Music Hangout Films to Watch If You Loved (or Hated) Get Back
for those jealous of the flies on the walls
We need more documentaries like Get Back. No, I don’t mean more 8-hour epics about blue chip pop bands. I mean that we need more films that document the creation of music. As much as I love a rich narrative ripe with historical detail and insightful interviews, sometimes I just want to feel like I’m in the room with an artist I love. I want to be the fly on the wall during a jam session, learning from their mistakes, missteps, and breakthroughs.
I think the current cultural status quo around this kind of filmmaking is the Twitch stream, which - maybe - allows us to hang out with our favorite artists in their studios. But, as powerful of a medium as Twitch is, the format fails to give me the kind of realism a “record everything” doc like Get Back can give. “Real life” (whatever that even means) doesn’t have a chat, Cheermotes, or Bit Badges (dear God, what language am I speaking?). “Real life” is unstructured chaos, random jams that lead to nowhere, covering or sampling records you know you’ll never release, arguing over song arrangements, joking, vibing.
Maybe the coolest thing about Get Back was getting to see musicians thrive in an environment that feels so foreign to independent musicians today: an environment where musicians, for the most part, just had to worry about making music. Nobody in the band had to think about which parts of the session will be most Instagrammable or when they should “go live”. Paul never has to address the chat and Yoko Ono reads her hate in the papers, not the comments. Get Back was a full-blown immersive experience into a world that feels exclusive to the upper echelon of the music industry, a world where artists can create with a certain degree of privacy while an entire team of people works with them to support their creative vision.
I want more music docs that feel like nature documentaries, immersing me in an artist’s flow-state, not to applaud their accomplishments, but to appreciate the process that got them there. Get Back is a one of a kind doc that probably could never be made for smaller artists. That said, the film made me think a lot about its aesthetics, feel, vibes et al. that made it both profoundly inspiring and perfect background fodder. I’ve seen a few publications throwout the idea that it’s a “hangout documentary”, and I’m inclined to agree. This led me to think about other documentaries in the orbit of the “hangout documentary” aesthetic. For example:
Brasilintime
A classic documentary following American drummers and producers (including Madlib, J. Rocc, Babu, and Cut Chemist) on a trip to Brazil in 2002. This is the same trip where Madlib gives his infamous RBMA lecture and, as the story goes, makes a bunch of the beats that end up on Madvillainy. The whole film has me weirdly nostalgic for a time when it wasn’t so easy to find everything on the internet, a time when you had to get off your ass and explore a new place to develop and curate a new sonic palette. As convenient as it is to dig for rare Brazilian records online, doesn’t a trip to São Paulo sound like a lot more fun?
Jay Z - Fade To Black
Yes, I am Guy Who Watches Fade To Black For The Studio Parts. We’ve got Timbaland sheepishly playing the “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” beat for the first time; Rick Rubin suggesting the a cappella opening to “99 Problems” to Jay-Z while he’s getting his hair cut; Pharrell waxing poetic about major and minor 7th chords. I’m not even the biggest Jay-Z fan but this feels like watching game tape from some of the masters of the art form.
This reminds me—one of the most effective things about the narrative arc in Get Back was precisely that the entire series was, from the beginning, meant to lead up to this big concert, and the film ends with the concert played from beginning to end. Which seems so obvious in retrospect, but has such a profound effect because you join the Beatles on their journey before experiencing the fruits of their labor. I wonder if Jay-Z has ever considered giving Fade to Black the Get Back-extended remix treatment. He could pull it off. There’s great scenes of him debating the ethics of his music and exploring the sonic palette of the album with Young Guru, and I want to see as much footage as possible from those studio sessions with Pharrell, Rick Rubin, Timbaland, 9th, Ye, etc. If the footage exists, I’m all for releasing the 8-hour cut.
The Alchemist - The Chemistry Files
A visual mixtape showing Alchemist circa 2006 hanging around NYC with Mobb Deep, playing shows, hitting the club, and chopping samples on his ASR-10. This film is such a great reminder that there is a massive social component to being a hip-hop producer. I’ve been thinking about this a lot since listening to the fantastic interview with Suzi Analogue on the A Beat Happening podcast. She contextualizes Knxwledge’s prolific remix catalog as a by-product of him not being someone who tends to play the socialization game, and that all of those remixes are the songs he would make if he was as active as, for example, Alchemist is in the above video
(Worth noting that in a recent interview, Alchemist describes Knxwledge and his Bandcamp page as his biggest inspiration in starting ALC records, so perhaps the grass is indeed always greener.)
Secondhand Sureshots
A forgotten gem produced by Dublab. Ras G, Daedelus, Nobody, and J. Rocc were each given $5 to buy five records from thrift stores in Los Angeles. They each had to make a new composition using only sounds from those records, without any additional instrumentation or samples (yes, this is where Mass Appeal stole the idea for Rhythm Roulette). The film plays as a walkthrough of each producer’s process, from the way they dig for records to the tools and techniques they use in the studio. Absolutely essential viewing for any sample-based producer.
Beginning Stages - A look into Solange’s songwriting process & jam sessions that shaped ASATT
Alright, so at 11-minutes, this is stretching the definition of a documentary. But I’m including this because the editing style makes us feel like we’re in the room with Solange during the writing and recording of one of one of the defining albums of the 2010s. I’ve noticed in recent years that a lot of content creators on Youtube are getting a little more comfortable releasing longform, minimally-edited videos, so I really hope Solange considers releasing an hour long cut of something like this for her next album.
San Holo - bb u ok? (album documentary)
This is basically what I mean when I say I hope Solange considers a longer version of the above video for her next project. I’ll be honest—I’ve never listened to San Holo before watching this video (shoutout to my homie Lynden (@divorcecourtt) for turning me on to this). If you can get past the bits that sound like a Gen-Z targeted ad for rental properties in Echo Park, there are some captivating moments here shared between musicians having the time of their lives writing songs in a living room.
That’s it for today folks! I’ve got some interesting things in store for the newsletter next year, so consider this a kind of appetizer. Peace and much love y’all.
-Daniel