Moneen - It All Started With A Red Stripe DVD Review
by Dan MacIntosh
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If nothing else, Vagrant sure hasn't skimped in the portions for its Moneen DVD. For a band with only three full-length CD releases to date, It All Started with a Red Stripe will tell you everything you always wanted to know about Moneen � and then some.
This single disc is divided into four parts: Part one is a documentary film by Alex Liu. Part two is a live concert. Part three is a collection of music videos. Part four is made up of videotaped tour journal entries.
The documentary portion delves deeply into the life of this band -- perhaps too deeply -- including scenes where the group is in the recording studio, struggling to get a song right. It is obvious the band and producer don't quite see eye to eye some of the time, so it's surprising the group has let the general public in on this side of their world. On the more positive side, however, the camera captures the act in the tour van when their manager calls to say Vagrant Records is interested in the group, as are a number of other high profile labels. Rock bands try so hard to look cool under any and all circumstances, but it's obvious they're visually smitten by these offers.
Moneen in concert is lively, to say the least. This show, which was filmed in Toronto, Canada, captures the group performing nine songs, half of which were taken from 2006's The Red Tree CD. Although these songs offer powerful emotional statements, what's with today's groups and their need to give each and every song an overly wordy title? One song is titled, "If Tragedy's Appealing, Then Disaster's An Addiction", and another one � even longer! -- is called, "There Are a Million Reasons for Why This May Not Work? And Just One Good One For Why It Will". Didn't anybody tell them song names do not need to be complete sentences?
Moneen music videos do not ever break any Peter Gabriel-like ground: They're either semi-conceptual, where individual band members play various roles, or they're just plain silly, such as "Start Angry�End Mad", which ends in a food fight.
Oddly enough, the tour journal portion is divided between and American and a Canadian side. But as these clips are little more than examples of boyish rough housing, one has to wonder if there really is a difference between pranks committed in America, and those undertaken across the border. Yet it matters not where in North America Moneen happens to be, these guys sure know how to have fun. Many of these pranks are at the expense of guitarist/vocalist Chris "Hippy" Hughes, who gets picked on presumably because of his hippy-like dreadlocks and because he's such a good sport.
You may not be a new fan of Moneen after sorting through this lengthy DVD, but that won't be due to lack of information.
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