Dead Boys – Live At CBGB 1977
Picture:
C+ Sound:
C+ Extras:
C Concert:
B-
A
Cleveland, Ohio band from the original Punk Rock cycle called The Dead
Boys went to New York in 1975 and by 1977 became one of the first
seriously successful bands in the genre. They hit New York and the rest is
history. However, they only
produced two studio albums and these releases with the great Sire Records
label marked the one of the first on a major label. Dead Boys – Live At CBGB
1977 is a remarkable DVD document that captures the band at their
peak, on full color videotape, and in a three-camera
arrangement!
Though
the show only lasts 45 minutes, that it was made at all is something and
that it is still interesting to watch is great. That this was made only a few
years before the Music Video became a permanent staple in the industry is
all the more impressive.
Perhaps it is a tribute to the Punk spirit that they could pull
this off, but it has survived and includes the following
songs:
1)
Sonic
Reducer
2)
All
This & More
3)
Not
Anymore
4)
Revenge
5)
Flame
Thrower Love
6)
I
Need Lunch
7)
Ain’t
Nothin’ To Do
8)
What
Love Is
9)
High
Tension Wire
10) Search &
Destroy
The
performances are wacky, outrageous, “organic” and tinged with a sense of
violence and carelessness.
Yes, it is Punk, and that gives the cameras much to capture. Unlike the three-camera set up on
the likes of a situation comedy, these cameras zoom and move in wherever
the energy or action is. That
director and editor Rod Swenson had a good sense of how to cut and pace
all this in the element of the music without oversimplistic “Mickey
Mousing” that would plague many a concert and music video clip to
come. By today’s standards,
this is still daring, subversive and very raw. Any band recording Rock Music
today should consider this mandatory viewing, while those studying music
on film and video have scholarly reasons alone to see
it.
The
full frame 1.33 X 1 image was shot on old analog NTSC cameras of the time,
but looks good for its age and achieves a unique look the likes of which
we will never see again. It
is simply one of those one-of-the-kind projects that also happens to be a
vital record of the Punk movement that major labels even today would
prefer not to even deal with.
The sound has been remixed here for Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, and
though it is not a sonic marvel, it does help to recreate the idea of the
live feel of the performance better, no matter how limited. The combination makes it seem not
quite as old as 1977, but it is and viewers will not be
disappointed.
Extras
include the Johnny Blitz-cam angle, bonus clip of The Steel Tips, 1977
band interviews, 1977 promotion clip of the band when they were on Sire
(bring compared to The Beatles and hyped like crazy with footage form this
show) and new interviews with former member Cheetah Chrome and Hilly
Crystal, reflecting on the rise and fall of one of the key acts of the
genre. Punk is far from
archived and documented as it should be, but programs like Dead Boys –
Live At CBGB 1977 are a great step forward to honoring that
legacy.
- Nicholas
Sheffo
