[img]1171|left|||no_popup[/img]For nine years, New York and other cities around the world have played host to a scrappy DIY bacchanalia dedicated to drinking up, as the official website puts it, “Art in every aspect of Life.” Still young and independent enough to be considered underground, unlike other DIY-fests that have since sold out, the Drop Dead Festival (DDF) has become an international showcase of iconoclastic musicians and artists from a scene that might loosely fit under the umbrella of goth/death rock/punk if its members didn’t often achieve a more singular, category-defying individuality. Enter This Is Drop Dead, a documentary that presents a snapshot of the 2006 DDF in New York, by cinematographer Jessica Gallant and Theatre of Ice co-founder Brent Johnson. From the DVD cover: “Sixty-six bands. Three days. One Festival.”
As with any chronicle of this kind, a certain lack of uniform interest is inevitable, owing to variations between bands. Some, like Cinema Strange, Ausgang, Submarine Fleet and Bohémien, are at the top of their form while others are admirable only in their drive, drawn from modern sensibilities, to turn bad musicianship into intentional and questionable art. Naturally, most fall in the vast spectrum in between. But however much the experience of individual featured bands can range from cringe-inducing to rip-snorting, the footage is as in-your-face as concert filming can get. Gallant, whose handsome cinematography has well served independent features such as the under-noticed Tom’s Wife, is like a scout navigating occupied territory, deft with the camera and capable of delivering as intimate a viewing experience as possible within small screen restrictions. At times, the filming accomplished by her and Johnson can’t overcome the limitations imposed by the festival’s oftenspotty sound engineering and the acoustical challenges inherent in recording live experiences. It’s not until the third day, for example, that band vocals achieve intelligibility roughly equal to the music. Nevertheless, This Is Drop Dead comes close to banging our heads against the wall of sound, which is as much as you could reasonably ask for from a self-financed, or even a studio-financed, project.
Where This Is Drop Dead succeeds as a festival document, providing a proxy experience for people in the know, it teeters as a documentary with untapped potential for reaching a broader audience. The goth/deathrock/punk fan, even if unfamiliar with any given band, is at least offered the opportunity to discover new music and meet some of the musicians and festival organizers. Other than an inexplicable excess of Justin Brennan from the now defunct experimental electropunk group Din Glorious, the glimpse behind the veil highlights the sense of community that makes DDF a labour of love. We also get to see Cinema Strange and Deadfly Ensemble frontman and visioneer Lucas Lanthier in a hot tub wearing a white dress, which counts for a lot.
For the unfamiliar, however, not to say uninitiated, This is Drop Dead comes with little context or explanation. Given how the dark side of the tune is threatened with irrelevance to all but a niche group – the scene has noticeably dwindled here in the U.S. – Gallant and Johnson miss an opportunity to go beyond the souvenir program and position the documentary as a musical ambassador. Granted, mainstream recognition is somewhat anathema to bands of rugged counterculturalists. But recognition, along with the opportunity to share a unique artistic perspective as valid as any other, is not assimilation. Without necessarily getting lost in the historical minutiae distinguishing, say, goth from death rock — both post-punk phenomena with significant overlap — or obsessively fawning over genre pioneers like the quintessential Rozz Williams, an accessible overview of DDF’s significance in broader terms would have gone a long way to making the film a self-sufficient manifesto. Still, This is Drop Dead, with its DIY sensibility and connection to the subject matter, is as much a labour of love as the festival it documents. In this regard, Gallant and Johnson’s work proves a winning fulfillment of the documentarians’ mission to capture, on film, the spirit of their subject.
This Is Drop Dead. Directed by Jessica Gallant. Produced by Jessicn Gallant and Brent Johnson. Two hours of live performances, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, plus performances by Lene Lovich, Ausgang, Bell Hollow, Blitzkid, Bohemien, Cinema Strange, the Deadfly Ensemble, Big Ravi, Din Glorious, Entertainment, ExVoto, Loto Ball Show, Mortal Clay, the New Minority, the Opposite Sex, Greg Phoenix, Signal and Report, Siiiii, Submarine Fleet and Veronique Diabolique.
The DVD, $12 plus $3 postage, may be ordered directly from Jessica Gallant via PayPal @ filmgal@roadrunner.com
****
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