Day two of the music component of this great festival started off with what seemed like a million parties and panels and daytime sets all over the city. The weather was gorgeous – warm and sunny. The first music I took in was another movie – the theatrical/dramatic story of the 1970s girl rock band, The Runaways. This seminal band kicked a lot of doors down for female musicians everywhere with their brash, no-holds-barred raw rock. This dramatic recreation of their story (based upon the autobiography by the singer, Cherie Currie, Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story) stars Dakota Fanning (as Currie) and Kristen Stewart (as Joan Jett).
The most endearing part of the movie is the start, where each of these teenage girls set out to find themselves with music – Jett saves pennies for a black leather jacket, while Currie paints her face and lip-syncs to a David Bowie song at a high school talent show. The way producer Kim Fowley took these girls under his wing serves as the backbone of the story, which views as much of a biopic of the decedent decade of the seventies in Southern California (particularly for angst-ridden teenagers) as much as it was about the band. The film reminded me a ton of a similar coming-of-age story with fame and fortune – Dogtown & Z-Boys. Remember that scene where the Zephyr Skateboard team members joined their coach in his car on a road trip to a big skate contest? That half-baked mentoring scene is a good parallel with many parts of this movie.
Speaking of Kim Fowley, interesting side note… He once approached this editor looking for a writing assignment with Heaven’s Metal Magazine … which turned into a fiasco when he interacted with Tourniquet for said story. Ted Kirkpatrick said his last name was appropriate. When introduced in the Paramount Theater audience before the start of the movie, he waved the audience on as if coaxing more applause as if conducting an orchestra. Quite an interesting character.
After the movie Fanning and Stewart joined Director/Screenwriter, Floria Sigismondi and Currie for a short Q&A session. The Twilight movie star (Kristen Stewart) explained that she did know how to play guitar prior to this role, but the cast did have a two-week rock boot camp sort of experience to learn the ropes of feigning rock and roll live performance. They did a good job. While steeped in the excess of the “me decade,” the movie was pretty fun. Fanning showed off her microphone spinning trick at the request of Sigismondi and to the delight of the crowd. A few of the people in the audience were bizarrely fixated on exploring the same question over and over again (dude wanted to know why the careers of Lita Ford, Jackie Fox and Sandy West were not explored).
The excessive drug use and its raw, glaring portrayal might have been played up to point out the errors of their ways. Kind of like exploring the extreme of a viewpoint to present its flaws. Turns out Currie (besides being a chainsaw artist in SoCal) is a drug counselor. I bet her frank approach to drug abuse gets through to people that don’t want help (who think they’ll never “go there” down into the slavery of drug addiction).
After my two-point-five-hour commitment to this music movie, it was back to real live music in the 75-plus clubs in downtown Austin. Next up was a set by Quiet Company, a rousing and broad-sounding piano rock band that filled up the small upstairs/rooftop space above a narrow club called The Wave. They play a really melodic and energetic brand of piano rock. The drummer’s handling of his china and ride cymbals really rang out loudly above their music. I’m reminded a lot of Seabird. This band has a small horn section, consisting of a trombone and a trumpet, which effectively fill out the melodic sound made by the bassist, pianist, guitarist and drummer. The band is very tight. The singer/guitarist switched between piano and guitar accompaniment and the other guitarist also switched from keys to guitar for a song or two.
The singer was an interesting performer. He had a small bottle of some cold medicine perched on his piano and he never stopped moving around, at times going spastic. He sang passionately and filled the dead-air time when the drummer broke his snare. I kind of wish he hadn’t. It sort of spoiled my taste for the band. Dude told a couple of jokes. The first was partly in deference to the street preacher I had heard about that had yelled at people from a bullhorn on the street below.
“A group of men brought a woman to Jesus,” he began. I heard him share a few profanities from the stage during the show, but I thought, perhaps he was going to say something profound from the stage here… “‘This woman was caught in the act of adultery. Our law says it’s rightful to stone such a woman. What do you say?'”
Here it comes, I thought…
“Jesus sits there for awhile and starts drawing in the sand. Then he looks up and says, ‘He who is without sin among you cast the first stone.'”
Okay, here’s where he makes a Don Miller-esque point and becomes a legend (in my mind)…
“Someone in the back throws a rock, it hits the woman in the head and she falls down dead. Jesus walks to the back of the crowd and says, ‘Come on! I’m trying to make a (bleep) point here, Mom!'”
A talkative woman in the crowd, who obviously knows the band, asks him the difference between jam and jelly, which took things down another notch.
They rocked a Pixies cover song.
Comments