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Off the record
Evening Standard 03.10.08
Fantastical freakout: Wayne Coyne appears as a horned Martian in The Flaming Lips’ long-awaited Christmas on Mars film, a “cross between 2001 and Eraserhead”
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Rock goes to the movies
Now that our living rooms have DVD, surround- sound and TV screens the size of department store windows, the concert film is becoming an ever more appealing proposition. For a totally realistic experience all you need is a sweaty seven-foot man standing three inches from your face holding a mobile phone aloft.
Notable new releases include Foo Fighters — Live at Wembley Stadium (Sony BMG, out now), preserving for posterity the moment in June this year when Dave Grohl was joined on stage by half of Led Zeppelin.
The Clash Live: Revolution Rock (Sony BMG, out Monday) is a new Don Letts documentary that centres on a 1982 concert supporting The Who at Shea Stadium. Arctic Monkeys at the Apollo (Warp Films, out 3 November) captures a Manchester show on the band's 2007 tour.
On Tuesday 14 October it will also be shown on big screens across Europe including the Leicester Square Empire and Vue cinemas in the West End, Islington and Greenwich.
At the same time, the music film is getting weirder. The outsiders are joining the superstars on screen. Heavy Load, which opens at the ICA tonight, tells the story of a Sussex group making claims to be “the only disabled punk band in the UK”.
The quintet, three of whom have learning disabilities, were followed for two years as they attempted to record their debut album and perform in mainstream venues rather than disability clubs.
The band Acrassicauda (“Black Scorpion”) have a different set of problems in Heavy Metal in Baghdad, showing at the Ritzy in Brixton from today and the Prince Charles off Leicester Square on Sunday and Tuesday.
As Iraq's only heavy metal group, they are shown with more (though still extremely restricted) freedom to perform under Saddam's regime than in the years after his downfall. Now refugees in Turkey, their tale has no happy ending but gives a fascinating personal perspective on the Iraq conflict.
Strangest of all is the long-awaited full-length movie from Oklahoma's professional oddballs, The Flaming Lips. Christmas on Mars (Warner Bros DVD, out 10 November) has had an epic gestation period. The Lips' frontman Wayne Coyne has been talking about it since 2001, and now the world can see his “fantastical film freakout”.
It's every bit as bizarre as you would expect from a band famous for stage shows featuring dancing Father Christmases and aliens, whose songs include Oh My Pregnant Head (Labia in the Sunlight) and Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus with Needles.
Set in a Mars colony about to witness the birth of its first baby, it depicts a group of increasingly paranoid astronauts helped towards something approaching contentment by Coyne's character, a mute, horned Martian with green face, blue beard, pointy ears and a Santa suit.
However, it's also far from the joyful Technicolor nonsense of their fun-filled gigs. Filmed almost entirely in black and white on homemade sets and starring the band and their friends, none of whom will be winning any acting awards, it's slow-moving and frequently boring.
Coyne has described it as a cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eraserhead, which is accurate, but it's not half as memorable as either. For every striking scene featuring a baby being cut in half, bleeding eyes and a marching band with vaginas for heads, there are a dozen with astronauts talking cod-philosophical gibberish while they fiddle with wires.
Most surprising of all, there's almost no music in it. It's a diversion that will fascinate the stoned but this is one case where you're still better off going to the gig rather than actually watching the movie.
BAND ON THE (13 MILE) RUN
Joggers can trot along to something a bit different this Sunday at Run To The Beat, a half-marathon around Greenwich that takes place to the sound of more than 30 bands on 17 stages spaced around the course.
The acts have been picked by City Showcase, the organisation that gave early exposure to such bands as Keane and Razorlight — so even if you haven't heard of them yet you're guaranteed to hear of them soon.
Some are more likely to encourage you to pick up the pace than others, including grime rapper Conrad the Scoundrel and the energetic synthpop vamp Nosheen.
Run like the wind away from the “official Run To The Beat song”, though, a stinky trainer-full of cheesy pop with motivational lyrics that sounds like a failed Eurovision song contest entry.
Better still, download the latest Nike running mix from the iTunes store. Simian Mobile Disco has produced a thumping half-hour of techno which should get you round the course in fine style if you play it four times.
www.runtothebeat.co.uk
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