Audio-Visuals
BUKOWSKI AT BELLVUE
Directed by nobody
(Screen Edge/MVD)
This is the worst quality DVD you really ought to own. But let's back up a step.
Charles Bukowski, for the uninitiated, was a poet's poet, a non-conformist drunkard lumped unfairly into the "beat" genre. He may have shared some decades and some fans with Ginsberg and Fante, but no one cut through bullshit like Buk. Throughout the course of his clearly autobiographical writings it became clear that he just wanted two things out of life: to drink and to write. "You can do without a woman, but you can't do without a typewriter," he says to the Bellevue crowd. So it was an uneasy relationship he had with the public, even as it became clear that there was a demand for him to do public readings.
Bukowski at Bellevue captures the man in 1970 at his fourth-ever reading at—of all places—a community college in Washington state. The reading was captured on black and white videotape by two cameras. Sitting on a stage littered with clunky gear and the occasional gawking student, Bukowski reads from typewritten loose-leaf pages between drinks out of a Thermos.
The video is scratched and jittery, with frozen shots here and there as the sound, which is largely okay, continues. This isn't a DVD with which to demonstrate your new high-def set. It's an all-too-rare archival document of one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.
Calling this a poetry reading is a bit of a stretch, as Bukowski didn't rhyme, didn't give a shit about anything like iambic pentameter, didn't deal in metaphors, similes and other flagrantly poetic hoo-ha. He told engrossing tales of whores and whiskey and mad combinations thereof.
He's in a game, rather jovial mood as he self-consciously reads, eyes always down, doing character voices here and there and chuckling at his own typos and verbal stumbles. He intersperses the material—almost all of which is familiar to a hardcore Bukowski fan—with backstory here and there. "The Night I Killed Tommy," "Kaakaa and Other Immolations" (about his only child, Marina), "A Last Shot on Two Good Horses" and "Fire Station" offer a good cross-section of Bukowski's topics. It's engrossing, disgusting, fascinating, intimidating and utterly great. Brian Briscoe [buy it]
THE SUPERSUCKERS: FROM THE AUDIO-VIDEO DEPT., LIVE IN ANAHEIM
Directed by Apex Station
(Mid-Fi/MVD)
Putting the Supersuckers' [http://www.supersuckers.com] blow-down-the-doors-and-leave-track-marks-on-the-linoleum live show on DVD is a lot like trying to capture the proverbial lightning in a bottle. I say this because I've seen Eddie Spaghetti and the boys onstage a few times and the Seattle rock & roll outfit is one of the most pulverizing, neck-snapping and, above all else, fun concert experiences any self-respecting rocker can have. Which is why I'm a bit puzzled as to why I'm not in love with this DVD. The main program shifts between a rock show in Anaheim's House of Blues club and a country(ish) show at a smaller club somewhere else. Given rock-solid performances, many of the band's live staples are present: "Bad Bad Bad," "Creepy Jackalope Eye," "I Want the Drugs," "Luck," "Born With a Tail," "Supersuckers Drive-By Blues," "The Evil Powers of Rock-N-Roll," etc. Plus the shows feature soon-to-be classics like "Goodbye," "Bruises to Prove It" and "Rock-N-Roll Records (Ain't Selling This Year)" from its latest album Motherfuckers Be Trippin'. Hell, the group even includes "Dirt Roads, Dead Ends and Dust," one of my personal favorite 'suckersongs. Yet this disk just doesn't quite capture the band's true in-concert fire. Maybe it's the director's insistence on playing with filters and film stocks instead of just presenting the band in all its glory; maybe the group was just having an off night. (Unlikely, but I suppose it's possible.) There's nothing really wrong with the performances here, but for some reason, as generally enjoyable as this film is, it doesn't hold a candle to seeing the Supersuckers in the flesh. Consider it a teaser for the next time the band hits a club near you.
You can't fault the producers on extras, though. Bonus sections include a brief Eddie Spaghetti solo performance at a record store and a hilarious "interview" segment in which Spaghetti asks his bandmates and guests from Throw Rag and the Hangmen the really important question: if you could have your choice between flight and invisibility, which super power would you pick? There's even a whole second disk, a live CD documenting the 'suckers' country show in full. Now that's fan-friendly. Michael Toland [buy it]
