JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #541.172!

SIZZLING USA DOCUMENTARIES OF THE WEEK: Tad – Busted Circuits And Ringing Ears (MVD Visual DVD) & Kurt Cobain – About A Son (Shout! Factory DVD) :: Here to hassle your hearing are Seattle’s two favorite opposite ends of the Sub Pop spectrum. If anyone ever asks you what grunge was all about, screen ’em these two cautionary tales. Playing heavy, smoking heavy, drinking heavy and falling heaviest of all, the entire Tad offensive campaign is presented here in full unflinching detail with equally candid liner notes by Tad Doyle himself. But at least Tad’s still alive, which is more than can be said for the star of our next show. Narrated entirely by Kurt himself from taped interviews for more than two hours over a series of surreal Cibachrome-soaked imagery, About A Son both looks and sounds like a spooky X-Files movie with Agent Cobain searching for his own long-lost abducted self. What he finds is both haunted and haunting, so buy it now.

SIZZLING U.K. DOCUMENTARY OF THE WEEK: Klaus Voorman – Composing The Beatles Songbook: Lennon And McCartney 1957-1965 (MVD Visual/Pride DVD) :: Retrospective music videos are a dime a dozen these days, and almost all of them rely on know-nothing wankers spewing half-baked opinions over a slew of still photographs you’ve seen a million times before—but not this time. Revolver album cover designer and Plastic Ono Band member Voorman is just one of many Fab Four friends and fans featured in this informative 80 minute exploration into who did what and why when it came to writing Beatle songs. It’s all illustrated by a ream of rare licensed mint condition footage of the Fabs playing in Europe and Japan, as well as film of the contemporaries who influenced them. The bad news is that they don’t include footage of Lennon’s shameful spaz act from the unreleased Ed Sullivan dress rehearsal show in Miami. The good news is that they found another appalling live example of him doing it, filmed somewhere else!

Be seeing you!