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Category:    Home > Reviews > Rock > Pop > Blues > Counterculture > Concert > Documentary > Music Industry > History > Country > Lesbian > P > Martin Barre Live In NY (2019/DVD/CDs Set*)/Bad Company 40th Anniversary Documentary (2014/FilmRise Blu-ray*)/Bluebird (2019/Cleopatra Blu-ray*)/Holly Near: Singing For Our Lives (2019/Film Movement D

Martin Barre Live In NY (2019/DVD/CDs Set*)/Bad Company 40th Anniversary Documentary (2014/FilmRise Blu-ray*)/Bluebird (2019/Cleopatra Blu-ray*)/Holly Near: Singing For Our Lives (2019/Film Movement DVD)/Kenny Rogers: The Gambler's Last Deal (2019/Weinerworld DVD/CD set*)/Melody Makers: The Bible Of Rock n' Roll (2019/Cleopatra DVD*)/Nekromantix: 3 Decades Of Darkle (2019 Blu-ray/DVD/CD set*)/Voice Of The Eagle: The Enigma Of Robbie Basho (2015 Blu-ray/DVD set/*all MVD)



Picture: C+/B/B/C+/C+/C+/B & B-/B & C+ Sound: B-/B-/C+/C+/C+ & B- (CD)/C+/B & B-/C+ Extras: D/D/C/C/C+/C/C/C+ Main Programs: C+/B/B-/B-/B-/B/C+/C+



If you have not been happy with the music you have been hearing lately, try this wide-ranging set of new video releases, more than a few of which include CDs for your convenience...



We start with Martin Barre Live In NY (2019) playing 23 songs, many covers, in a show that shows off his guitar work well, plays to a solid audience and could have been a better recorded, edited, presented and mastered show, but he is good. But when you look on the cover, back cover, inside the foldout case and everywhere else, this set insanely NEVER TELLS YOU ANYTHING about him. Who is he? Just the guitarist for Jethro Tull! Why skip this?


Who knows, but it could not have been against the law and frankly makes this look like a bootleg or amateur case design, though we know it is from a top rate source. Thus, unless you know his band and then know he played for them for pretty much their entire several decades of existence, you'll never know who he is and maybe you can research it on line or your cell phone, but it should not take that much effort. For fans only, but not bad.


There are no extras either.



Jon Brewer's Bad Company 40th Anniversary Documentary (2014) is very well done and is finally getting a Blu-ray release on its 45th anniversary. Running a solid 88 minutes, it spends the first half hour on how the members of the band eventually formed after being in two other great bands: Free and Mott The Hoople, then land up on Led Zeppelin's new vanity label and hit it as big as they ever did.


Loaded with original music, film clips, video clips, stills, adds, memorabilia, interviews and other fine bits, I had not seen this one in its entirety and it is surprising how much of this story is untold, especially considering the popularity of the people and music involved, but here it is and it is one of the true must-sees on this list. Nice!


There are sadly no extras, not even any updates.



Bluebird (2019) is about a famous Country Music cafe venue in Nashville where many a music artist got their start and the names include Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift and other names familiar with fans of the genre have been. This 83 minutes documentary has plenty of stills, stories, big names and history, though a few parts might need some updating. Vince Gill, Faith Hill, Pam Tillis, Kacey Musgraves, Kathy Mattea and Trisha Yearwood also show up. For fans only, I wish a few more questions had been asked, but you'll learn just about everything you need to know about the place by the time this one wraps.


Image Slideshow, Additional Interviews and a trailer are the extras.



Holly Near: Singing For Our Lives (2019) is the fine documentary of the sometimes actress and singer who became an important singer and groundbreaker in her time, showing up on TV shows like The Partridge Family and All In The Family, then touring with Jane Fonda on her FTA shows and even a part of the original cast of Hair in later years. It is an amazing career and I recognized her immediately, but knew little about her.


The two things I did not know is that she was a generation ahead of Kevin Bacon, a fellow family member, in becoming a star or that her music eventually dealt with lesbianism and was part of a niche of music for said audience. This too-short 63 minutes should have been longer (ask more questions people) and goes all the way up to the finish of this work. Worth your time, it is an amazing untold story of a U.S. artist still ahead of her time.


30 minutes of additional interviews and two bonus songs (One Good Song and Somebody's Jail) are the only extras.



Kenny Rogers: The Gambler's Last Deal (2019) 'deals' with his stop of this final tour in London, where he is joined by Linda Davis at one point, though a clip of Dolly Parton and Alison Krause is inserted unexpectedly. After one of the most successful solo careers in music history and still selling out many a venue, Rogers (who has been solo since the early 1970s!!!) decided to retire for good. Fans will remember he took breaks before, but this is it.


The 24-song show (two did not fit on the CD) also offers Dottie West and is not bad, but I did not like the way it was edited and sometimes not happy with the way it was shot. Rogers, et al, deserve better presentation and preservation. Ruby, Lucille, Through The Years, You Decorated My Life, Coward Of The County, We've Got Tonight, The Gambler, Lady and a solo Islands In The Stream (though Dolly did join him to sing it on this tour at some point) are among his hits, though I thought we might get a few more of his underrated hits at RCA from the 1980s (Buried Treasure, This Woman, Morning Desire) but that was not to be. For fans only, he still knows how to give a show and tells some great stories, but I expected more.


The foldout features brief liner notes and an illustrated booklet, while the discs add additional interviews and music rehearsals are the extras.



Leslie Ann Coles' Melody Makers: The Bible Of Rock n' Roll (2019) tells the remarkable story of one of the greatest music publications of all time, established in the early 20th Century and blooming into a priceless publication for music of the 1960s and 1970s, until those running it in the mid-1970s decided to dumb it down (trying to turn it into some kind of teen magazine?), causing a flight of all the talent that made it great and put it on the map.


Almost all the major talents that made it great get interviewed, we see hundreds of clips of the publication, thousands of photos (many of which were never published before) and much more in the way of classic stories and priceless history that was so good, I could not stop watching. If you like Motown, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Who, Queen, Elton John, The Animals, Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Ray Davies & The Kinks, Patti Smith, Yes or artists that are fine but lesser know, you'll love this one. Anyone serious interested will want to go way out of the way for it.


An image slideshow and more interviews are the only extras.



A fusing of heavy metal and horror, the Danish - American Psychobilly band Nerkromantix releases this new three disc collector's set on Blu-ray/DVD/CD set of a live performance culminating in three decades of their music entitled Three Decades of Darkle (2019).


Tracks include:

''Struck by a Wrecking Ball''

''Nightnurse''

''Alice in Psycholand''

''Brain Error''

''Demons Are a Girl's Best Friend''

''Driller Killer''

''Nekrotastic Extacy''

''See the Devil Smile''

''Nekrofelia''

''Gargoyles Over Copenhagen''

''Subcultural Girl''

''Sea of Red''

''Glow in the Dark''

''Brought Back to Life''

''Horny in a Hearse''

''Alive''

''Nice Day for a Resurrection''

''Haunted Cathouse''

and ''Who Killed the Cheerleader''


The full running time of the concert is on around 80 minutes in all formats and is about what you might expect with titles like we get per each song. This is a fond way for fans to remember this groundbreaking reunion show and to experience it from home. This is reportedly the first time they have released a live show on disc.


Special Features:


Interview with the band


Trailer


Trailers for other musical titles from Cleopatra Entertainment


Nekromantix is an interesting band that certainly has a gothic style in addition to being crazy Psychobilly.



Finally we have Liam Barker's Voice Of The Eagle: The Enigma Of Robbie Basho (2015) about the counterculture guitarist who was very influential to those who heard him, was always trying to get into music that was of other cultures and even religions and is hardly known today except by those who knew him personally and some other musicians (Pete Townshend included) discuss his history and the amazing albums he made. None were hits, but are very sought after.


I found it loaded with curios, though none of the music particularly stuck with me, but I can see and hear how he was going into areas and musical ground hardly anyone else at the time in his time was, so this is a good document of what he achieved and was worth a look. Serious music persons might want to go out of their way for it.


Extras include an illustrated booklet with some notes, while the discs add a bunch of extra interview clips (extended and deleted at 410 minutes!!!) and a trailer.



All the Blu-rays here are presented in a 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image and all DVDs in an anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image as well. All five Blu-rays here look equally good, even when you consider any archival footage that includes some good film clips and analog videotape, though we still get a few flaws including video noise, video banding, telecine flicker, tape scratching, cross color, faded color and tape damage.. The Nekromatix live concert also has an English Dolby Digital 2.0 (48kHz) Stereo mix. The same show presented is included in standard definition on DVD as well with similar but compressed spec.


The other five DVDs are just a little weaker and softer, but are passable image-wise, usually offering lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, yet too many of the Blu-rays also offer the same lossy mix, which is bad. Bad Company bucks this trend with DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless sound on its release.



- Nicholas Sheffo and James Lockhart (Nekromantix)

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/


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