OK, here it goes, I think some of you may be waiting for my take on the evening I saw "The Pocket". My interest was piqued when I saw it featured in the "Artifacts" column of the Washington, DC City Paper by Sarah Godfrey, page 54, the August 30, 2002 issue. I was especially amazed when I saw in print that "Q and not U", a DC, a 'Discord' Punk band was going to do a 'set' with Go-Go band "Uncalled 4". This show would have to deliver something LIVE that I had never seen or heard of before, and people, that is the point of LIVE MUSIC. It has the power to deliver the unexpected, but it is rare that the 'unexpected' is promised in advance, such as this.

The evening started with the film and so will I. Let me say that this is film is probably something that should have been done 10 years ago, but hey, there was much less independant, do-it-yourself spirit back then. In fact there's a whole other film to be made out of the fact that the Go-Go and Punk personalities that are featured in The Pocket, were part of the first wave of DIY'ers that were fed up with Reagan's DC. However, I was a child back then, so it will take another expert to make that film. As for the here and now, The Pocket, it's important, but it has problems which makes me fear it will have to be done again in another 10 years. (sigh) I said I would not be critical, but this film has technical problems that make it a real challenge to watch. I am talking about bad lighting to no lighting, wind on the mics to sound drop outs, music video montagesthat go on for tooooooo long next to public television type, talking-head interviews. This film needs to be edited again. Yet, the information presented in the film is good and the whole package does the legwork, documenting all the way from pre-1978 Chuck Brown's "Busting Loose" to Brown's recent induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and having the foresight a (and excuse my french-balls) to pair the film's premiere with the three LIVE BANDS. I just fear that the techinical problems will keep the film from getting through the festival system so it can play to a more general audience that does not know about Go-Go and has the most inspiration to gain from the topic.

Lastly, so I don't seem like a total woose, I will quote Sarah Godfrey, quoting the film's co-directors "[Nicholas] Shumaker says he and [Michael] Cahill 'Concluded the best way to talk about race was to do it silently.'" I concur, The Pocket's got this bit down; it silently SCREAMS out about race in politics and the music industry and Shumaker and Cahill effectively use the film SHOW rather than TELL. They visit Go-Go clubs, old-school and new, include local (and incredibily recent) news footage about club's being shut down, and in one case, brilliantly edit an interview with Fugazi's Ian MacKaye, where he commendably refuses to back down regarding music and violence. Again, the City Paper quotes co-director Shumaker regarding his interview with MacKaye, saying "That's then it really struck me that despite the racial homogeneity of the scene, Go-Go has pretty much afected every musician who's lived in DC."

Well, I certainly agree with that, which is just one of the reasons I went to this show. I was feeling pretty even-handed about the LIVE part of the show. I had heard of all of the bands, yet I don't think I had ever seen any of the band's LIVE.

Personally, anytime I see more than five instruments on a stage, I go nuts. It create's a 'wall of sound' that is an experience in and of it self . It is a 'handshake guarantee' that the band is tight, you can't put that many people on a stage and have everyone messing up or doing different things. To sound good the players have to be good, no matter the type of music. I had been to a mere handful of Go-Go shows at the end of my college days inthe early '90's, and was looking forward to a no miss show and a trip down memory lane. (At the Moment I have run out of time, though. I will be highlighting the music of The Uncalled 4 Band, Q and not U and Little Benny & The GO-GO Allstars soon.)