Sonic Highways… Is Awesome!

Sonic Highways… Is Awesome!

 

Before watching Sound City, I remember feeling a little apprehensive about it because I knew for a fact that it was a documentary about this epic recording studio where legendary bands, including Nirvana’s Nevermind, recorded some of their awesome albums using a Neve 8028 analog mixing console, which I knew nothing about! I was thinking I couldn’t relate to whatever it is they would be talking about in this documentary because I’m from a different country where the music scene here is very different from the westerners;’ I don’t know this bunch of artists that’ll be featured and besides they’re like decades older than me and hence the generation gap.

Dave Grohl as a film maker is really doing a very bang-up job. He did Sound City in a way that’s very relatable and told the story from other people’s perspective like it was actually someone you actually know. There’s something very candid and raw in the way he goes about interviewing people. Maybe, partly because they’re his friends? So all those inhibitions I had before watching Sound City disappeared and I started to really enjoy it and LEARN from it. To know all about these great musicians and part of their stories and their successes is awe-inspiring and it really just genuinely tugged at my heart strings.

Somehow I relate to it in a way that I know the feeling of some place very precious to you and it was an important thing in your life but then it closes down because of financial reasons and shit, and we all just wanna rock out and live happy but we can’t do anything about it because that’s just how it goes. At some point I even cried in this film. From time to time I rewatch and I still get them feels like when I watched it the first time.

Dave’s success in Sound City spawned the idea of Sonic Highways, his latest venture into film making, a documentary series which is aired in HBO every week. Each week it features a state where a recording studio made some significance in the history of music and rock n’ roll. At the end of each episode, the Foo Fighters play the music they recorded in that state featuring some artists there, all done in just a week!

Everything is familiar. It’s a lot like Sound City. The feel of each episode, the quirks and the videography, and that’s a good thing. Definitely, it looks something like a sequel to it. I most especially like the second episode, because punk that’s why! Learning some historical facts, no not those things you learn from text books, are wonderful being told by those people who were in the scene. The story of punk/funk or whoever’s telling the story, unravel right before your eyes, and it’s so bad ass! I like every moment of it. It really makes me wanna do something, you know? Hey I’ll probably produce a record or something! JK, I’m not Dave Grohl, FML.

Besides that you’re introduced to a bunch of great artists, you learn how it all went down as well. Who they were back when they were starting and what had they become, and truly you learn from it because life happened to them and me, I’m just staring mine and I see these series and I just know that the possibilities are endless. I know I might be talking gibberish here but really I can’t explain what I’m feeling right now after watching just two episode of the series, what more when I get to see the rest, right? I’m not really that musically inclined, I just listen to what I love and to artists I have high respects, but if this series got me this inspired, what more to those who are musicians in their small towns, playing in cafes or small bars somewhere in every corner of this earth?

 

What Dave’s doing is really something great and new, and it just blows mind, and inspires! Like in formal reviews where they give rating, I’m giving Sonic Highways a million stars! Excuse my fangirling.