Like many outside of the early ‘80s LA punk/new-wave scene, I was introduced to The Plimsouls in that great outsider-boy-meets-insider-girl film Valley Girl, where Nicolas Cage makes his big-screen debut and exposes Deborah Foreman’s preppy, like, for-sure, Julie to the Sunset Strip rock & roll scene. Peter Case and crew break into “Million Miles Away” as Randy and Julie share their first kiss, and it was the band, more than the romance, that had me squinting at the screen with pinned ears taking in this great tune. (Ok, I was way into Julie/Deborah too, but let’s focus on the music, eh?) Pretty soon I had their iconic album Everywhere at Once and not long after, their self-titled debut. Each record is a flat-out, knock-down home run from top to bottom, and a mandatory staple in the collection of any self-respecting powerpop, punk, new wave, rock & roll fan.
Forty years later and Peter Case is still at it, these days traveling by car with an acoustic guitar and Yamaha keyboard, playing smaller off-the-grid theatres, avant-garde venues, and even house shows. “A Million Miles Away,” a brand new documentary available to rent or buy from Amazon, Apple, YouTube, etc., chronicles Case’s journey and how he’s garnered the respect of many top-tier songwriters in their own rights while he’s been at it, with Steve Earle, Ben Harper, and more singing his praises in the film.
From his early years growing up in Buffalo, New York, to his formative years as part of The Nerves (with fellow powerpop Icon Paul Collins), his marriage and collaborations with Victoria Williams, to his later struggles with the giant record industry machine and struggle to gain his independence as an artist, albeit to a smaller audience, it’s all covered here.
The film moves at a fast clip, cutting back and forth between a chronological recap to modern-day performances and interviews. The Plimsouls segment could have been longer to my liking (note the pathetically lacking attention paid to Titanic Love Affair in the Jay Bennet Documentary), but they certainly didn’t gloss over it, and a strong argument can be made that they deserve a documentary onto themselves. It’s well shot, edited, arranged, and presented – the overview Peter Case deserves.
I had the pleasure (and terror) of doing lights for Peter Case a few weeks ago in a small theatre near my home in suburban Detroit. I’d never done lights before, and it’s not as easy as you’d think, but by the time opener Ben De La Cour wrapped up, I’d figured out how to make him look less “over-saturated red” and more human, and got through Peter’s set okay, with just a couple minor gaffes. Being thrown into the fire working a set by one of your heroes can be stressful, but it did provide me with a perfect vantage point to hear his great songs and stories in a very intimate setting. He’s one of our greatest working songwriters, and I’d encourage everyone to take in his history with this film, and make a point to get out and see him live.
The Right to Rock is a documentary about the band Fanny that aired recently on PBS. Though the documentary was released in 2021, it slipped under my radar in the midst of a pandemic quarantine flood of other music documentaries filling our Groundhog Days and nights of isolation. To be honest, it wasn’t just the film that I’d missed, but the existence of Fanny altogether, I’m not proud to say. I’d seen the name over the years, but never took the effort to dig in. That changed last week.
Fanny is a band of mostly Filipino-American women from California, two of whom are lesbians, that formed in 1969 and disbanded in 1975. While their gender and sexual orientation certainly shouldn’t be relevant to the story, they absolutely are, and as key elements in the film, skirting around them would leave a major gap in any overview. The documentary exposes that it wasn’t their heritage or sexual orientation that held them back the most, but by far their gender. As bad as their successors had it, speaking of Suzi Quatro, The Go-Gos, The Runaways, The B-52s, and The Bangles - each of whom cite Fanny as an influence and inspiration - their struggles were down a smoother road first paved by these brave women.
Fanny ROCKED their way through five albums and a few lineup changes before calling it a day after a string of non-hits, shrinking audiences, internal tensions, and changing lives. Footage and stories from the hedonistic home they shared - Fanny Hill, and insight from Joe Elliot, Bonnie Raitt, and most of the members of their various lineups help to move the film along and keep you completely engaged. Live shots portray a tight, gelling band that could have easily held their own next to Cream, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Blue Cheer. Even the more recent footage around a reunion somewhat plagued by external factors (no spoilers) doesn’t cut into the enjoyment or momentum here, a faux-pa that’s been a detractor from other music docs in recent years (talking about you Jawbreaker, Echo in the Canyon, and Sound City!).
The Right to Rock is an important film about an important band. As a huge fan of most female-fronted groups, I found it especially enlightening, but any fan of Gibson Les Paul-Fender P-Bass-Ampeg amplified hard ROCK will dig not only the story, but the great music these people made in the face of blatant discrimination. I’ll be adding some Fanny to the vinyl rotation at home and keeping an eye out for those reunion shows [Blogger Note: first Fanny vinyl procured!].
Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit and fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos. Follow them on Facebook to read his road blog about their adventures on the dive-bar circuit.
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Twitter: @jeremyportermi | Instagram: @onetogive & @jeremyportermusic
