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Category:    Home > Reviews > Music > Concert > Rock > New Wave > Punk > Counterculture > Political > Pop > Progressive Rock > Documentary > Hardcore DEVO Live! (2014/MVD Visual Blu-ray)/Jeff Lynne's ELO Live In Hyde Park (2014/Eagle DVD)/Carl Palmer: Decade - 10th Anniversary (2011)/Carl Palmer: The Solos (2010/MVD Visual DVDs)/Salad Days

Hardcore DEVO Live! (2014/MVD Visual Blu-ray)/Jeff Lynne's ELO Live In Hyde Park (2014/Eagle DVD)/Carl Palmer: Decade - 10th Anniversary (2011)/Carl Palmer: The Solos (2010/MVD Visual DVDs)/Salad Days - A Decade Of Punk In Washington, D.C.: 1980 - 90 (2015/MVD Visual Blu-ray + DVD)/Taste - What's Going On?: Live At The Isle Of Wight 1970 (Eagle Blu-ray)


Picture: B-/C+/C+/C+/B- & C+/B- Sound: B-/C+/C+/C+/C+/B- Extras: C/B-/C-/C+/C/B Main Programs: B-/C+/B-/C+/B/B-



Here's a strong-enough set of recent music releases with familiar faces...



Hardcore DEVO Live! (2014) is the fifth solid release from the band that we have covered since they started working with MVD Visual, here on Blu-ray with a really good new concert that I wish were longer and the late, great Bob Casale is recognized this time around. The 21 tracks, mostly classics, run about 84 minutes and the band seems as fresh and on-time as ever as their often prophetic songs are as pointed and relevant as ever. If only more people got them when they started recording music in the 1970s, who knows how many bad times we would have avoided.


The audience is a plus and I definitely recommend the release, though I wish the show were longer.


An illustrated booklet with good text info, plus an Alternate Opening, piece on building the guitar for the cover of Satisfaction and Concert-Only option are the extras.



Jeff Lynne's ELO Live In Hyde Park (2014) has the mega-Beatles fans giving a mixed show of the band's best hits, but at least it is not too paired down as was the direction they took in the 1980s which ended their original run. This is the third time we have covered the band following reissues of their first two albums on CD (where are the SA-CDs or Blu-ray Audio editions?) and a great 1973 concert Eagle issued on DVD a few years ago. We get 16 classics, but some come across better than others and the show seemed a bit off, not even considering there is no multi-channel sound option here. Lynne still has that underrated voice, but the impact was not what I had hoped for.


An illustrated booklet also with good text info, plus Jeff Lynne Interview and Mr. Blue Sky: The Story Of Jeff Lynne & ELO featurette are the extras.



One of the greatest bands of all time is Emerson, Lake & Palmer, a band that played to loud, hard and uncompromisingly that they all suffered physical injury as a result. That's devotion and being serious about your music! We had the chance to cover only 5 of their many releases over the years (expecting more soon, like a new 5.1 reissue of Brain Salad Surgery at some point), but each individualistic member was able to more than hold their own as strong personalities in the group (which is why they were so great, though many seem not to grasp that one) and solo.


Drummer Carl Palmer is one of the most talented in the history of music, so I was very happy to see two DVDs of his work had arrived: Carl Palmer: Decade - 10th Anniversary (2011) where he covers his famous trio's hits (with the option of hearing him talk about them) with some really good supporting musicians and Carl Palmer: The Solos (2010) which deconstructs his drum playing, only showing further evidence of his genius, innovation and superiority in handling the art form.


I wish both were longer and in HD, but they just add two more volumes of the amazing talent that is Palmer and ELP, even extending to the late, great Cozy Powell (one of Palmer's rarer equals) who temporarily became the 'P' in the trio when Palmer declined to rejoin his bandmates in the mid-1980s (he was with the more pop-oriented, less memorable Asia, but they were having hits) resulting in the interesting, worth Emerson, Lake & Powell Album. Serious music fans should check these out.


Save the interactive options on Solo, neither Palmer DVD has any extras.



Scott Crawford's Salad Days - A Decade Of Punk In Washington, D.C.: 1980 - 90 (2015) is a big surprise of an excellent documentary on Punk Music and by association, the record business and politics in 1980s America gone wrong (and that includes North and South America) issued by MVD Visual in both Blu-ray & DVD formats. Though I knew more than a few bands in the genre came from Washington, D.C., there are far more than you would think unless you are an expert on the subject and many are highly influential despite not lasting long. We get a wide array of rare video and film footage from the time and a bunch of really good new interviews, as the entire era is not only explained, but recaptured in the best music documentary way.


Henry Rollins, Dave Grohl, Thurston Moore and many other musicians, producers, engineers, insiders and friends of all the above tell it like it is and in some cases, turned out to be the last line of defense against the rollback of Neo-Conservatism and retro racism and homophobia that came with it. This even includes being among the first to tackle AIDS when it was being censored for political reasons to get rid of innocent people vilified, but the program never forgets the music and there is plenty of its here. This is a must-see work for anyone serious about music and other genres that came out of D.C. Are also discussed, like the Soul-oriented Go-Go movement which had little to do with the 1960s.


Both format versions have over a dozen performances in their entirety and over a dozen interviews clips in their entirety as their extras.



Finally we have Murray Learner's Taste - What's Going On?: Live At The Isle Of Wight 1970, which offers the original concert film unabridged just showing the music and an expanded version with interview updates released recently. We have covered impressive releases by the groundbreaking, late, great Rory Gallagher five times as of this posting, which you can learn more about at this link:


http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/new/viewer.cgi?search=rory


The Taste, a band he founded in 1966 and broke up the constipation of bad music in Ireland was one of the most influential and important music acts in the history of that country, Europe and worldwide Rock. It had been touched upon in the solo Gallagher releases, but now, we finally get to see the band in action and you can understand what all the fuss was all about. They were a really good band, Gallagher knew how to offer and deliver something hardly no one else could (amazing guitar playing and singing for a start) and this release finally offers an introduction to the band that is comprehensive, tells us the story of what happened and makes for a inarguable statement on their importance once and for all. Definitely worth your time, the classic concert footage is my favorite aspect of this release.


Extras include three bonus concert performances and three promotion pre-Music Video films made to sell the band (with very interesting politics) worth checking out.



All the presentations here are in the 1.78 X 1 aspect ratio with DEVO and Days in 1080p playback, while Taste is inexplicably 1080i despite the impressive 16mm footage (cut to fill the frame, but also here in a 1.33 X 1 presentation showing more frame; just a bit sharper and clearer), but all have rough vintage film and old analog video footage. Thus, they are pretty dead even in playback. The Days DVD version is joined by the ELO (also issued on Blu-ray) and two Carl Palmer DVDs in anamorphically enhanced presentations that are as good as they are going to be in the format with the latter three having a bit more motion blur than I would have liked, but still watchable.


As for sound, Taste has a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix that is easily the best on this list and superior to the alternate PCM 2.0 Stereo tracks, plus the original film-only PCM 2.0 Mono that oddly is not also here in 5.1 despite most of the material being offered that way in the main expanded program. That was a very bad idea. DEVO has PCM 2.0 Stereo that is solid and ties for first place for best sound as Taste has its share of mono and simple stereo moments. The rest of the DVDs and Days Blu-ray only have lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo that is not bad, but all cry for the lossless treatment.



- Nicholas Sheffo


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