant in TV ads), Esther Williams shows up swimming with male statues that come
to life out of nowhere, any intended comedy never
works, George Sanders, William Demerest, Richard Haydn and Michael Ansara cannot
overcome the wacky script and even Hermes Pan’s choreography is out of his
element.
That
means this is a strange curio that did not succeed, was an earlier, wider
CinemaScope production and I can see why no one talks about this one much. It is MGM out of control trying to stay on
top with a genre in decline. No wonder
they would move away from Musicals in the years ahead. Still, it is an elaborate curio that should
be on DVD.
A
theatrical trailer is the only extra.
Colin
McAnally’s Love For Levon is a 2012
Concert as tribute to the recently deceased musician/performer Levon Helm and
“A Benefit To Save The Farm” or continue the Midnight Ramblers he made
possible. A member of The Band, he was
very loved and respected, evidenced by this massive concert. Just look who showed up to play;
Don Was
(who co-produced this project), Gregg Allman, Larry Campbell, Marc Cohn, Mavis
Staples, Allen Toussaint, Bruce Hornsby, Jakob Dylan, Joan Osbourne, John
Mayer, Joe Walsh, My Morning Jacket, Roger Waters, G. E. Smith and My Morning
Jacket. At 271 minutes, this seems as
long as Robert Altman’s Nashville
(1975) and unless you like Country, Blues with a little Rock Music, this might
not be a show for you. However, have no
doubt, it is as loaded with talent a show as we will see on home video all
year.
A nicely
illustrated, thick, high quality paper booklet inside the foldout packaging and
over two hours of behind the scenes footage and interviews are the extras.
Solomon Burke: Live At Montreux
2006 has the beloved
Blues making a rare comeback performance in a nearly 2-hour show with a few
dozen classics, some of which are in medley form, but the voice is still there
and Cry To Me, Georgia On My Mind, (Sittin’
On) The Dock Of The Bay, In The
Midnight Hour, Detroit City and Tutti Frutti are among them.
It is a
personal triumph over personal issues, problems and misery throughout as Burke
had too many lost years, something you might sense even if you do not know his
back story. A solid show and a highlight
entry on this list, a paper pullout with text and some illustrations in the DVD
case is the only extra.
Last but
not least is the Tanglewood 75th
Anniversary Celebration (2012) which has as much talent as the Levon release, but in the Classical
field as one of the most important places for Classical Music shows and the
Arts has a concert party that is nothing short of amazing. Yo Yo Ma, John Williams, Emanuel Ax, Keith
Lockhart, Anne Sophie Muller, Andrius Nelsons, Peter Serkin, David Zinman,
Stefan Ashbury, John Oliver and James Taylor all take part in the 103 minutes
long show that covers key music from the locales past and celebrates American
music as well.
We also
get some background as the show moves on and this Boston tradition shines with true energy you
will not see in any other show. It also
has new resonance with the resent awful events at their annual Marathon up
there and reminds us why Boston
is one of the greatest cities of all time.
Two
featurettes and a nicely illustrated booklet with many details are the extras.
For the
entries that have images to offer, Fuses
has old, analog, archival, color analog NTSC videotape that is soft in all
three instances of the interviews taped, so its 1.33 X 1 presentation is
equally soft and problematic as the DVD from the Bowie set, which is very old, though the archive clips and stills
can look good.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.55 X 1 image on Jupiter
fares a bit better, but is grainy and the film was issued only in EastmanColor
at the time, so it does not have the better color a Technicolor print would
have. This material is sometimes a
generation down from the grain content and the wide frame is not always used to
best advantage. The anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Levon and
Burke are newer HD shoots that have
motion blur and limited color of their own, but are no better than the 58-yeat
old film. Levon might look better in the also-issued Blu-ray version we did
not get and Burke deserves a Blu-ray
itself.
That
leaves the 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on Tanglewood and its DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix the
audio and video champs on this list.
However, we get motion blur and some detail issues, plus the surround
seems confined and maybe more (slightly?) compressed than it should be, which
also applies to the PCM 2.0 Stereo also included. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Jupiter
should be 4.0 since the best 35mm prints of this film were originally designed
for 4-track magnetic stereo sound with traveling dialogue and sound effects, but
you can barely hear that in this mixdown.
Hope the soundmaster is not lost.
The CD
PCM 2.0 sound on all five CD entries tend to fall short with the interview
sound sometimes (especially on some Bowie and Paramore audio) coming across
real rough and the stereo (where applicable) on Harrison and Levon not
with the depth and fidelity I would have liked, even in that old format. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on the Levon DVDs fare better, but might be
better in lossless mixes, especially if so on the Blu-ray version we did not
get. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on
Fuses definitely shows the rough
audio off of those old analog videotapes, but the big surprise is that the DTS
5.1 sound on Burke is the most sonically competent, rich, warm and full entry
on the list.
Imagine
how it could sound lossless!
- Nicholas Sheffo
