Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
After circling the world once or twice and releasing a double album, 10″ soundtrack, and a bunch of digital mixtapes, Dirty Beaches came back to L.A. last Friday, teamed up with soulmates SISU as well as Chasms from San Francisco. The opening duo from San Francisco were raw and cool, like the swirling goth of Siouxsie meets the industrial tone of post-Dils, post-Rank & File Blackbird.
After circling the world once or twice and releasing a double album, 10″ soundtrack, and a bunch of digital mixtapes, Dirty Beaches came back to L.A. last Friday, teamed up with soulmates SISU as well as Chasms from San Francisco. The opening duo from San Francisco were raw and cool, like the swirling goth of Siouxsie meets the industrial tone of post-Dils, post-Rank & File Blackbird.
FILMAGE, the long-awaited documentary about the Descendents and ALL has been making rounds on the film festival circuit throughout 2013, and currently it’s hopscotching the country yet again with the help of cool supporters such as Vannen Watches (makers of the Descendents/Coffee Time watch) and Hi My Name Is Mark (Mark of Blink 182 appears in the flick). They are sponsoring three screenings at the Digiplex Mission Valley in San Diego on Saturday, September 21.
I was able to catch an early screening in Long Beach, and was not only stoked to see one of my all-time favorite bands on the big screen blasted though huge speakers but actually learned a lot about the road bumps they’ve encountered and suffering they’ve endured on the quest for ALL. It’s a worthwhile story to tell, and the band’s commitment to its craft (up there with The Beatles and Queen, says Robert Hecker from Redd Kross) and enduring a rough life (as some brushes with death) will appeal to audiences well beyond O.G. punks. I hit up writer/co-director Matt Riggle about the movie, its making, and its future.
MW: How did you get into the Descendents? A rad show, hearing the right song at the right time?
MR: I personally started with ALL’s “Dot” single then traced things back to Descendents. To me they were just so unique sounding. “Can’t Say” was the first thing I heard and it remains, to me, a shining example of a perfect song. I’d never heard a band with so many songwriters sound so cohesive. And they were so strong and melodic and funny without being a joke. I loved the look of their records, too–the covers, the sparse use of pictures, the consistent typesetting. And the fact that the drummer wrote great songs and produced was insane to me. It defied the laws that I thought were in place for bands.