When touring Norwegian-based musician Mark Steiner was here in Australia recently he kindly thrust this upon me. It’s a DVD documentary about Greenland’s first rock band, Sume, which means “Where?” in Greenlandic.
Greenland is a rather huge island continent, with a vast inhospitable interior and most of the population living in coastal villages, the population (mostly Inuit who settled there some 700 years ago) ruled by Denmark. Slowly but surely Denmark’s modern, western society eroded the culture and way of life of the Greenlanders; in order to get jobs (rather than fishing in kayaks) every young Greenlander had to go to Denmark to study. Meanwhile, older Greenlanders found their way of life being destroyed and being replaced with despair and purposelessness.
In 1972 four young Greenlanders, each from a different coastal village, met in Copenhagen … and formed a band. Malik Hoegh, the main lyric writer and singer-guitarist, and Per Bethelsen, produced songs in tune with the times of rebellion against an uncaring ruling state, even touting revolution as a way forward…
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- By Robert Brokenmouth
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Here's some music for the weekend, courtesy of powerpop king Paul Collins. It's the lead-off single from his new album "I Need My Rock and Roll" which is reviewed here.
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- By The Barman
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There are reunions and there are reunions. The short story is that this DVD is well worth the fuss. One of Australia's best-loved bands of the 1980s, reconvening in full for the first time in 21 years in emotionally-charged circumstances, would be a good enough excuse to watch this show, just for curisoty's sake. That they nailed it with their original spirit, enthusiasm and energy intact is the icing on the proverbial baked product.
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- By The Barman
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It's not often for me that a movie meets expectations so exactly but this is one. I should have known. Those ubiquitous T-shirts commemorating the place being worn in their millions (hey - I owned one in the '80s before it was cool) and that scary story, just after it closed, that the place was destined to be relocated to Las Vegas. Plus, there's Foo Fighter in it. Despite best intentions, "CBGB" is the "Waterworld" of punk rock biopics. It is a train crash. It tells the story of Hilly Krystal (played by Alan Rickman), the owner of the world's most renowned musical shit-hole, without any regard to historical facts, chronology, plot, character development or the possibility that its target audience might just have functioning brains. All good cretins go to heaven but sitting through this is hell.
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- By The Barman
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