CREEMEDIA
Five years in the making, The Unheard Music is better and more coherent than anyone had a right to expect, with an elegaic tone that suggests it might have been called The Last Slamdance. It starts like the visual version of an in-depth Roiling Stone piece, with fine sound footage of John Doe and Exene plumbing the Hank Williams songbook, Billy Zoom working out on his clarinet and D. J. Bonebrake demonstrating polyrhythms in his kitchen to the beat of percolating coffee.
CREEMEDIA
LOVE AND X’s
THE UNHEARD MUSIC (Skouras Pictures)
Roy Trakin
Five years in the making, The Unheard Music is better and more coherent than anyone had a right to expect, with an elegaic tone that suggests it might have been called The Last Slamdance. It
starts like the visual version of an in-depth Roiling Stone piece, with fine sound footage of John Doe and Exene plumbing the Hank Williams songbook, Billy Zoom working out on his clarinet and D. J. Bonebrake demonstrating polyrhythms in his kitchen to the beat of percolating coffee. Then, it turns into one of those Spinal Tap rockumentaries, with both orchestrated and live footage of L.A.’s finest post-punk standardbearers running through some of their best stuff— “Los Angeles,” “We’re Desperate,” “White Girl,” “Johnny Hit & Run Paulene” and a great live version of the Doors’ “Soul Kitchen,” with Ray Manzarek howling