Pete Crigler

Harry Chapin was one of the cheesiest, most pretentious singer/songwriters of the ‘70s but damn if he wasn’t one of my favorites. His song about the University of Texas sniper Charles Whitman is one of the best songs ever written. It’s high time that a full documentary has been made to honor his memory. 2021 will mark the 40th anniversary of his passing and this movie is the first full-length celebration of his talents. Unfortunately, it’s only half decent and I found myself thinking more and more about the VH1 Behind The Music that was made in the early 2000s.…

When the opening moments of a documentary about the tragic end of Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon shows him in his hotel room talking to his girlfriend hours before he dies on a tour bus of a cocaine overdose, you know you’re in for a hell of a ride. Culled from hours of footage personally shot by Hoon over the last 10 years or so of his life before his death in 1995, the film chronicles the complete rise, fall, and demise of not only Blind Melon’s career but Hoon as a person as well. Being such a huge Melon…

When MCA died of cancer in 2013 and the Beasties were put to bed, it was a very sad time for music fans. In the ensuing years, Ad-Rock and Mike D have put together a truly excellent coffee table book of their career and an even better audiobook where they had friends and famous fans read various stories from the book. Then, in 2019, it was announced the guys would be staging live shows directed by longtime friend Spike Jonze where they recounted in-person various stories from the book and the highs and lows of their career. One of these…

This is the type of article I never knew I wanted to write! This is my actual playlist on my iPod, and it’s something I continually update and revise when new songs come into my head. Having written two books and working on a third and putting together my own dissertation has allowed me more access to music and has given me more to time digest and enjoy everything under the sun. These are the best songs I’ve come across in my 34 years, stuff I never get tired of regardless of how many times I hear them. These runner-ups…

For some people, Adam Schlesinger was the guy who wrote the title song for the outstanding, Tom Hanks-directed 1996 powerhouse film That Thing You Do!; for others, he was a songwriter behind the scenes, wracking up nominations for Broadway and television, most notably Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. For me, he was a producer, musician and co-leader of Jersey’s Fountains Of Wayne. The band were most known for 2003’s pop smash “Stacy’s Mom,” but on the album it came from, Welcome Interstate Managers, they crafted some of the best pop songs heard in the last 25 years. This is what Adam Schlesinger means…

Brainiac, one of the most underrated alt rock bands of the ‘90s, came to a premature end in 1997 when leader/frontman Tim Taylor was killed in a car accident. The band’s legacy and musical reputation only began to grow after bands like The Mars Volta and others began citing them as key influences. This excellent documentary chronicles the band’s rise through the indie underground to their peak and ascension, which came to a premature end weeks before the band was going to sign to a major. Interviewees including all surviving band members, Taylor’s family and numerous fans including Fred Armisen,…

A philosophical look at the E Street Band sax man’s life, the documentary Clarence Clemons: Who Do I Think I Am? takes on a mortal tone when the Big Man is talking about himself and how others look at him. He’s basically trying to prove that he’s more than Bruce Springsteen’s sidekick and one of the most dynamic sax players that ever lived. Production on this film started before Clemons’ unfortunate passing, and while the black and white remembrances are a nice touch, it’s best to hear about the man from the man himself. It’s clear that the original intent…

If you are unfamiliar with the Anti-Nowhere League, where the hell have you been hiding? Only one of the most controversial punk bands of the second wave, they are best known for the track “So What,” which people found so horrible and shocking, they tried to have it banned. Metallica covered it in the ‘90s and made it a classic; they even performed it live on some MTV European awards show in 1998 and it was great. This film covers the band members’ less than upright childhoods before convening together because they found something in punk rock that they were…

Well, if this isn’t one of the more interesting rock docs I’ve seen lately. Stiv Bators, frontman for the Dead Boys and Lords Of The New Church, was one of the more charismatic musicians of the initial punk era before becoming a goth wannabe doing covers of Madonna songs. With this film, more focus is placed on Stiv as a person more than Stiv as a singer. Unable to fully license Dead Boys and Lords music, the film has to find another angle to make things interesting. And for the most part, it works. Drawing on interviews with Jimmy Zero…