One-man bands. Showmen, eccentrics, loners. But whatever you do, don't call them buskers. Adam Clitheroe's new feature documentary is a funny and moving portrait of contemporary musicians who play as one-person acts. For them, music just sounds so much better when you make it all alone.
With an eclectic array of musical styles – ranging from theremin rock to hurricane drum solos and a backing band made of bicycle wheels – these one-man bands bring to the stage noise and spectacle worthy of a whole band, but at a fraction of the budget. We meet a selection of contemporary one-man bands from Europe and the USA and join them for their lonely existence on the road. THOMAS TRUAX [USA] is a legend in his own lifetime as he duets with homemade instruments including the Hornicator, Stringaling and Sister Spinster. MAN FROM URANUS [USA], a veteran of the US military washed up in the English countryside after the first Gulf War, plays avant-garde space rock while wearing wellington boots on his hands. The drummer DURACELL [France] wires his drums to sing and plays so hard that he almost explodes. NINKI V [UK] uses a skeleton puppet to play her theremin and HONKEYFINGER [UK] wrestles werewolf rock from his lapsteel guitar. THE TWO TEARS [USA] is an ass-kicking Californian punk band boiled down to one girl and DENNIS HOPPER CHOPPERS [UK] plays the sort of blues you get when you sell your soul at the musical crossroads.
Rather than mocking the musical excesses the film takes an intimate approach, helped by the fact it's a film about one-man bands made by a one-man band filmmaker. Life on the road for a one-man band is a journey into solitude, and so the documentary asks: what drives us as humans to create, and is it worth the pain.
UK, 2008, 83 minutes, colour, stereo |
