Film Summary:
Quote: Before Bad Brains, the Sex Pistols or even the Ramones, there was a band
called Death. Punk before punk existed, three teenage brothers in the
early '70s formed a band in their spare bedroom, began playing a few
local gigs and even pressed a single in the hopes of getting signed. But
this was the era of Motown and emerging disco. Record companies found
Death’s music— and band name—too intimidating, and the group were never
given a fair shot, disbanding before they even completed one album.
Equal parts electrifying rockumentary and epic family love story, A Band
Called Death chronicles the incredible fairy-tale journey of what
happened almost three decades later, when a dusty 1974 demo tape made
its way out of the attic and found an audience several generations
younger. Playing music impossibly ahead of its time, Death is now being
credited as the first black punk band (hell...the first punk band!), and
are finally receiving their long overdue recognition as true rock
pioneers.
The original line-up of Death was:
Bobby Hackney, Dannis Hackney, David Hackney.
Not pictured: Bobbie Duncan, the guitarist of the reggae act Lambsbread,
who replaced the late David Hackney in the reformation of the band.
About the Band:
Quote: Death was a garage rock and protopunk demo band formed in Detroit, Michigan,
in 1971 by the brothers Bobby (bass, vocals), David (guitar), and Dannis
(drums) Hackney. The African American trio started out as an R&B
band but switched to rock after seeing an Alice Cooper show. Music
critic Peter Margasak (incorrectly denoting the youngest brother)
retrospectively wrote of their musical direction: "The youngest of the
brothers, guitarist David, pushed the group in a hard-rock direction
that presaged punk, and while this certainly didn’t help them find a
following in the mid-70s, today it makes them look like visionaries."
The band broke up by 1977 but reformed in 2009 when the Drag City label
released their 70s demos for the first time.
More History:
Quote: In 1964, the three young Hackney brothers (David, Bobby and Dannis) were
sat down by their father to witness The Beatles' first appearance on The
Ed Sullivan Show. The following day, David found a discarded guitar in
an alley and set about learning to play. Brothers Bobby and Dannis soon
followed suit and they began playing music together.
The brothers practiced and recorded early demos in a room in the family
home and performed their earliest gigs from their garage. Originally
calling themselves Rock Fire Funk Express, guitarist David convinced his
brothers to change the name of the band to Death. "His concept was
spinning death from the negative to the positive. It was a hard sell,"
Bobby Hackney recalled in 2010.
In 1974 at Detroit’s United Sound Studios with engineer Jim Vitti, they
recorded seven songs written by David and Bobby. According to the
Hackney family, Columbia Records president Clive Davis funded the
recording sessions, but implored the band to change its name to
something more commercially palatable than Death. When the Hackneys
refused, Davis ceased his support. The band only recorded seven songs
instead of the planned dozen. The following year they self-released (on
their label Tryangle) a single taken from the sessions: "Politicians in
My Eyes" b/w "Keep on Knocking," in a run of just 500 copies.
The Hackney brothers ended the band in 1977. The brothers then moved to
Burlington, Vermont and released two albums of gospel rock as The 4th
Movement in the early 1980s. David moved back to Detroit in 1982, and
died of lung cancer in 2000. Bobby and Dannis still reside in Vermont
and lead the reggae band Lambsbread.
In 2009, Drag City Records released all seven Death songs from their
1974 United Sound sessions on CD and LP under the title ...For the Whole
World to See. In September 2009, a reformed Death played three shows
with original members Bobby and Dannis Hackney, with Lambsbread
guitarist Bobbie Duncan taking the place of the late David Hackney.
During a 2010 performance at the Boomslang Festival in Lexington,
Kentucky the band announced that Drag City would release a new album
with demos and rough cuts that predate the 1974 sessions. The album
Spiritual • Mental • Physical was released in January 2011. An
independent film titled A Band Called Death: The Documentary, directed
by Jeff Howlett and Mark Covino, was released in 2012.
Tech Specs:
Source: iTunes
Video: 852x480, 1420 Kbps, H.264, 23.976 fps
Audio: 6 Channel AC3, 384 Kbps, 48 kHz, CBR
Running Time: 96 Minutes
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