The advent of summer and the music festival season are now just mere days away, and whether you secured your tickets or not, a Melbourne institution is offering an impressive lineup all of its own.
An unlikely lineup featuring punk heroes Cosmic Psychos, Britpop forefathers The Stone Roses, Russian music protestors Pussy Riot, cult punks Death, and even Spinal Tap are set to rock audiences.
Well more accurately, films starring those bands are to set to entertain audiences of Melbourne’s open air cinema, The Shadow Electric, for its 2014 programme.
The Shadow Electric has already proven its strong musical ties, having just completed its third annual season of live gigs, with shows from The Ape, The Hello Morning, and a Courtney Barnett EP launch warming up the venue’s Band Room last month.
Now the open air cinema, located in the oldest building at The Abbotsford Convent, has locked in a summer cinema programme that features a number of highlights that music fans are sure to seize upon amongst its selection of new films (Gravity, Before Midnight), cult favourites (The Karate Kid, Clerks), and stone cold classics (The Big Lebowski, Sunset Boulevard).
Leading the charge is The Stone Roses: Made Of Stone, the feature-length rockumentary tracking the unforeseeable reunion of the ‘Madchester’ rockers, who checked into Australia earlier this year to unanimous acclaim.
Directed by Shane Meadows, the auteur behind Dead Man’s Shoes (2004) and This is England (2006), The Stone Roses: Made of Stone focuses on a fan’s eye view of the lead-up to the band’s two massive headline shows at London’s Heaton Park in 2012.
Blokes You Can Trust, the celluloid statement on the career of Aussie hard punk legends Cosmic Psychos, is getting two screenings at The Shadow Electric this summer, offering another chance to fans who might’ve missed the film’s cinematic run earlier this year.
The doco, which reached completion thanks to the contribution of fans to a campaign started by director Adam Weston, covers the Cosmic Psycho’s 30 year history and all the fascinating ups and downs in-between, including appearances from Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder, producer/Garbage member Butch Vig, forthcoming Meredith act Melvins, and Big Day Out-bound grunge survivalists Mudhoney.
The winding saga of balaclava-clad Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot was one of last year’s most interesting stories, and A Punk Prayer chronicles the entire media frenzy in all its grisly detail.
Directed by Academy Award-nominee Mike Lener (for Hell And Back Again) with Russian filmmaker Maxim Pozdorovkin, the film stars the real-life incarcerated members of the Putin protestors, who were arrested and charged with “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” and features interviews, footage of the chaotic courtroom, and talks with family members.
Providing a blow-by-blow account of the saga, including missing bandmates and the music community’s rallying cry for Pussy Riot’s freedom, with a chorus that included Paul McCartney, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Madonna and Grimes, A Punk Prayer doubles as an analysis on freedom of speech, artistic expression, and of the potency of political protest.
Rounding out the Shadow Electric 2014’s music-centric film selections is Rob Reiner’s 1984 cult classic, This Is Spinal Tap – a film that single-handedly invented the mockumentary genre as it turned the satire on rock excess up to 11, its cultural impact cemented by the term ‘a Spinal Tap moment’ entering everyday lexicon – and A Band Called Death, the 2012 feature that turns the spotlight on the 70s Detroit trio that were “punk before punk.”
Pre-dating genre pioneers like The Ramones and The Sex Pistols, the Hackney brothers – Bobby, David, and Dannis – began as an RnB combo before switching to a spiker, faster brand of music-making. A Band Called Death tracks their short-lived but highly influential career, from hidden master tapes and family bonds to their fairytale reunion.
The Shadow Electric 2014 Music Programme
For full details on The Shadow Electric’s 2014 programme head to http://2014.shadowelectric.com.au/program
You can also win a double pass to each of the cinema screenings listed below in the Tone Deaf competition here.
Stone Roses: Made Of Stone
Sunday 1st December – Tickets
Cosmic Psychos: Blokes You Can Trust
Friday 6th December – Tickets
Friday 24th January – Tickets
Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer
Thursday 9th January – Tickets
A Band Called Death
Thursday 16th January – Tickets
This Is Spinal Tap
Sunday 19th January – Tickets
