Fishbone

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Opening tonight at the Roxie is Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone, a documentary about the highly-regarded -- if somewhat forgotten -- punk-funk band from Los Angeles. After years on the road, traveling between festivals, the film is finally in a theater run. Tonight and tomorrow, the Roxie presentation will even feature appearances by band members Angelo Moore and Norwood Fisher.

Over the Exhibitionist, SF Weekly's arts blog, Michael Fox spoke with Everyday Sunshine director Chris Metzler about the documentary project, the difficulties of making a documentary about a band, and the legacy of Fishbone. Below, we've excerpted some of the most interesting parts of their conversation, but we'd urge you to check out the whole thing.

What's different for the band, or you, about the Roxie gig?
In 1983 or '84, San Francisco was the first town Fishbone toured to outside of their Southern California base. S.F. has been the band's home away from home. There's something about the eclectic nature and diversity that always welcomes and celebrates them. In S.F., Fishbone isn't a cult band.

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Jerry Garcia

​Jerry Garcia, the San Francisco-born guitarist of the Grateful Dead, will be the subject of a new feature-length documentary film released this spring, according to a report today in Deadline Hollywood.

Spearheading the project are music documentary producer Malcom Leo (This Is Elvis, The Beach Boys: An American Band), and John Hartmann, brother of the late comedian Phil Hartmann, who managed Cosby, Still, and Nash, the Eagles, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, among other bands. Leo and Hartmann already produced a film clip about Garcia shown at AT&T Park last summer for the SF Giants' Jerry Garcia Day; footage from that event will be included in the new film.

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The Grateful Dead inside 710 Ashbury

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A new itch for merchandising, a fanbase now on the side of life that comes with plenty of cash to spend on nostalgia, and a poverty of original ideas coming out of Hollywood: What's a hugely adored band like the Grateful Dead to do?

Why, commission an Across the Universe-style film featuring its original music, that's what.

Deadline Hollywood reports today that the legendary S.F. psychedelic rock outfit -- which announced a new push for merchandising to fans earlier this year -- has representatives working to produce a flick that will feature its songs. But the film won't be a biopic -- rather, it will be a fictional narrative about San Francisco's Haight Ashbury in the 1960s and early '70s, built around the music of the Grateful Dead.

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Neil Young at Bridge School

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We already told you about the plans to release a new, three-DVD, two-CD box set celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the now-legendary Bridge School Benefit concerts. The set will feature some stunning performances from over the years by the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Pearl Jam, Paul McCartney, David Bowie, and others.

And now, thanks to a special series of screenings, you can watch the concert film on a big screen right here in the Bay Area -- the day after this weekend's Bridge School Benefit shows end.

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This fall, an exciting documentary is hitting movie theaters. It's called The Other F Word, and it's about punk rock; it's about family; and it's about a plethora of life's awkward questions including: "Should I have tattooed my forehead?" and "Daddy, what's a dominatrix?" It features NOFX's Fat Mike, Jim Lindberg from Pennywise, TSOL's Jack Grisham, Rancid's Lars Frederiksen, Rise Against's Tim McIlrath and a host of others, and was produced by Morgan Spurlock (y'know, the Supersize Me guy). You can see the trailer for it here.

It's noted in the trailer that "There's nothing in the punk rock ethos that prepares you for being a dad." But, actually, we'd like to respectfully disagree. Because we think that a life spent submerged in punk rock is the best training any human could hope for when it comes to raising a child.More >>

Kozelek in On Tour

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Like Some Kind Of Monster, the highly entertaining two-and-a-half-hour documentary that chronicled the trials and tribulations of being a member of the Metallica juggernaut, Mark Kozelek: On Tour is a long look (clocking in at nearly two hours) at a Bay Area artist with enough experience and dedicated followers to justify a thorough examination of his craft.

But that's about all the two films have in common, with On Tour veering far away from Metallica's high-priced and often hilarious drama, choosing instead to focus on the staid, slice-of-life simplicity experienced on Kozelek's travels in Europe and North America over the past two years. So instead of watching a volatile band blow $40,000 a month on a therapist, during On Tour we see a subdued guy in his 40s using music as therapy -- specifically finding inspiration in the nylon-string guitar that acts as the lone instrumental weapon on the solo tours being documented.

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from Better than Something

Jay Reatard in Memphis

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Opening in a burst of feedback, Better Than Something -- screening tonight at the Roxie -- offers a 90-minute portrait of the late Memphis punk musician Jay Reatard (1980-2010). Filmmakers Alex Hammond and Ian Markiewicz make extensive use of video archives of Reatard performances going back to his debut at the age of 15. Flamboyant and known for his temper, Reatard is filmed thrashing about on stage, physically bumping an errant bassist, and bragging about the time he bit the head off a pigeon's head in mid-concert ("Dark, grotesque and useless. And kind of funny," he says). Covered in blood for one album cover, he looks like a pudgy Jesse Eisenberg.

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​Beats, Rhymes, and Life -- the long-anticipated documentary about the seminal hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest -- opens in the Bay Area tomorrow. (Check out our review.)

You can celebrate this tonight at a party in San Francisco hosted by the film's director, Michael Rapaport, and a "surprise special guest." And while we don't know for sure who that special guest will be, we have a pretty good guess -- and we think it's a person very, very central to the story of A Tribe Called Quest ...

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It appears he's ... laughing?

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So Mark Kozelek, the San Francisco-based sadman behind Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon, is releasing a tour documentary. The black-and-white On Tour. A Documentary follows Kozelek on a solo trip around the world, featuring performances in Italy, Switzerland, Copenhagen, and other locales in 2010 and 2011. As you'd expect from a tour journal, it also shows Kozelek -- who is known for his beautiful, downbeat music -- coping with the everyday frustrations and hilarities of living life on the road. And yes, we said hilarities: Don't wanna spoil it for you, but the trailer for the documentary has Kozelek laughing at the end.

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Billie Joe Armstrong

​First it was an album. Then it was a musical at Berkeley Rep. Then it was a Broadway musical. Soon, Green Day's American Idiot will be a film. And no one other than Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong -- Rodeo native, ex-snotty Berkeley punk, and ridiculously talented songwriter -- will play St. Jimmy.

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