Color Me Obsessed:A Film About the (2011), and What Did You

ONSCREEN By MICHAEL C. BINGHAM Notes From the Underground Filmmaker Bechard crafts cinematic paeans to two bands he loves — one legendary, the other not so much amden’s Gorman Bechard at all is known mainly for performing under the infl uence (NHM, December 2012) having perhaps the worst name of alcohol and trashing their Color Me H makes fi lms and writes (provenance unknown) in the instruments.”) novels for a living. But his history of American popular The central conceit of Color true artistic touchstone is rock music. Me Obsessed is that, unlike Obsessed: A ‘n’ roll music. He plays guitar What the two bands have in every other “rockumentary” — though not well enough, he common is easy to hear (and ever fi lmed, the title characters says, to get paid for it. But what the see). Both are loud, coarse, are entirely absent from Film About he does really well is tell stories brilliant, maddeningly erratic. the fi lm. No Replacements about bands that inspire him. Led by mercurial singer/ concert footage, or interviews Replacements Over the last 18 months songwriter/guitarist Paul with the former bandmates Bechard has released two Westerberg, the Replacements — no nothing. Just a whole (2011), and What documentaries about bands he were as likely to show up drunk host of Replacements lovers has loved. One, Minneapolis- for gigs and play Led Zeppelin ruminating about the band and based ‘80s legends the covers for two hours as they what it meant to them during Did You Expect?: Replacements (which he calls were to put on transcendent the band’s meteoric rise and the “last best band”) is well shows that left listeners slack- inevitable fall. known to alt-rock fans. The jawed. (With characteristic The Archers The Replacements were formed other — the Chapel Hill, N.C. understatement Wikipedia in 1978 by brothers Bob and quartet the Archers of Loaf — calls the band “a notoriously Tommy (then age 11) Stinson of Loaf Live at to the extent that it is known wayward live act, often Cat’s Cradle and high-school dropout Chris (2012). Written and directed by Gorman Bechard. $19.95 each. What Were We Thinking Films (wwwtfi lms.com). 46 March/April 2013 NEWHAVENMAGAZINE.COM documentary about a band few have ever even heard seems a little, well, nutso, that’s just par for the course. After all, Bechard is a fi lmmaker who made his bones with 1986’s Psychos in Love, a slasher pic tarted up in the guise of a sendup of slasher pics. This writer was not familiar with the music of the Archers of Loaf, who released four albums in the 1990s before drifting apart. (They reunited to play an unannounced set at a club in Carrboro, N.C. in January 2011, which What Did You Expect? documents.) Bechard regards them as “the greatest indie rock band of the ‘90s,” and his affection for the group is evident here. Using seven cameras (four handheld) Bechard has crafted a very urgent and compelling piece of rock ‘n’ roll cinema. “You will as if you’re at the show,” Mars with the screw-you-any-hope- make compelling cinema, I would the director says, “right up against of-a-record-deal name of Dogbreath. have said you were nuts. But Color the stage, moving and sweating in A janitor named Paul Westerberg Me Obsessed is riveting — and yes, unison with the hundreds of fans used to walk past the band’s totally obsessed. In a good way. pressed up against you.” rehearsal space and listen to them Which brings us to What Did You practice, day after day. Before long And he’s not even exaggerating. Y Expect? If making an 89-minute he had leeched into the band itself, soon renamed the Impediments. The They quartet never actually gigged under that name. Before their fi rst show, at a sober house, the Archers group changed their name to the Replacements. Recalls musician/ producer Kevin Bowe, who was at of Loaf the show: “I remember thinking two things — dreadful name, very vividly,” he says. “The fi rst was that they were the worst rock band great band. I’d ever seen. The second was that they were best band I’d ever seen. I really couldn’t fi gure it out.” The Regardless, following the gig the band was enjoined never to return due to what Bowe recalls as “an Replacements incident involving alcohol” in the dressing room. channel the Sneaking hootch into a gig at a sober house is so quintessentially cover of the Replacements that I can’t even stand it. (The band’s intoxication would Beatles’ Abbey be famously replicated on a January 1986 appearance on Saturday Night Road, circa Live, which got the band banned from show in perpetuity.) 1984. To call a motion-picture “talky” THE STORE FOR MUSIC ENTHUSIASTS is no compliment. If you had told 85 Willow Street, New Haven, CT 06511 me a documentary about people 203.799.6400 | audioetc.com talking about a band I liked could new haven 47.

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