Doco heaven

I got introduced to Documentary Heaven at the weekend (thanks, Mark G!), there's a ton of great documentaries listed there. I picked out a few of the music titles, here's a few...

"Moog, a documentary about Robert Moog, inventor of the modern synthesizer, is a portrait of the legendary figure in music and technology and his ideas about creativity, design, interactivity, spirituality and his collaborations with musicians over the years."



Legendary ska musician Rico Rodriguez: Rico: The Legacy..



 Sun Ra, Brother from another planet...
"... Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, notably Robert Mugge’s ‘A Joyful Noise’ (1980), which interspersed performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra’s commentary on various subjects ranging from today’s youth to his own place in the cosmos. Today’s documentary, Don Letts’ ‘Sun Ra, Brother From Another Planet’ from 2005, reuses some of Mugge’s material and includes some additional interviews..."

Robert Mugge directed a great film on Gil Scott Heron, using conversations with Heron and concert footage shot in Washington DC in 1982. The film came out on dvd in the early 2000s and is easy to track down (watch some clips here).

Then there's the excellent doco on the artist Jean Michel Basquiat, by Tamra Davis, or Detroit Lives, or Helvetica, the film about a typeface. Or Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision, a 30 year old doco from the BBC..

Or The Mexican Mormon War, about how the drug cartels of Juarez, Mexico, are at war with a group of Mormons, some of whom are related to Mitt Romney

Go take a dig. Full list of all the docos here.