Pete Crigler

What can be said about Weezer that hasn’t already been said in the now classic SNL skit from late 2018? Some people are ride or die for Weezer, and others like me jumped ship years ago. With their transition into a full-on pop band in the vein of Panic! At The Disco or Fun now complete, the band doesn’t even resemble the once bright new things in the ‘90s they started out as. Some people might say that’s snobbish, but we are here to dissemble why the band went in the completely opposite direction that gave us an unnecessary hit…

While making their most recent album, Skeleton Tree, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds were filming the proceedings and making what they imagined as a little "making of" documentary to go on some sort of special edition DVD. But then Nick’s son Arthur fell to his death. Suddenly, nothing made much sense. After taking some mourning time, Nick and the band returned to the studio to finish up the record. Everything they’d done now took on a black pall that was inescapable. What we get are some interviews with Nick Cave, his wife, and band member Warren Ellis talking about…

As anyone who has read this site since I joined almost five years ago, Faith No More is my be-all end all band of all time. There have been at least two books in the last 25 years that chronicled the band, but Adrian Harte’s chronicle, complete with new interviews with everyone in the band’s history (minus Jim Martin and Mike Patton) is as definitive a piece as you’ll ever get. With almost minute detail about the band’s early years all the way through their breakthrough with “Epic” and The Real Thing, fans and non-fans will find themselves ecstatic about…

This is a documentary executive produced by the members of Green Day, narrated by Iggy Pop, chronicling the scene in which Green Day, Rancid, and others came up in. Sounds like an amazing journey. Well, you’d be about half right. While this film is somewhat definitive and tells the story in only a way that punk rockers could tell, it feels like a hefty hardback book. At over two-and a-half hours, it pushes the patience of even the most diehard Green Day or punk follower. But it does get a number of things right while going in circles to do…

This Kickstarter-funded documentary about the making of Steve Wozniak’s brainchild, the US Festival, focuses on the first one from 1982. While one would’ve loved full-length performances from the likes of Oingo Boingo, English Beat, and Gang Of Four, some of the more defiantly different bands of the era, you get full-lengths from the artists that are primarily interviewed like The Police, Tom Petty, and Fleetwood Mac. It’s an interesting piece to watch, but it feels more like vignettes over a full-length film. There are stops and starts throughout, much like chapters on a DVD player, so it doesn’t make the…

I ended up seeing Band Of Horses live in Richmond, VA after friends from Lynchburg were unable to attend and gave me their tickets, and I was at least slightly impressed. Let me explain.First off, anyone who knows me and my musical taste knows I am the farthest thing from mellow. So, when openers Bonny Doom took the stage, I was underwhelmed. The music wasn’t bad; it was like a mixture of Luna with mid-career Wilco. There were moments when the band were ready to rock out, but then it was just a tease and they went back to their…

So by now it seems every band, good or bad, has a documentary about them – everyone from Kings Of Leon and One Direction to Foo Fighters and Circle Jerks. Some are great, some are bland, and others are just eh. This film about U.K. female punk/dub pioneers The Slits unfortunately falls into the bland category. There’s nothing wrong with the band at all; it’s just the film feels a little flat and could’ve used a little bit more love, like the recent L7 documentary. All female led, not selling sex, full of energy and reggae and dub influences, The…