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
