Sublime – Stories, Tales, Lies and Exaggerations

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: C+     Program: B-

 

 

Sublime is a band that was poised to go on to huge success before the untimely death of their lead singer Brad Nowell, but enough material and image was left behind to leave an impact.  Sublime – Stories, Tales, Lies and Exaggerations is a surprisingly rich collection of music and moments that captured the band on its rise to stardom.  The difference is that it does this with more authenticity and depth than you would expect.

 

This compilation strings together a plethora of interview and performance footage from home videos, general concert footage, and interviews with friends, fans, and other musicians.  Tracks featured include:

 

1)     Get Out

2)     Slow Ride

3)     Ruca

4)     Ebin

5)     Pool Shark

6)     Saw Red

7)     Total Hate

8)     Don’t Push/Garden Grove

9)     40oz to Freedom

10)  DJs

11)  Hope

12)  Lou Dog Went To The Moon

13)  Falling Idols Theme Song

14)  Gimme My Share Freestyle

15)  Doin’ Time

16)  Seed

17)  Wrong Way

18)  Freestyle

19)  Badfish

20)  Homicide Dub

21)  Murderer

22)  Had a Dat

 

Joel Fischer is credited as the director, which takes a bunch of footage from a long period of capturing the band on tape, but there is still enough to run 130 minutes total in the main program alone.  He says he took 6 months to edit this and the hard work pays off, though some of the footage came from MTV.  They are all full frame, but vary between color and monochrome.  The sound is available in Dolby Digital 5.1 AC-3 and 2.0 Stereo with Pro Logic surrounds.  The 5.1 is a bit better, but the source material is limited.  Extras include a commentary by Fischer where he only occasionally talks, three interview subsections (Warped Tour, Weenie Roast, Saturday Morning Cartoon where they try the five second end of the Hong Kong Phooey theme song, which they cut around the time for a compilation album of cover songs of the same title), a Ron Jeremy segment (extended from the main program of the somehow-still-alive-sex-star) and the lost “Steppin Razor” video.

 

Overall, this is a really good treasury that fans will appreciate, earning its “collector’s edition” label.  Often, DVDs aimed at fans are just exploitation pieces meant to cash in on the act, but this is not one of those junk releases.  Sublime – Stories, Tales, Lies and Exaggerations delivers for fans.  With the Rock Music genre in battered shape, it is nice to see a program where it is alive and well, even if Brad is sadly no longer with us.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo