Beulah was a great band. That I have to
say “was” is unfortunate indeed. Thankfully, fans
of the band – and fans of music docs in general –
were left with this nice parting gift.
A Good Band Is Easy To Kill is an 89-minute
tour documentary chronicling what turned out to be among the
final 30 days or so of one of indie rock’s most enjoyable
little bands, the consistently good Beulah. It’s a doc
that is clearly a must watch for fans of the band, and which
should be of some interest to indie rock fans in general.
It offers us a peek at what it’s like to be on the road
with a band trying to get its break, making it worth watching
for most aspiring musicians.
 Some
brief background on Beulah for you music aficionados: Beulah
is an energetic, poppy indie band from the West Coast. Affiliated
with the Elephant 6 Recording Co. syndicate of bands early
in their career (The Apples In Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel,
The Olivia Tremor Control, etc.), they churned out four really
fun albums – Handsome Western States, When Your
Heartstrings Break, The Coast Is Never Clear and Yoko – before calling it quits in 2004. If you dig Pavement,
The Beatles, The Apples In Stereo or indie rock in general,
any one of these records is worth picking up.
So on to A Good Band Is Easy To Kill ...
What we have here is a click under 90 minutes following Beulah
around during a 30-day tour of the United States and Canada
(plus a wealth of bonus material; more on that later), peering
into their tour van banter, watching them fail and succeed
on stage, and looking in as they interact with their fans
in a very personal way.
For ardent music fans, the first minute may come as a shock.
Miles Kurosky, Beulah’s frontman, well, has not great
things to say about Bob Dylan. He pretty much says that he’s
better. Very bold words for a band that never quite made it,
maybe, but once given the context of the 90 minutes to follow,
it settles into place. Kurosky’s comments come from
his frustration with being unable to get that lucky break
and his belief that first and foremost, passion is what music
is about.
But I forgot the Dylan comment pretty quickly and settled
into the doc. You will, too.
In the opening minutes, we are presented
with a band getting ready for the road. We watch them play
their first show together in some time. Hop in a van. Take
to the road. Play another show. A frustrating show. And move
on. They swap banter in their tour van. They have sound problems
at a club. They look at porn magazines. They pretty much come
off as some young guys in a cross-country van trip together.
Which is what they are.
 A
Good Band Is Easy To Kill is a pretty intimate look
at their experience, watching as they suffer the frustration
of the road. At one point, they invite some kids too young
to come to their show in for a soundcheck, giving them the
personal show of their lives. At another, a Canadian fan invites
them to his place for an after show shindig. All is well until
he drunkenly decides to bash America for no discernable reason,
so the band – not at all mindless flag wavers –
clears out, leaving the fan sorry he insulted his guests.
At yet another, a show that looks doomed, organized in a shitty
hall by an inexperienced young girl, turns into gold. All
in all, very nice glimpses into their experience. Some of
them very compelling indeed. If this is the work of first-time
filmmakers (the Internet Movie Database lists only this title
for director Charles Norris), a promising career in docs is
ahead.
I do have some minor quibbles. I could have used a better
degree of coherency – the documentary is structured
not quite as a narrative, but rather as a series of anecdotes
– and something to impart upon me, the viewer, the weariness
30 days on the road must entail. On the first point, a sense
of journey is never fully imparted on the view, which
is unfortunate, being that slogging around the country in
a van has got to suck. Musical montages tried to
get the second point across, sometimes successfully, sometimes
not.
 None
of this is to say the documentary fails. It doesn’t. A Good Band Is Easy To Kill is an enjoyable
watch, entertaining without resorting to manufactured MTV/VH1
style drama, and almost always highlighting the music in just
the right way. Low budget as this is, it’s shot well,
never looks amateurish, and always conveys a sense of place
(as much as random clubs in random cities possibly can …
which is half the point when it comes to the loneliness
of touring). The doc focuses on a lot of the little moments
that are likely to be what the members of the band most remember
from the tour, and in that respect it works like a charm.
All in all, A Good Band Is Easy To Kill is a really good tour doc, better than I expected from a band
of Beulah’s modest success level. As good as Beulah
was, they never caught on with people. That’s unfortunate.
And this doc should prove that point.
A
Bounty Of Extras
Okay, yeah. Wow. You’re not supposed
to get this much extra stuff. I mean, you’re really
not supposed to get this much extra stuff. Not from what is
presumably a small time production.
There are no less than 20 deleted scenes
here, all of the same quality as the main feature in both
production values and content. Plenty of stuff. More
than generous. Lots of very worthy scenes to see. I love extras,
and this was great. (I should note that I had menu problems
on a Norcent player in this portion of the DVD; see below).
Kudos to the filmmakers for this bounty.
 Even
better is the concert footage. This is where fans of the band
can prepare for a wet spot in their pants, because we’re
talking 17 full length live songs available here
as extras. In other words, the equivalent of a full live CD
or concert DVD here for your viewing/listening pleasure, as
a DVD extra. That’s just fantastic any way you
slice it and worth the price of admission alone. Hell, I would
have gladly shelled out $15 or so just to get this much concert
footage/sound from the band.
Look, it’s simple: The bonus features
on this DVD are outstanding. Dig them. Love them.
Etc. Etc. They easily make this disc worth the price.
Tech Specs
There’s no raving to be done
about the picture quality here because, well, that’s
not what this film is about. It’s not the Matrix, but
it sure as hell isn’t home video quality, either. The
DVD looks just fine, likely exactly as intended, and that’s
good enough. It is, after all, a small road doc. The sound
is swell. The music comes across nice and will sound great
on your home entertainment system. No complaints. Fans will
love playing the live tracks just to hear the music. Finally,
the menus are laid out nicely and are very easy to navigate,
always crisp and clear. All in all, a very good production
from a small group o’ folks.
A quick note worth pointing out: I had some
problems with this DVD. It stuttered on a Samsung player,
a Norcent player scrambled the menus into an unreadable mess
on one occasion and would not recognize it at all on another,
and an Xbox, which generally has no DVD problems to speak
of, was never once able to recognize this disc. This may well
have been a bum disc and not a production problem –
I don’t know – but if you have a temperamental
DVD player, it might not like this disc. (My PC DVD-ROM seemed
to read the disc without any issues).
The
Final Word
A Good Band Is Easy To Kill does a nice job peering into the world of an indie band on
the road, offering up good music, great anecdotes and solid
production values. It’s not going to rock your world
with revelations about life on the road, but if you’re
a fan of the scene, it will no doubt entertain. No Beulah
fan should hesitate in picking this up, and most independent
rock fans should consider this something worth purchasing.
The folks at Further Down Films did a nice job with this,
all while highlighting a very worthy band. Some DVD tech issues
aside, a hearty thumbs up. At $14.95, this is a bargain.
|
