Viva futurismo – watching the Country Teasers film
Yes that's right compadres, I've been watching the new Country Teasers film - This Film Should Not Exist, made by Gisella Albertini, Massimo Scocca and Nicolas Drolc in an Italian-French co-production which slightly defies logic (economic logic anyway). This is a documentary about a band and its leading figure (Ben Wallers) which is surely going to have a worldwide audience of about 2,000 people. It's a minor miracle that it even exists (hence the title presumably). Anyway, because I'm on a swanky record company mailing list I was sent a promo copy of the film a month or two ago. And today - during a delightfully rainy afternoon in lockdown London - I finally got around to watching it. It's good stuff really. I normally dislike docs on bands. Most are terrible and even when they're fairly good they're somehow annoying (probably because they're er, not music but a sort of "secondary" art form about music).
So yes, the film walks you through the history of the Country Teasers (formed in Edinburgh in around 1993 etc), has quite a lot of footage from the band's 1995 European tour with the Oblivians, and - in slightly stilted fashion - has the usual sit-down interviews with people reflecting on the band and on Wallers' approach to music-making/creativity. I've already drivelled on about Wallers (and The Rebel) plenty of times on this blog (most recently last month), so ... I'll skip that here. I guess what I found fairly interesting about the film was as follows:
*The mere fact that a couple of Italian Country Teasers enthusiasts apparently went to their gigs in 1995 and filmed with a Super 8 camera. Then again, I suppose there are always a few people like this around (a good thing).
*The observation from the CT bassist Simon Stephens that the band's "performative"/"always on" debauched behaviour during their tour in Europe was alienating and hard to be around, and that he longed for some space. I can very much identify. Life "on the road" is probably my idea of hell, especially if everyone is drinking their heads off and throwing things at each other every night.
*Less engagingly, I found Stephens' praise of Wallers' satire ("like Jonathan Swift" etc) a bit boring and over-obvious.
*David Edwards from Datblygu is very likeable and interesting. Apparently a bit damaged from mental health problems, he's also moving and sincere about what art can mean to people in their lives. He's sort of the star of the film.
*There's a nice anecdote about how John Peel passed on a fan letter from Wallers to Edwards - which is perhaps unsurprising (you kind of expect that Peel was constantly doing this sort of thing), but still reminds you what a pivotal cultural figure Peel was.
*There's a brief shot of Wallers doing Hitler impressions in the crowd during their 95 tour which, one presumes, was him (drunkenly?) indulging his confrontational approach. Kind of awkward to watch, as is the not-very-clear mention of the Country Teasers' guitarist Alan Crichton dying very young in some heroin-related way (in fact there's a sort of low-level Edinburgh/Trainspotting quality to some of the story, with the drummer Eck King also sporting a Sick Boy-style peroxide hair-do).
Er, what else? Well as you would expect, there's a fair bit of Country Teasers music on the soundtrack and this still sounds great. As does The Rebel live stuff (a few snippets from a show in Paris from last year). It's a travesty, of course, that there are no shots of The Rebel playing at the Windmill in Brixton but hey, what can you do! One of the Oblivians has a nice remark about how the audiences in places like Germany and Spain would react to the Country Teasers back in 1995. They'd gone to see the Oblivians (raunchy Cramps-style stuff from Memphis on Crypt Records) and they got ... bizarre mutant country and western music played by a bunch of Edinburgh weirdos. "They would become antagonistic". Their attitude would be, "I do NOT like this". "They would clear the room". (I know this feeling from stints DJing). In any case, if you like the Country Teasers or The Rebel (or The Male Nurse or Datblygu) then probably give this film a go. You get to see Wallers himself wearing one of his ripped and frayed business shirts talking about music-making and life-and-stuff, you get to see his rather beautiful cat sitting peaceably on his lap, and you get a few insights into the beer-stained fun (not fun) of being in a touring band. Best bit for me: Wallers explaining how the song David I Hope You Don't Mind is based on his pen-pal correspondence with David Edwards and how he'd adapted one of Datblygu's songs. David I Hope You Don't Mind is genuinely affecting and knowing a bit more about the background makes it even more so. I'm not sure if it's true that This Film Should Not Exist ... should not exist, but overall I'm happy enough that it does. One of the other drawbacks of music documentaries is that they're always looking back. Memoralising. Myth-making. It's dull! Even this decent-enough film basically does that. The Country Teasers are dead. Long live The Rebel! As Marinetti would have said, viva futurismo, and when is the next Rebel gig anyway ...?
Comments
Post a Comment