пятница, 2 марта 2012 г.

Boys on film: is Le Bon and Lynch the oddest hook-up imaginable?

REVOLVER: BRIAN BOYD on music

PUSH THE right film director towards the right band at the righttime and the results can be magic: Martin Scorsese and The Band, theMaysles brothers and The Rolling Stones, Jonathan Demme and TalkingHeads.

Mark Romanek was behind perhaps the best music video ever made,for Johnny Cash's Hurt(a truly remarkable piece of work), as well asthe Michael and Janet Jackson Screamvideo. So great is Romanek'swork that some of his music videos are now part of the permanentcollection of New York's Museum of Modern Art.

Next Wednesday sees the collaboration we've all been hoping forbut never believed would actually take place. Behind the lens willbe the one of the most weirdly wonderful directors of hisgeneration, David Lynch, and on the stage will be . . . Duran Duran.

No, it doesn't make sense, and it makes that mooted Justin Bieber/Aphex Twin collaboration seem comparatively logical. You have towonder how much the deep pockets of the well-known credit- cardcompany bankrolling the whole thing figures in Lynch making himselfavailable.

The concert is part of the Unstaged series of film and musiccollaborations, which are streamed free of charge on Vevo/YouTube.

And to be fair to the corporate backers, the series has thrown upsome real gems in its brief existence. The first two shows were byAlicia Keys and Jay-Z, and The National. The latter concert, in aninspired choice, was directed by DA Pennebaker, who was behind BobDylan's Don't Look Back documentary and also David Bowie's ZiggyStardust and the Spiders from Marsconcert film.

The upcoming collaboration between Lynch and Le Bon et al couldtop them all. Of all the acts you would put on a shortlist to befilmed by the director of Blue VelvetandEraserhead,surely a bunch ofNew Romantic chancers from Birmingham would be at the bottom.

Valiantly resisting the lure of reality TV and the pleasures ofthe trout farm, Duran Duran seem oblivious to what has been going onaround them in the music world, and they continue touring andpushing out albums.

The weird thing is that the album they are releasing next week,to coincide with the gig, is one of their best. All You Need IsNowwas produced by Mark Ronson and is picking up superlativereviews, with even the chin-stroking Mojomagazine (which usuallyonly gets excited about dead people) calling it "brilliant", andnoting "if you take Roxy Music, add Kraftwerk and sprinkle on someChic - the result is the new Duran Duran album".

So perhaps the Lynch collaboration does make sense. After all,what greater challenge for a film-maker than to take a band who,apart from producing the worst ever lyric in the history of popularmusic (who can forget "you're about as easy as a nuclear war" fromIs There Something I Should Know?) are infamous for wearing canary-yellow silk suits and flouncing around a yacht in the Caribbean (thevideo for Rio).

"The idea is to create some happy accidents," said Lynch of theupcoming show. Cheekboned keyboardist Nick Rhodes hopes that "thestranger it is, the more beautiful it will be".

As long as there are dancing dwarves I'll be happy.

* The David Lynch/Duran Duran concert is streamed live onWednesday at youtube.com/ duranduranvevo

Mixed bag

- A mere 45 years after its scheduled release, The Beach Boys'legendary Smile hits the shops this summer. My friend's father pre-ordered the album from Golden Discs in 1967 - what's he going to donow they've gone bust? - Two words: Rebecca and Black. The "latestinternet sensation" on a so-bad-it's- good, post-ironic mediaassault.

Комментариев нет:

Отправить комментарий