Gorman Bechard's Blog, page 3

Lydia Loveless rocks her own documentary from COLOR ME OBSESSED director Gorman Bechard

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

COLUMBUS, OH & NEW HAVEN, CT:��Filmmaker Gorman Bechard, who has chronicled three of the most influential bands in the history of rock and roll with documentaries about The Replacements, Archers of Loaf, and H��sker D�����s Grant Hart is turning his camera towards the future with his next film, WHO IS LYDIA LOVELESS?

The feature-length documentary will follow Lydia Loveless and her band into the studio as they lay down tracks for their forthcoming record. Along with live performances shot specifically for the film and extensive interviews with Loveless and her band it will visit places integral to her musical development, delve into the realities of a working musician on the brink of major success, and answer the question: Who Is Lydia Loveless?

���Lydia is the future of rock and roll,��� director Bechard explains. “She straps you onto an emotional roller coaster of love, lust, drunken mistakes, a little stalking, a lot of heartbreak, and you���re left breathless, stunned, happy to have taken the ride.”

Music journalists from SPIN to Rolling Stone have likewise raved, with her last album SOMEWHERE ELSE finding its way onto many of 2014���s Best Album lists.

���I���m excited to work with Gorman,��� says Loveless. ���He���s very passionate about music and about the true meaning and spirit of rock and roll.���

Bechard���s three previous music docs have all won critical praise. Rolling Stone called COLOR ME OBSESSED, A FILM ABOUT THE REPLACEMENTS one of ���The Seven Best New Music Documentaries of the Year.��� The Seattle Times raved about the ���raw power and mesmerizing hooks��� in his Archers of Loaf concert film WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? While EVERY EVERYTHING: THE MUSIC, LIFE & TIMES OF GRANT HART was labeled ���beautifully sad��� by The Village Voice.

“We have an AMAZING collection of rewards,” the director explains, “including a Lydia Loveless performance at your house for you and your friends.�� If I weren’t running this KickStarter I would so be backing the project at that level.�� Thankfully the reward includes a screening of the film, so I’ll get to be there.”

WHO IS LYDIA LOVELESS? will be funded via a KickStarter campaign that runs through March 18th. The KickStarter campaign can be found HERE.

Filming is slated for spring and summer 2015, with a premiere planned for 2016.

For more information please visit: www.WhatWereWeThinkingFilms.com

Or www.LydiaLoveless.com

 

 

Filmmakers: Read the Rules Before You Submit!

A little rant, and hopefully if you���re reading this, you already know better. But perhaps you know someone who should read it. If so, do every festival programmer a favor and pass it on.

As you may or may not know, I am co-director of the NHdocs Film Festival at Yale. We are planning our second event for this June, and just signed on to FilmFreeway so people can submit their films.

Now, despite it stating that we were seeking Connecticut films and/or films from Connecticut filmmakers only in THREE different spots on our page (take a look HERE), out of the 12 films that were submitted in the first 24 hours, all were disqualified because the filmmakers didn���t bother reading the rules. Not a one had any connection to Connecticut. Not even in the most remote way.

Not here is something to take to heart, because it is an absolute fact. If you have ever submitted to a festival without reading the rules and regulations, you are a fucking idiot. Period. End of story. I would smack you upside the head and break your camera if I could.

If you have spent all the time it takes to actually make a film, you should be looking for the right home for your baby. Sort of like finding the right college for your teenager. You should read everything there is to know about any fest that you���re considering. Look at what films have played in previous years. You should feel in your gut that yes, your film is a fit, and that the programmers will like it. You still might not get accepted, but at least you���ve done your homework.

If you don���t, you are wasting everyone���s time.

I reached out to a few of my programming friends this morning to vent. And every single one said it happens all the time. Many do not read the rules, or��care what the festival is looking for.

If you���re one of these idiots, shame on you. You���re officially too stupid to make another film. Time to go back to bagging my groceries.

The World Premiere of A DOG NAMED GUCCI

It’s that time again.

I am very excited to announce the World Premiere of our film��.

It will be screening at the��Big Sky Documentary Film Festival��at the historic Wilma Theatre in downtown Missoula, Montana on Saturday, February 14th at 3:30 PM. Can you think of a better day to fall in love with Gucci?

A Dog Named Gucci the story of a puppy set on fire and the brave man who came to his rescue. But for rescuer Doug James, saving Gucci was just the beginning. Together they would forge a forever bond of devotion and perseverance and work to change the non-existent animal cruelty laws in their home state, proving that justice is a dog���s best friend.

Instead of assaulting the viewer with images of abused animals, we chose to tell what is ultimately a happy and uplifting story of one abuse victim who went on to become a hero. This is a triumphant tale. It’s a film that makes you open your eyes without ever making you turn away. And while Gucci might begin his life as Blackfish, he���s a fighter, and in the end he becomes Rocky.

The film also spotlights three other dogs who, with their owners, have made an incredible impact on the laws protecting animals. These include Susie from North Carolina, who has that state���s felony abuse law named in her honor, and who was just named the Hero Dog of the Year by the American Humane Association; Louis Vuitton from Alabama, the first dog to test the Gucci Law; and Nitro from Queens, New York whose ultimate sacrifice in an Ohio kennel led to the state���s first felony animal abuse laws.

It all grew out of the love for our own rescue dogs. ��It���s a highly emotional film because so many people don���t realize the extent of the abuse in the United States. I���ve seen tears, anger, and people just needing to hug their own dog.

Save the date and spread the word.

The info is .

Get your tickets HERE.

Love this town! Love this festival! And the Wilma rocks!!!

Click on the poster to check out our Facebook page.

The Best of 2014

Just as I will always remember that day in 1977 when I walked past Free Being Records on 2nd Avenue and saw that first Elvis Costello single hanging in the store���s window. Or in 1983, the Professor at Phoenix Records handing me the ���I Will Dare��� 12 inch and saying ���I think you might like these guys.��� Or being at a CMJ show at Tramps in 1993 when a band with the worst name in the world took the stage and became the band that saved my life. I will always remember the May 7th thread on my Facebook page where I was complaining about how another new music Tuesday came and went without anything worth listening to, and my friend Aggie Donkar wrote: ���My favorite under the radar 2014 record is the new Lydia Loveless.���

I trusted Aggie���s taste, and bought the digital version of SOMEWHERE ELSE on Amazon. The opening track, REALLY WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN, started up with guitars that sounded like they belonged on PLEASE TO MEET ME, and then I heard her voice. And once again, just like that, just like in those examples stated above, my life was forever changed.

To say that Lydia Loveless took over my musical life in 2014 is a ridiculous understatement. Ask anyone who���s spent ten minutes with me. I even had friends who suggested an LL drinking game, doing a shot every time I mentioned her name or one of her songs, but then they realized they���d be drunk by 11 AM. Even when albums from old time favorites were released, I���d listen once, maybe twice, and turn right back to Lydia. And by mid-summer I was seriously thinking that this year���s top 10 album list would have spots two through ten left blank.

I eventually came to my senses. Sort of. Because there were other very good albums released this year. Some great albums. Those records are listed below.

But it was also the year of massive disappointment. Some of my favorite musicians of all time put out albums that I truly disliked (talking about you Lucinda, Ryan, Taylor, Ty, Lykke, Bob, EMA, Bruce). And bands that I had the highest hopes for released redundant piles of crap as their second album.

Of course did any of that matter when I got to see The Replacements live three times, including the home-coming show at Midway, which on a scale of one to ten, well, to paraphrase the brilliant Nigel Tufnel, ���went to 11.���

So, without further blabbering, my list of the best of everything for 2014���

BEST ALBUMS:

1. SOMEWHERE ELSE ��� Lydia Loveless ��� I can think of few albums that are as perfectly in touch with everything I look for in music: great songwriting, ferocious guitar licks, a sense of humor, a sense of rock history, that record-it-live feeling, and a voice. Goddamn does she have a voice. Whether she���s belting out ���Well there were times when I was not there for you at all��� in the opening track, and you know she���s not being hard enough on herself, or evoking tears with those subtle hints of a vibrato in EVERYTHING���S GONE, a song about saving her family���s farm, Loveless��� voice is at the forefront here. I���ve described her to friends as the daughter Paul Westerberg and Lucinda Williams never knew they had, and even then I think I���m selling her short. This is a perfect record from the most important new artist of the last decade.

2. BURN YOUR FIRE FOR NO WITNESS ��� Angel Olsen ��� Noise and heartbreak collide in a collection of songs so stark you���ll feel uncomfortable, as if you���re peeking through someone���s bedroom window, and they know you���re there, but they keep on doing whatever it is despite you, or perhaps to spite you.

3. BOXERS ��� Matthew Ryan ��� It���s been a while since Matt Ryan has rocked. And this record comes across as if the pent up energy finally exploded and he couldn���t hold it back any longer. This is buckets of Springsteen, The Replacements, and The Clash flung against the wall, their colors streaming together to create something fresh and new and vibrant. This is the record so many other rockers tried to make this year, failing miserably.

4. HERE AND NOWHERE ELSE ��� Cloud Nothings ��� For the longest time I was not going to put this record on this list because of how much I detested their live performance. But then I realized that wasn���t fair to the record, which was a damn great indie rock record with shades of Archers and the Mats running throughout. Buy the album, skip the show (unless you���re into a bunch of kids standing around looking at themselves as if they���re in their garage practicing).

5. BENJAMIN BOOKER ��� Benjamin Booker ��� This is such a nasty rock and roll record you���ll need a shower afterwards. Dirty is the word that comes to mind when I think of both his exquisite guitar playing and vocal delivery. Just so fucking good.

6. LET���S NOT BE FRIENDS ��� The Girls! ��� Everything about this record makes me smile. This is pure punk pop bliss. Great songs, great riffs, and a sexy sense of humor. And ���Sophomore��� is one of the best odes to sexual frustration I���ve heard in a long while.

7. METAMODERN SOUNDS IN COUNTRY MUSIC ��� Sturgill Simpson ��� This is Hank Williams country. This is Johnny Cash. Basically, there���s dark, and then there���s Simpson. ���Woke up today and decided to kill my ego.��� Fuck, man! Not always easy to listen to, but a great record.

8. SUKIERAE ��� Tweedy ��� This record feels like a long walk through your childhood neighborhood with an old friend. You talk, you laugh, you cry a little, all the while polishing off that sixer of Bud, ���cause it���s the only thing your granddad had in the fridge.

9. HEIGH HO ��� Blake Mills ��� Really hard to describe, so let���s say noise alt-country pop. And if that doesn���t make you want to listen I don���t know why you���re reading my list in the first place. Every song is sort of a Pandora���s Box waiting to be opened.

OTHER GREAT ALBUMS:

THE BEST DAY ��� Thurston Moore

RIPS ��� Ex Hex

FAMOUS GRAVES ��� Cheap Girls

ENGLISH OCEANS ��� Drive-By Truckers

AND THE WAR CAME ��� Shakey Graves

PAINT ANOTHER LAYER ON MY HEART ��� Caleb Caudle

WORST ALBUM OF THE YEAR:

DISGRACELAND ��� The Orwells ��� After showing such amazing punk/pop/rock potential with their first album, The Orwells returned with an unlistenable collection of songs not even worthy of a B-side. It���s the laziest record of the year. As if they went into the studio with the mindset that David Letterman loves us and we can do no wrong. Well, you did wrong, boys. This record sucks.

BEST SONG OF THE YEAR:

MILE HIGH ��� Lydia Loveless ��� I don���t know any other way to say it: THIS IS A PERFECT SONG. It���s full of confusion and longing and wit. It���s feminine/masculine, it���s breathless. And it fucking rocks. It���s on endless repeat.

OTHER GREAT SONGS:

UNFUCKTHEWORLD ��� Angel Olsen ��� an ode to when everything perfect breaks. Her whisper gives me chills.

GOD���S NOT HERE TONIGHT ��� Matthew Ryan ��� This is the perfect anthem for this broken, fucked-up year. A BASTARDS OF YOUNG minus the hope.

MESMERIZE ��� The Girls! ��� Just a freakin��� great song. Nothing more need be said.

IT AIN���T ALL FLOWERS ��� Sturgill Simpson ��� You wake up in a strange room next to someone you���ve never seen before, stumble towards the bathroom, catch your reflection is a cracked mirror, what���s all that blood!���� You drop to your knees, the room is spinning, and everything would be alright if you could just remember your fucking name. That���s this song.

BEST COVER SONG:

COME PICK ME UP ��� Superchunk ��� Mac and company take the classic Ryan Adams heartbreaker and rock it the fuck out. They make it theirs. And that���s saying a lot when the original is one of the great songs of all time.

BEST BOX SET/REISSUE/RECORD THAT DOESN���T FALL INTO ONE OF THE CATEGORIES ABOVE:

ALPHA MIKE FOXTROT: RARE TRACKS 1994-2014 ��� Wilco ��� A collection that makes you realize the scope and talent of this band. Beautifully packaged, with 77 tracks of outtakes and demos and live recordings. It���s like the Tweedy album, except this time your friend is telling you all these great secrets which make you grin from ear to ear.

BEST LIVE SHOW:

The Replacements – Midway Stadium , St. Paul, MN ��� What separated this show from the other 4 Mats concerts I���ve seen since the reunion was the emotion. It was a homecoming of rock and roll soldiers we all thought were long lost as war. They raised their guitars as high as the flag on Iwo Jima and showed us that their songs could never be defeated. And we were all a little teary eyed singing along with Paul to UNSATISFIED.

RUNNER UP:

Lydia Loveless ��� the Studio at Webster Hall ��� in any other year this show would have been number one. It was everything you could possibly want from a rock show: noisy one moment, a whisper the next, chaotic, frantic, full of surprises. Do not miss Lydia and company when they play your town in 2015. Because even compared to the reunited Mats, hers is the greatest rock band on the planet right now.

BEST NARRATIVE FILM:

IDA ��� directed by Pawe�� Pawlikowski ��� Quiet, haunting, and chillingly beautiful, this is a masterpiece of the sort Bergman might have made in the late 1950. A story of a young nun about to take her vows only to learn from her one living relative that she is Jewish. You will never forget this film.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM:

FINDING VIVIAN MAIER ��� directed by John Maloof & Charlie Siskel ��� a thrilling mystery that begins with a box of photo negatives bought at an auction and leads you through a life of a woman who was secretly one of the greatest photographers of our time. To everyone other than herself she was simply a nanny. Completely captivating.

BEST TV:

HOMELAND ��� Claire Danes and company came back from a horrible third season with a vengeance. This is edge of your seat, scream at the TV, need a stiff drink sort of drama. And while the ending was a slow burn, if was probably necessary after the wringer they put us through.

BOOKS OF THE YEAR:

DO NOT SELL AT ANY PRICE: THE WILD, OBSESSIVE HUNT FOR THE WORLD’S RAREST 78RPM RECORDS by Amanda Petrusich ��� More than just about old guys looking for 78s, it���s about obsession, about the history of American music, it���s about what drives us. I wish it were twice as long. Brilliant!

HOPE FOR FILM: FROM THE FRONT LINE OF THE INDEPENDENT CINEMA REVOLUTIONS by Ted Hope ��� a real-life in-the-trenches look at what it takes to make an independent feature. Trust me when I tell you, Hope knows what he���s talking about. Every filmmaker, every producer should read this book. You���ll learn more here than you will in any film class on the planet.

And that���s it. That���s enough. We���ve got a lot of great stuff coming up this year.

This band made $136,000 on a 28-day tour and proved they were idiots!

I’ve written many times on how 99% of filmmakers throw money away when making their features. (Or throw it in the wrong places.) My last post was on zero-budget filmmaking. ��Well, filmmakers take note. ��Well, here’s a perfect example of a band doing exactly the same thing.

READ THIS FIRST.

There is absolutely no reason these guys should not have walked away with a nice profit from this tour. Except for the fact that they were stupid, they over-reached, hired too many people paying them more than they could afford, paid way too much for gear rental, (they rented a fucking Mercedes van…ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!), etc and so on.

It makes me angry. And their self-pity and stupid excuses makes me even angrier. Really, someone please take away their musician license. They’re too dumb to be musicians.

And the music is completely irrelevant here. I don’t care what they sound like. ��I did not even listen. ��I don’t need to listen to know that they didn’t need a Mercedes van (If a old Ford Econoline was good enough for The Replacements…). They didn’t need that many hotel rooms. They didn’t need such elaborate lighting if the tour couldn’t afford it. No one needed $20 per diems. ��They didn’t need four extra members. ��They could be making the most gorgeous sounds in the world, it doesn’t matter. Great songwriting and passion (which is what every great band has in spades)��costs time and brain power, not cash. They’re idiots. It’s not about being new at this, it’s not a learning curve. It’s about wanting to go first class even when you can’t afford it, but putting it on the credit card anyway.

I don’t respect them any more than the filmmaker who wastes $500K on a film that could have been made for $50K. A filmmaker who brings on a crew of 20, when 4 talented, hard-working people could have done the job better. ��It’s throwing money away, and it’s an insult to people who actually would kill to make a living performing their art. ��And it looks like an expensive hobby instead of a career. ��These guys could have made a profit, instead they pissed it away on vanity and ego. Their music does not deserved to be heard.

Fuck you,��Pomplamoose. ��And shame on you. ��You give talented, struggling artists a bad name.

 

Ten Realistic Zero-Budget Filmmaking Tips

Recently saw a list of ten zero-budget filmmaking tips on the Raindance Film Festival website.  And while I thought most of the tips were solid, I felt they needed tweaking, and a few were off base.  Here is my reworking of the list taking into account that zero budget filmmaking is what do.

1. The Story is Everything — If your script sucks your film will most likely suck.  If you don’t have some idea of the story you’re trying to tell as you begin shooting your documentary, your film will suck. And most importantly, if you don’t know how to tell a story in the editing room, if you don’t understand basic filmmaking principals like the three act structure, you film will ABSOLUTELY suck.

2. Location Location Location — you can find amazing locations for free or for very little money.  It’s why I so often shoot at the Hotel Duncan in New Haven.  Even the bare walls have character.  But a plain white wall in your dorm room is not a location for a film, any film.  Not even a film about a person stuck in a dorm room.  It will only make yours look like the product of a high school hobby.

3. Capture as Much Footage as Possible — video is free.  You can shoot for hours.  Get the extra take, then the one after that.  Get coverage.  Give your editor something to work with.  You’ve already put in so much time into this film, and you’ve only just started.  Shoot more, then shoot more after that.  (And as an addendum to that, learn how to use your lights.  You can light a scene beautifully with one light.  I’ve done it hundreds of times.  Play with shadows.  What’s unlit is just as beautiful as what you can see clearly.  Study old photographs.  Watch old films.  Do your fucking homework.

4. Sound is King — it’s more important than your image.  And no, you won’t be able to fix it in post.  ADR is really expensive.  Most unprofessional actors suck at it.  And if you’re doing a doc, well then you’re completely fucked without good sound.  Try to never shoot outside.  If the mic has to be in the frame in a doc, no one cares.  We care about what the subject is saying.

5. Great Music Can Save a Scene — there are so many cool bands out there in the same situation as you are.  Find the music that’s appropriate for your film from a great unknown, approach them nicely, and ask for permission to use it.  You might be surprised at the answer.  And you will definitely be shocked at how the right music can make a good scene great.

Matthew Ryan wrote this haunting theme song for my film BROKEN SIDE OF TIME in exchange for me creating a music video for a song from his next album.  A win-win situation no matter how you look at it.

6. Get Organized — I’ve argued that making a feature film is the single most difficult thing to do in the world.  And I do believe that.  There are a thousand things that can go wrong, and if you aren’t organized.  If you aren’t ready, well, then you’re pretty much up the proverbial creek.  You have seconds to make a decision.  And this decision making happens a hundred times per day when filming.  If you don’t have everything else under control, if you are not organized, then give it up now.  Go back to talking about making a film at the coffee shop, because that’s all you’ll ever do.  Know every shot, visualize the edit in your head, know when the street outside will be noisiest, when the sun is setting, etc. and so on.  Be an all-knowing God, because after 30 minutes on set, you’ll realize you’re not.  But you’ll at least be glad you tried.

7. Your Friends Can Not Act — Neither can your mom, your girlfriend, or your high-school play director.  Hire real actors.  Do a proper casting.  And I’m not talking union here, but people who’ve done it before.  There are tens of thousands of them out there.  Otherwise you’ll have one bad line delivery after another, and we’re back to high school project.

8. Build a Following — social media is free.  Work it.  Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.  Find like-minded people.  Tell them about what you’re doing.  Compliment what they’re doing.  Share their links.  It works both ways and takes a long time, but if you show respect, you’ll earn respect, and a retweet from someone with 100K followers can help a lot.  (And please, if you’re using KickStarter, absolutely back a bunch of projects before your ask for funds.)

9. You are a Filmmaker, a C.E.O., an Accountant, a Publicist, a Salesman – Unless you can afford to pay people to take these positions, it’s up to you.  And trust me, you can’t afford to pay anyone.  You are the only one who can guarantee the job gets done correctly.  Filmmaking doesn’t stop at the wrap party.  A film will become a two, three, maybe even four year commitment during which you wear all those hats and more.  Like I said before, the hardest job in the world.

10. There’s No Such Thing as Luck — It’s work.  A lot of hard work.  But if you truly feel there’s nothing else you were put on this earth for, and you’re willing to put in 10 to 12 hours a day, every day, for years on end (not an exaggeration, kids), then it’s also the most rewarding job in the world.  Just don’t expect to finish your film, get into Sundance, and be entertaining four-picture deal offers from the majors.  You’re more likely to win the lottery.

You’ll find more related thoughts and observations HERE and HERE.

LEFT OF THE DIAL feature film script

Back in 1995 I wrote a script called MOSH PIT which did quite well for me. It was optioned by the powers that be in Hollywood. Not one, but two major stars were attached to it (one a very recent Oscar winner), and it looked as if it were going to get made. But, as it often happens in Hollywood, the script died in development hell. That story is long and convoluted, and perhaps one day I’ll tell it. But in the end all rights reverted back to me.

Hey, I got a couple of very nice checks out of it (one for the original option, and another for the renewal). And we were even able to option it again a few years later under the new title LEFT OF THE DIAL, named of course after The Replacements song.

I think about this script often. I like it a lot and I know it’s also one of my wife’s favorites. It was in many ways inspired by her record store managing job at the time, and some off-handed comments she would make on her worse work days.

But after Columbine and Newtown, I know this is a script that probably could now never get made. But it is nonetheless a good read.

So I present it here for your pleasure. Basically anyone who’s ever worked retail and had to deal with an asshole boss and asshole customers will appreciate the very dark humor.

LEFT OF THE DIAL feature film script

Please remember it is copywritten 1995/2014 and WGA registered. All rights are reserved. No copying please. But if you have to balls to turn it into a film, please drop me an email.

Enjoy…

“Boxers” by Matthew Ryan

I’ve known Matthew Ryan for about a decade now. I was introduced to him via my wife, who knew I was looking for music for my film YOU ARE ALONE. She discovered him when watching bad TV one night, ONE TREE HILL to be specific, and a Ryan song came on. She knew me well enough to know how I’d react to that sandpaper and honey voice.

I bought every record, and yes, eventually used Matt’s songs in not only YOU ARE ALONE, but also in FRIENDS (WITH BENEFITS) and in my latest film BROKEN SIDE OF TIME (for which he wrote the theme song). But my discovery of his music came mid-career. The infectious rockers of earlier albums like MAYDAY had been replaced with haunting introspection. The songs were depressed and lonely, perfect for the films I was making. And albums like FROM A LATE NIGHT HIGH RISE felt like a glass of good Scotch going down. His music was a drinking buddy. It was a Matt Ryan song Sinatra was really talking about when he sang “It’s a quarter to three…”

Then earlier this year Matt sent me an early mix of his new album BOXERS. The songs were like nothing I had heard from him before. Anthems, rollicking and rambunctious. Songs that would not leave your head for days. It was as if an invisible beast had sudden been awoken. And the man who could so easily break your heart with one piercing line, could now rock your very soul.

But I didn’t want to talk about the album then. Why, if no one could buy it. So I kept it on the back burner for many months. Hell, I even directed a music video for the title track.

And then I received the final mastered version of the album a few weeks back, and the record that had secretly been on my list of the best albums of 2014 was even better. The tracks has been re-sequenced, and somehow that made them all the more powerful. Like chapters in a book, telling a tale of greater scope and vision.

And what exactly is that story? It’s Matt Ryan saying “I’m still here. And I’m not giving up.” The title track “Boxers” makes that abundantly clear. A soaring rocker about having your back against ropes. “How do you say goodbye/To a dream that just won’t die,” he sings, adding later, “All our heroes had no choice/Some busted chords and a broken voice.” And those heroes make their presence felt in every corner of the album’s eleven track boxing ring. Matt’s well documented love of The Replacements and The Clash especially can be heard in songs like “Suffer No More,” which would have been one of the best songs on “All Shook Down” had Westerberg in fact penned it, or the brilliant “An Anthem for the Broken” which had to be written with the ghost of Joe Strummer watching over Matt’s shoulders. These are the sort of songs that a lesser musician would build an album around. But the problem here, if you can call it that, it that there’s too much greatest to go around.

“Then She Threw Me Like a Hand Grenade” with its chorus of “You might feel lonely but you’re not alone” is presented twice on the record. And though it harkens back to the Matt Ryan songs I first fell in love with, there’s hope in this world view. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Until you arrive at the demo version of the song which is included as one of two bonus tracks. There, Matt’s voice, bruised and vulnerable, drives us to despair. I actually don’t know which version of the song I like best. They are different animals. One runs free through open fields no longer being preyed upon. The other hides in darkness waiting to fight back. Both are beautiful.

But the masterpiece on “Boxers” is “God’s Not Here Tonight.” This to me is the song Matt Ryan was born to write. It’s the anthem for life in American in 2014, a commentary on those in power, those who feed us the news. On one hand its title is the headline the New York Times secretly screams every day, and on the other its refrain of “I don’t care what you wanted/I don’t care if you’re scared” is the mantra of seemingly every elected official. It’s a song that hooks itself into your psyche, his “Bastards of Young.” It’s a song that ranks as one of the best recorded by anyone this year.

With guitars blaring, this record sounds alive, as if Matt Ryan himself is the boxer up against the ropes. He’s not ready to give up on that dream. In fact he just landed an upper cut to the jaw to pretty much every other rock band around. “Boxers” is that sort of a knockout.

Phoebe (2/14/2002 – 10/11/2014)

The last 18 months living with our eldest dog Phoebe have not been easy. Watching a dog you love suffer.  And yet not being able to really do anything about it. Not being able to just ask her how she feels.  The last two months harder still. But today was the hardest of all.

She came to us in April 2002. Just four weeks old she had been dropped off at the local animal hospital. She had been abused. We met her and though we had two other large dogs at the time, Casey and Kilgore, we thought about it, and decided we would give her a home. But before we could pick her up, another family said they wanted her. We stepped back thinking she’d found a perfect home. But then a week later she was returned to the hospital, again abused. We picked her up that day.

It was April 1st, 2002. And though we didn’t really know know what her birthday was, we decided it would be Valentine’s Day.

A photo that was shown to us of Phoebe before we even met her.

Kris came up with her name.  I actually wanted to call her Winona Ryder.  (No joke.)

My favorite memory of Phoebe was of course when she misbehaved.  I had been in LA shooting a film and was home for a few days.  All I wanted was some amazing New Haven brick oven apizza.  We sat down to dinner.  Because we eat so late, we almost always do so sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table and TV.  I had my first four slices on my plate.  I ran back to the fridge for a beer, but when I returned only three places sat on my plate.  Casey and Kilgore looked mortified.  Despite the food being right at their level, they knew better.  But there was Phoebe munching down that piece of pie.  She was young.  She hadn’t learned the rules yet.

She’d always been our difficult dog. Moody, often times bitchy, and certainly neurotic, she was also loving, loyal, and, well, our 75 pound lap dog. She was the best blanket in the world on a cold New England night. And damn if she didn’t love having those floppy ears scratched.

Casey certainly loved her as if she were her own pup. They would have epic races in the yard as to which of them could get to the tennis ball or frisbee in our back yard first. Casey would usually win, sometimes I think towards the end it was because Phoebe let her. Kilgore would rarely partake. If he did if was usually to snatch the toy away, go lie under a tree, and chew it to pieces.

I will always remember the night Casey died in March of 2012. Kilgore was barking his head off at 3 in the morning. I came downstairs to find Phoebe cowering under the table, and Kilgore running to me, then running into the living room, and back again. He brought me to Casey, who had passed without warning.

I know they both missed Casey in their own way, but Phoebe especially turned into a loner dog. Kilgore didn’t have much patience, and by this time he was a grumpy old man. And when his turn came in October 2008, I honestly think Phoebe truly enjoyed her life most for a few months there as an only dog.

Always my favorite photo of Phoebe. Feel it really captures her personality.

Then we brought Springsteen home, and the epic races for the tennis ball started up again, and once again the younger dog would let the older dog win.

Phoebe was definitely a people dog. Not all that fond of other animals, she just wanted attention. She just wanted a treat. She just wanted to play ball. She was a lab/hound mix, gangly and beautiful.

Springsteen (front) and Phoebe

In recent months, though she could barely walk, she’d still bring you a tennis ball out in the yard and drop it right at your feet. I would always toss it lightly. And despite her trouble in retrieving it, she’d bring it right back and wait for me to toss it again. The joy she received from playing ball outweighed any pain she might have been feeling.

I even played ball with her out in the rain this morning.  One last time.  Though after bringing the ball back to me twice, she gave up.  The pain was finally winning out.

I hope she can chase balls for eternity on the other side. With Casey once again running by her side. And hopefully Kilgore will wait a bit, enjoying the reunion, until he snatches away the ball and chews it to bits.

I hope we came through for her and gave her the life she deserved.

I hope she’s not suffering anymore.

R.I.P. Phoebe.

Phoebe earlier today. (It has already been a very long morning.)

Who is Lydia Loveless?

Today a musician friend asked me, “Who is Lydia Loveless? Is it a singer or is it a band?”

If he had asked that question back in July, right after I had seen her as an opening act. playing a big dreadnaught guitar, with Benjamin Lamb on mostly acoustic bass, I would have answered simply, and honestly, “Lydia Loveless is the greatest singer on the face of the planet.”

And yes, I do believe that down to the core of my being. She could sing the list of ingredients from a bottle of Newman’s Own Lite Caesar dressing and break your heart. Every note is a novel of emotion, vulnerability, power, and ultimately confidence. Every note is David slaying Goliath. She straps you onto an emotional roller coaster of love, lust, drunken mistakes, a little stalking, a lot of heartbreak, and you’re left breathless, stunned, happy to have taken the ride. Wishing it would begin again, right freaking now.

But after seeing Ms. Loveless play live with a full band twice this weekend, first at the Iron Horse in Northampton, Massachusetts, and then at the Studio at Webster Hall in New York City, my answer could just as well be, “Lydia Loveless is the best fucking rock band on the planet.”

And I don’t mean the typical singer/songwriter with guitar backed by a bunch of great studio musicians making every note sound like the record. I mean a fucking band. Every member sweating in sync with the other, creating a chaotic Irish car bomb of beautiful noise. Each player an integral wire without whom the entire conceit might simply never detonate.

Sure, that voice is still there. But now the acoustic has been replaced by an old G&L electric with P90 pickups that growl like a feral dog. Or a Fender Tele that looks a little frightened every time she straps it on. Now she gets lost in the songs in a complete different way, her hair whipping into her face, her eyes fluttering strobe-like, she’s possessed, a punk rock shaman. And when she holds onto a note now, you feel the gut punch. You can see your own soul leaving your body. On the song “Mile High” she asks, “Can I have one taste of every breath that you take?” But in the breakneck live version, she doesn’t ask nicely. She literally takes your breath away, and leaves you gasping at the end, you chest heaving from the heartbreak that please no, the song can’t be over.

There is something about that song which kills me. Released as a Record Store Day 45 this past April, it’s become to me the song of the summer, the song of the year. Honestly the song of the half-over decade.   And live there’s an unexpected urgency. An anger not on the single. When she sings the best line from any song in years, “And my heart’s breaking faster than my will not to call you,” at the start of the second verse, it’s ramped up now, piercing, her anger turned inward. The sexy playfulness of the first verse also takes on different meaning. She’s pulled the rug out on our very belief system that we might have known what the song was about. When it was over I wanted her to play it again. Then again after that, as I do so often in my Jeep. I want her playing it right now in my kitchen as I write this. Like a piece of art, you pull back a layer every time you hear it thinking there can’t be more. This is it. But like any great piece of art, there’s always more. The artist smirking, daring you to read the fine print on their soul.

Her stage banter also felt different when she was wielding an electric guitar. Self-deprecating, sarcastic, funny-flirty. It’s her party, though she might be having second thoughts as to having sent out so many invites. And the middle-finger salute she gave to the hipster boys with their cellphone cameras held high during the New York City show certainly made this old man smile.

Lydia Loveless at the Studio at Webster Hall. Photo by Brendan Welsh-Balliett

But as I’ve said, in this incarnation, Ms. Loveless is a pack leader. This is a real band. I cannot stress that enough. This is The Replacements with Bob Stinson on that stage. And you know I don’t use that comparison lightly. But I think even Mr. Stinson would be pleased with Todd May playing his the part.

Mr. May is a category 5 hurricane on stage, wrestling an over-driven noise from a beat-up G&L with a neck so black Springsteen’s old “Born to Run” Tele would be jealous. He’s the living breathing example of playing all the wrong notes so beautifully at the right time. He’s Quasimodo, hunched over in his little corner of the stage, stomping and suddenly glaring, his eyes going wide as if he had sold his soul to the devil, and now was the time to pay up. He’ll lean over his old Fender Bassman amp, stealing from it whispers of distortion to feed to his leads, his fills. Teasing, taunting every note with it like a piece of meat to a junkyard dog.

On the opposite side of the stage is Jay Gasper on pedal steel and 12-string. But he ain’t your granddad’s pedal steel player. He’s Freddy Kreuger. He’ll lure you into submission with the lilting open of “Somewhere Else” and then shatter your perception of what that instrument is supposed to be. When he picks up his Danelectro 12-string things really get strange. No one is supposed to get those sort of sounds from a 12-string. I think they’re illegal in many states. The prettiness has been tattooed and pierced, the fishnet stockings ripped.

Watch Mr. Gasper play and you understand the joy behind every note this band plays. He is truly having an out-of-body experience on stage. Sometimes making comments that will crack Ms. Loveless up. Sometimes just talking to no one. But always grinning from ear-to ear. It’s a beautiful thing.

Behind the drum kit is George Hondroulis. And though drummers rarely get any credit unless they’re Neil Peart, or someone of that ilk, let me state for the record a simple fact, there are no great rock & roll bands without great drummers behind them. Chris Mars was a great drummer. Mark Price is an amazing drummer. Tommy Ramone, you try keeping that beat. That’s the group I put Mr. Hondroulis in. He’s the engine which drives this gloriously dented Dodge Charger with 470 HP under the hood.

And then there’s Benjamin Lamb, who probably looks as if he’d be a better fit in Metallica, playing a stand-up bass, the only thing on the stage taller than he is. But though he might look heavy-metal, the playing reminds me most of Bruce Thomas of Elvis Costello’s band The Attractions. Who was always in my opinion the greatest bass player of all time. Mr. Lamb does more than just add a bottom note to the band’s sound. He brings to the table a alternate melody. He’s playing a lead bass of sort, never getting in the way of the vocals or guitars, but adding yet another layer.

Take for example “Boy Crazy,” which the band closed their raucous tour-ending set with Sunday night. Mr. Lamb puts down the stand-up bass, straps on a fretless electric, and takes position at the lip of the stage. As the ending of the previous song “Crazy” subsides, he rips into this song’s bass line, and suddenly it’s 1977 all over again. The members of the band flailing and wailing, seemingly unaware of each other, yet so perfectly in snyc.  And by the end Ms. Loveless is on her knees swigging beer, battering her guitar. Then, as Mr. Lamb uses the overhead pipes connected to the ceiling as a bow against the strings of his bass, Ms. Loveless leans over her Blues Junior amp, now twisting the controls as if lost in the middle of the ocean and trying desperately to get a signal. Her Tele now just a casualty, lying at her feet, as she stomps on its strings with the heel of her boot. No wonder it looked frightened.

They’re a band. They’re a band. They’re a fucking great band.

(This is a YouTube video by Joe Castrianni of the “Boy Crazy” performance of which I speak.  It will give you an idea of the glorious mayhem at the end of the song.)

And of course this takes nothing away from Ms. Loveless. Did Stinson, Stinson and Mars take anything away from Paul Westerberg? We know the answer to that question all too well.

On stage she is the center of the storm, stomping her left foot backward, an angry tick in time to whichever song. Or pulling her take on Costello’s classic “My Aim Is True” pose, twitching to the music, vibrating with an energy I haven’t seen since Joe Strummer. She’s a guitar string about to snap. (She’s playing hard enough that she broke a string two songs in on Saturday night, and towards the end of her set on Sunday.)

Even when she slows it down, as she did both nights on the haunting new composition “Out On Love,” which brought her to tears in Northampton, there’s a raw poignancy. It’s not a ballad, it’s a slow rocker. She fingerpicks that Tele laced with distortion, as her voice cuts through leaving the crowd stunned and speachless. On Sunday she also played a another new tune, “Real.” Both haunt me now. I want to hear them again. I want to know every word. I want to know how they’ll sound on the next record.

Regarding sets, the Saturday show was shorter due to the venue’s time constraints. The band rocked through most of her new record “Somewhere Else,” changing every song up just enough, adding even more of a whallop. As if the songs themselves had grown up and weren’t afraid to challenge the audience. She ended the set with “Steve Earle” from her “Indestructible Machine” album, the song now slow and bluesy. The words, about a stalker of sorts who looks like Steve Earle, not as light-hearted as on the record. The tone making them menacing now. While she used to be amused, now she’s most certainly disgusted.

In New York they mixed it up more, playing ninety minutes plus. And as charged up as they were on Saturday, this set, the last of their current tour, seemed to explode. “Really Wanna See You Again,” especially had such a punk rock force, from Ms. Loveless counting up out loud right before the vocals kick in, to her spitting out “I really wanna kiss you again right on the mouth and tell you all the things I should have told you then,” with such a vengeance that you were left wondering if it weren’t as much a threat as a letter of desire.

Lydia Loveless at the Studio at Webster Hall. Photo by Brendan Welsh-Balliett

One of the greatest aspects of rock & roll is not knowing what comes next. And even seeing them back-to-back on consecutive nights I was still surprised on Sunday. The set completely changed up. No rehearsed banter. (I always detest when I see a band a few times and the stage banter from one show to the next is identical. That ain’t rock & roll, that borders on Broadway musical.) No rehearsed moves. The energy they themselves create is what drives Ms. Loveless and company. The spontaneity of the moment seems to be the constant deciding factor as to how a line will be sung, a chord will be strummed, what lick will be played where on the neck. She is a vision to watch as the chaos explodes around her like a nighttime air raid on some war torn city. She’s telling the story, the story behind each song, in the moment with stunning urgency. If she doesn’t make it through the night, at least she will have been heard.

And if I were to compare these two shows to the acoustic performance I saw a few months back, I would simply say “Lydia Loveless, in any incarnation, is the closest thing rock & roll has to a future right now.”  Which I guess is the true answer to my friend’s question.

She deserves the keys to the kingdom. Give them to her now, or better yet, let her and the band storm the castle and take them. I’ll gladly sit back and enjoy the mayhem.

That’s what rock & roll is all about.