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John Martyn
The Man Upstairs
(Voiceprint)

If ever proof was needed that the most beautiful sounds can come from the most surprising of vessels this DVD supplies ample evidence as the prodigiously talented John Martyn performs a magnificent set of music which is then interspersed with the unappealing boorish bluster of a lifelong drunkard (and he’s not even particularly sloshed here). Fortunately it’s not necessary to like Martyn to love his music and this show, recorded in 1978, pretty much catches the man at the top of his game having just recorded the timeless One World album with Lee Scratch Perry (just imagine the conversations at those sessions? Boggles the mind). ‘Certain Surprise’, ‘Solid Air’, ‘May You Never’ and ‘Couldn’t Love You More’ are all given truly stupendous airings as are a string of lesser known but no less worthwhile tracks (although the cover of ‘Singing In The Rain’ is pretty pointless). Martyn fans may be wary of yet more old material - the man has released a huge number of old live sets, many of which are less than essential - but trust us this one is a belter and belongs on any right thinking JM fans DVD shelf.

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Ziggy Marley
Love Is My Religion: Live
(Tuff Gong/Cooking Vinyl)

Sean and Julian Lennon, Jakob Dylan, Peaches Geldof (oh alright that last one’s a bit silly), but there are any number of children out there doing their best to step from the huge shadows cast by their parents but when you not only sound like but also look like your father you’re frankly on a hiding to nothing. Probably the most successful of the huge Marley clan Ziggy can be found here in support of his album of the same name delivering an almost two hour long set which even features a few of his old man’s tunes (‘Jammin’’, ‘Is This Love’, ‘Concrete Jungle’ and ‘Rastaman Vibration’). Taped live at Los Angeles’ Avalon Theatre in December 2006 during an extensive worldwide tour - Marley visited one hundred and sixty one cities across the globe and became the first reggae artist to perform in mainland China – Love Is My Religion proves that whilst Marley Jnr. may not be as charismatic as his dad (who is?), he is a talented songwriter and very watchable performer in his own right. DVD extras include behind the scenes footage and both the ‘Love Is My Religion’ and ‘Into The Groove’ video’s.

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Bob Marley
Freedom Road: The Tracks Of The Journey
(WHE)

Robert Nesta Marley would ‘probably’ have been 62 this year (‘probably’ because nobody can actually produce authoritative evidence of his date of birth) and, as Kris Needs rightly points out, he still had a great deal to offer when he died aged just 36. We can only guess at what might have been, but whilst there remains unseen footage and untapped fellow travellers to quiz we can at least revisit the past, and if former girlfriend Esther Anderson too often places herself front and centre of the tale – claiming, amongst other things, to have helped write songs like ‘I Shot The Sheriff’ – she was indisputably an important part of the machinery responsible for helping him break through, both as part of Island Records (Anderson was also Chris Blackwell’s partner during the labels formative years) and as the person responsible for early iconic pictures of Marley. Ex-girlfriend’s grandstanding aside though this double disc set is a well balanced overview of Marley’s journey from abject poverty via superstardom to tragically early death, the second disc – a 14 track CD – a welcome inclusion, making it a good starting point for any Marley newbies and an inexpensive trot down memory lane for fans who still miss this great man.

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Meat Beat Manifesto
Travelogue Live ’05
(Wienerworld)

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Jack Dangers’ Meat Beat Manifesto in the history of dance music, beginning life as an industrial techno amalgam in 1987 in very short order no self respecting dance DJ would consider venturing near a dance-floor without MBM tracks like ‘Radio Babylon’ or ‘God O.D.’ in their crates. Building a very distinctive sample heavy sound over elements of dub, trance, drum and bass, industrial and what would become known as big beat Dangers was also an early adopter of visual elements, an aspect of his live show which is enlarged upon here as a gig in Chicago is intercut with various surreal travelogue style films, sound-check and rehearsal footage and even a mishap with an unsecured light fitting. The addition of live drums to the banks of laptops, leads, samplers and knob laden boxes adds another element to what, aside from the visual footage, is a pretty static stage show, but that is sort of missing the point with dance music as the tracks are, almost without exception, clonking great rump-shakers, the audience clearly torn between watching as the audio-visuals are seamlessly mixed into the tracks, and dancing like pilled up drug monkeys.

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Metallica
The Videos
(Vertigo)

Coming so hot on the heels of one of the best music films of all time - Some Kind Of Monster, wherein the band took a huge gamble and courted mockery by employing a therapist to try and sort out years of unresolved issues and came close to calling it quits on camera - we can only assume this is their way of saying ‘that was then, this is now’, especially given that the last tracks with new bass thing Robert Trujillo, especially ‘St. Anger’ (a phenomenally visceral noise filmed at St Quentin prison), prove the band are in fine fettle and quite possibly more aggressive than ever. The fact that Metallica have been such a major part of the metal scene, indeed one of the biggest bands in the world for so long is no fluke, they have never been afraid of sounding musical, never afraid of light and shade, never afraid of ridicule (thrash metal with full orchestra anyone?). Okay so some of these videos are standard metal ‘what do we do? Ah bugger it, set up and mime in a bunker or a snowy field, oh, and bung in some cars and birds’ while you're at it, but this is rock music, what did you expect?

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Yngwie Malmsteen
Far Beyond The Sun
(Universal)

Swedish born Yngwie Malmsteen was one of the ‘80s new wave of neo-classical, pyrotechnic metal guitarists (widely credited as pioneering the high speed shredding technique), who found himself, in some quarters at least – alongside the likes of Randy Rhoads and Steve Vai – held up as the poster boy for all that was vacuous in metal music, peddling spandex clad, sub Van Halen-isms which, while technically astonishing, had about as much substance as Casper The Friendly Ghost. Harsh? Perhaps, watching this DVD there’s certainly no doubting the mans technical ability, the interview section revealing he was inspired to search beyond his family’s ‘classical’ influnces by watching Jimi Hendrix burn a guitar (he has been known to immolate his own instruments on occasion) but also that his major formative influences are not only Deep Purples Fireball but also Paganini’s 24 Caprice, sadly the songs around which his nimble fingered soloing are draped really are by-the-numbers metal of the blandest kind. That said fans of technically adept guitar playing will find much to marvel at here, and fans get not one but two concerts, bonus videos, interview material and even some guitar tab features for the nimble of finger

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Shane MacGowan
If I Should Fall From Grace
(Wienerworld)

At one point in this film Nick Cave insists that whatever Shane MacGowan wants to do to himself is entirely his own business and of course he is right, unfortunately for the rest of us it means a huge talent is being squandered as nobody in their right mind could argue that the man has created anything approaching the career high’s of Rum Sodomy & The Lash and If I Should Fall From Grace With God since his slide into drunken oblivion. The interviews with MacGowan range from the slurred to the repetitious but fortunately there are enough compos mentis people around him to piece the story together (notably his Ma, Pa and significant other), and what emerges is the story of a driven and talented individual who got what he always wanted and then found he couldn’t deal with it. Much of the live and video footage is wonderful - although the dreadful ‘Summer In Siam’ only really serves as an example of how truly awful the last Pogues album Hells Ditch actually was – ‘Dirty Old Town’, ‘Waxie’s Dargle’, ‘Streams Of Whisky’ and ‘Fairytale Of New York’ just four of the must see moments in this poignant but depressing film.

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Van Morrison
Live At Montreux
(Eagle Vision)

The vaults at Montreux continue to be raided and, in this instance, deliver up a couple of absolute gems in two great performances by Van Morrison, the first featuring a stripped down young hip, jazzy ’74 performance and the second a smooth, horn driven big band show from ’80. Of the two shows the fifteen song ’80 performance is the most pleasing for the occasional Morrison watcher featuring a very slick band (which numbers the legendary James Brown sax player Pee Wee Ellis amongst it’s number), plus an on form Morrison and plenty of early favourites like ‘Moondance’, ‘And It Stoned Me’, ‘Ballerina’ ‘Tupelo Honey’ and ‘Listen To The Lion’, but it’s the nine track ’74 performance with Pete Wingfield (keyboards), Jerome Rimson (bass) and Dallas Taylor (drums) which will get Van the Man aficionados all of a quiver featuring live takes of tracks from the abandoned Mechanical Bliss project like ‘Twilight Zone’, ‘Foggy Mountain Top’ and ‘Naked In The Jungle’, this show is low on hits but high on invention. Like his old mate Bob Dylan Morrison nowadays is more noted for his curmudgeonly ways and patchy recorded output, so do yourselves a favour, pick these up and see why he’s so highly regarded.

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Minutemen
We Jam Econo
(Plexi Film)

The Minutemen (D Boon, Mike Watt and George Hurley) never really meant as much in the UK as they did across the water, but the bands importance in the US is outlined by the who’s who of talking heads queuing up to pay tribute in this film – including Red Hot Chili Pepper Flea, Ian Mackaye of Fugazi, Dez Cadena, Chuck Dukowski and Henry Rollins of Black Flag, Grant Hart and Greg Norton of Husker Du, Jello Biafra, Thurston Moore, Richard Hell, Lee Renaldo and Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis. Ostensibly the story of three small town boys (from San Pedro) who came out of the DIY/punk/hardcore scene but proved to be far more than three chord ramalama merchants (Carlos Guitarlos sums them up most succinctly when he calls them avante garage) and this film follows their story from the early days as The Reactionaries, supporting Black Flag in ‘79 to the last time they played together onstage with REM (again supporting) covering Television’s ‘See No Evil’ on December 13, 1985. Nine days later D Boon would die in a van accident aged just twenty seven. This excellent documentary also includes plenty of fantastically grainy live clips of the band recorded down the years.

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Megadeth
Arsenal Of Megadeath
(EMI/Capitol)

I dunno, you wait years for a Megadeth DVD to arrive and then two come along at once (see below), although of the two this is by far the better prospect for fans comprising a pair of discs packed with videos, interviews, home movies, behind the scenes footage and live material. If you dig ‘em then you have hours of digging ahead of you here. For the uninitiated Megadeth are the spectacularly unpleasant Dave Mustaine (an early member of Metallica who, having been unceremoniously booted out, spent the rest of his career competing with his former outfit) and a revolving cast of backing musicians, sort of Black Sabbath on sulphate. The vast majority of the videos are either live or faux live with war and mayhem film footage intercut, the few story-boarded efforts lacking the necessary bite. The music works best when Mustaine and Co. are at their bratty-iest (although covers of 'Anarchy In The UK' and 'No More Mr. Nice Guy' are just limp). Not that it’s necessary to empathise with, or indeed like Mustaine – who is one of the creative lodestones for speed/thrash metal – Megadeth fed on antagonism, which comes across in this collection loud and clear.

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Ministry
Sphinctour
(Sanctuary Midline)

Filmed when long standing Ministry foil Paul Barker was still part of the band (Ministry is now a band in name only, Al Jourgenson being the only surviving member in a line-up which now boasts well over 30 different members), this show captures the band in 1996 at the tail end of what is widely recognised to be their creative peak and features storming clatters though industrial hardcore classics such as ‘Just One Fix’, ‘N.W.O.’ ‘Psalm 69’, ‘Hero’ and ‘Stigmata’, although in typically obtuse Ministry style each track jump cuts between multiple performances and Jourgenson is clearly, stoned, knackered or a combination of both throughout, appearing to be in grave danger of becoming his generations Ozzy Osbourne. But only a fool would write him off just yet - he is fantastically prolific recording as Lard with Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra, Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire, 1000 Homo DJs with Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, PTP with Chris Connelly and Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi and of course as part of Ministry's alter ego’s, the Revolting Cocks – and Sphinctour is a reliably incoherant document of the shambolic live Ministry juggernaut.

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Megadeth
Behind The Music
(Sanctuary Midline)

The story of Megadeth, as originally told to VH1’s Behind The Music, can be summed up thus... Dave Mustaine grew up in a poor family constantly on the run from an abusive father, becoming something of a tearaway, left home at fifteen, sold dope, fell in love with Judas Priest, Motorhead and Iron Maiden, began playing guitar to ‘get pussy’, formed Panic and then joined Metallica – prompting the birth of anti-glam thrash metal - insisted on continually hitting people so got sacked, formed Megadeth who all become full time junkies long before they have a contract, then operates a revolving door policy for drummers and guitarists until the present day. The saddest thing about the whole sorry tale, and indeed Mustaine’s entire career to date, proves to be his lunatic obsession with trying to top the band he was kicked out of, something he would never manage. Minor annoyances include the lack of before and after ‘story-so-far’ ad-break editing (a simple enough job), which means irritating repetitions and, as always, the music clips just aren’t long enough, but fans who have seen the show will welcome the extra interview footage and the video for ‘Motor Psycho’.

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Paul McCartney
In Red Square
(Warner Music Vision)

Despite his increasing ubiquity of late it's still really something of a treat to see Macca wrapping his tonsils around some of the finest pop music ever created (and yes that does include the odd Wings song), but what raises this DVD to another level entirely is the Beatles genuinely pivotal position in the history of ‘60s Russian youth culture, a position of such genuine importance that numerous people at these concerts are moved to tears at finally being able to see and hear this music in their homeland. Of course for us in the West this is about as easy to understand as a Western '90s teenager trying to relate to being born during a world war, but the mid-song talking heads that pepper the performance do a pretty good job of at least pointing us in the right direction. Which just leaves the performance itself, a performance so full of timeless pop music – played it has to be said excellently by Macca and his ludicrously youthful backing band (and including a second equally great show, with a different set-list, in St Petersburg) - that everyone from rabid Beatles fans to mildly curious onlookers should find this damn near indispensable.

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John Martyn
Live In Dublin 26.08.87
(Fulfill)

Having been caught out on many occasions and subjected to less than impressive live performances by an inebriated John Martyn - I speak from experience here - fans of the man could be forgiven for considering a live JM show something of a lottery (a bit like the Pogues really). It wasn’t always so however as back in the day even in his cups John Martyn was an astonishing performer, prone to impenetrable mid song rambles perhaps, but a prodigiously gifted vocalist and guitarist – generally even more so when supported by the equally gifted Danny Thompson – and it’s this performer captured here, sweating like a marathon runner at the twenty mile mark, Martyn’s lush velvet vocal chords are present, correct and used to absolutely beautiful effect on songs like Solid Air, Sweet Little Mystery, May You Never and a simply breathtaking One World. This is also a timely reminder of Martyn the guitarist – his playing is positively incandescent here - in short a man at his exceptional best. No extras, no camera tricks, no videos, no dancing girls, no commentary, no unpublished pictures, nothing but an hour of a fabulous performer doing what he does best. Sublime

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Mayor Of The Sunset Strip
(Tartan Video)

In amongst the usual selections of video collections, live concerts and ‘story of…’ type DVD’s that arrive at the TM-Online offices there is occasionally a title which is neither one thing nor the other, and this is just such a title. Following the fortunes of one Rodney Bingenheimer, a man with no obvious talent for anything other than being photographed with famous people, this excellent documentary takes a long hard look at our obsession with celebrity and those desperate to bathe in what Bingenheimer refers to as ‘the god-heads’ reflected glory. To be fair Rodders is a genuine music fan and through his club nights (the infamous English Disco) and radio slots has helped promote numerous acts from Bowie to the Sex Pistols, Smiths, Coldplay and Oasis in the States but, unlike say John Peel, it’s the collection of pictures, autographs and memorabilia that litter his flat which really count, the music simply a means to acquiring them and despite all his A-List celebrity acquaintances Rodney is actually a slightly pathetic, sad and lonely individual with no real idea of who he is or indeed what his life amounts to.

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Aimee Mann
Live At St. Ann’s Warehouse
(V2)

The toothsome Ms Mann (the Julia Roberts of singer/ songwriting), caught live in mid 2004 during a show recorded at St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York with her band – very good band they are too – strutting her live chops (which we learn in the accompanying interview is not exactly top of her favourite things to do – not keen on being applauded apparently). For the technically minded the show is a 16:9 widescreen letterbox visually and 5.1 surround sound aurally, for the Aimee Mann faithful it includes more or less everything you’re likely to want to hear her play, and the package also includes a bonus live CD of hits plus two new songs from her upcoming new album. For the uninitiated this is probably as good a point as any to dip into the Mann canon, although the show does occasionally, erm, plod (especially during a couple of excruciating onstage exchanges which would have been best left on the cutting room floor), but generally does the lady no disservice and reveals her to be a quality songwriter who is likely to be around for a while to come. Indeed in this world of manufactured pop stars and wannabe superstars Mann’s reticent qualities actually make rather a pleasant change

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Morrissey
Who Put The M In Manchester
(Attack)

There is little doubting the recent phoenix like revival by Manchester’s favourite son has been a long time coming - although it was helped immeasurably by You Are The Quarry being the best thing Stephen Patrick has recorded for many a moon - and absolutely deserved. Which makes this homecoming show in Manchester on the great mans birthday all the more poignant, and if he isn’t quite the willowy flower wielding waif of yore (resembling an ageing Ted rather more these days), his microphone cable whipping, shape throwing slightly more cumbersome, there is little doubt he still inspires absolute fanaticism in his followers - it’s actually quite painful watching the faithful launching themselves with bone crunching consequences across the pit stage-wards. Composed mainly of tracks from his recent album, and the odd Smiths classic thrown in for good measure, this is a celebratory return to form as Morrissey takes that hoary old chestnut the audience sing-a-long into real goosebump territory and proves he can still whip a (very large) room of people into an almighty frenzy. Extras include several promos and a set from the Move Festival.

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The Magic Band
Live In Concert
(Sub Diva)

It’s hard to imagine a band less likely to work without their illustrious ex-front-man than The Magic Band. Witness recent Zappa less Mothers reunions or the Doors Jim Morrison-less Ian Astbury incarnation. Not a pretty sight to be sure. Indeed watching the vast majority of ‘70s reunion outfits drag their portly frames and thinning bonces out in the cause of making a buck is frankly painful (if perfectly understandable). The simple truth is however even without the trademark vocals of the good Captain this millennium version of the Magic Band is an absolute dream not least due to drummer John ‘Drumbo’ French’s astonishing move into the vocal spotlight, using his old Beefheart bosses baritone croak’n’wail as the kicking off point for a bravura lesson in updated blues bellowing. Add old Magic Band luminaries Mark ‘Rockette Morton’ Boston, Gary ‘Mantis’ Lucas, Denny ‘Feelers Rebo’ Walley and Robert Williams - all clearly playing with a passion, verve and skill that would shame many bands a quarter of their age - and you have one of the few reunion outfits living up to their reputation. Extras include a 50 min reunion documentary (one of John Peel’s last narration jobs), and extra live tracks.

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