Friday, August 14, 2009

‘Electric Purgatory: The Fate of the Black Rocker’

Here’s a complete 69-minute music documentary, “Electric Purgatory,” from 2005. (Hat-tip: Wandarful.)

The piece has a no-budget, homemade feel. But it’s got interviews with Vernon Reid, Greg Tate, Angelo Moore (Fishbone), Doug Pinnick (King’s X), Lonnie Marshall (Weapon of Choice), Jimi Hazel (24-7 Spyz), Cody Chesnutt, and many more.

9 comments:

bklyn6 said...

Good call.

I watched it earlier this summer. I think I found it at Google Video.

papasean said...

yeah, I've experienced that what I've just seen here, just hadn't seen this movie yet. Thanks for posting it UBM.
Have you picked up that Funkadelic Toys yet? And the U.S. music with Funkadelic from 1972 is cool too.

Michael Fisher said...

I had the opportunity of managing 247-Spyz when they first started out in 1985 or so. I didn't know what to do with them so I turned them down. Still regret that. I'm making up for it these days, though.

Joe Crawford said...

Great find, UBM. Just this past weekend I was re-buying my Fishbone records. Wonderful, idiosyncratic band. It makes no sense that they never broke bigger other than stupid record companies not knowing how to sell them.

I wonder if, for new black rockers, internet promotion and distribution will change things.

Satyrblade said...

No question! Gotta see this one!

Yeah, I remain pretty hacked off by that whole "only white dudes can rock" thing. Hello - Ice-T? Jimi Hendrix? Sly Stone? Chuck Berry? Screamin' Jay Hawkins? Robert Bloody Johnson? Short memories, these folks have...

It's not just "a white thing," either. I recall a would-have-been-funny-if-it-hadn't-been-sad moment when a black former co-worker referred to Hendrix as "white boy music" ("Well, he play like a white boy!" "No, the white boys keep trying to play like HIM!"), and remain annoyed that bands like Living Color and The Good Guys couldn't get record executives and audiences of either ethnicity to take them seriously for long. Poor Body Count got nailed as a rap band even though they displayed Ice-T's fondness for Sabbath-style metal; Ice himself had a song on Body Count's first album blasting the whole "Don't they know rock's just for whites?" thing. And yet...

Grrrrr...

It's love to see this film. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Satyrblade said...

Oh, and yeah - duh. Bad Brains. Seriously. Bad Brains.

(Poor Doug Pinnick - black, gay and formerly an evangelical Christian... that guy can't even catch a break! I'm curious to see what he has to say.)

Satyrblade said...

PPS: Have you ever seen or heard History of Our Future by the Black Rock Coalition? If not, track it down - totally worth it!

http://www.answers.com/topic/black-rock-coalition-history-of-our-future

Undercover Black Man said...

PPS: Have you ever seen or heard History of Our Future by the Black Rock Coalition?

Oh, I definitely got that, Satyrblade. I'm trying to remember... didn't the BRC put out another compilation tape a couple of years before that?

I need to dig through my old cassettes...

Undercover Black Man said...

Just this past weekend I was re-buying my Fishbone records. Wonderful, idiosyncratic band.

And ripped shit up live.

I thought black rock was really going to blow up in the '90s.