Quickband presents

Circuit 1:6 (2000)

Autumn De Wilde (Eels): This a 24 track machine...there's usually some good stories behind this stuff. Hey, is there some good stories about this? Whose machine was this?
Music store clerk: There is no amazing story.
Autumn De Wilde: See, this was actually used on Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd, he just said...

Stars: Eels, Camper Van Beethoven, Supergrass, Michael Penn
Other Stars: Nash Kato, Air, P.J. Olsson
Director: Various

Manufacturer: Laser Pacific
MPAA Rating: Not Rated for (music videos)
Run Time: 01h:40m:00s
Release Date: 2000-06-06
Genre: compilation

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
B	B-	C+	D+	C+

 

DVD Review

Section 1: BANDWIDTH
First Artist: Eels
Directed by Jonathan Stearns

This 8 minute segment features E (Autumn De Wilde) of the band Eels wanderingaround a music shop. He looks as some old equipment and does some minordiscussion about music. He also jokes around quite a bit about the products.

Second Artist: Supergrass
Directed by Gilly Barnes.

In this segment, the members of Supergrass are interviewed by a psychic in arestaurant. There is some other footage of the band doing other things, mixed in. Overall, a rather funny segment.

Third Artist: Michael Penn
Directed by David Berger.

This segment is a black-and-white interview with Michael Penn followed by a liveperformance of his song High Time with wife, Aimee Mann. The actual liveperformance is in color and is essentially acoustic.

Fourth Artist: Arling and Cameron
Directed by Tim Huson and Jonathan Stearns.

Gerry Arling and Richard Cameron are interviewed in this segment. They discusstheir musical style and there's a few clips of their music. The music itself is astrange combination of various musical styles and time periods. It's a good, funnyinterview. The segment is accompanied by an additional video piece discussingtheir latest album Music for Imaginary Films. The album is based around theidea that the music is jingles and theme songs for non-existent movies, including "Hashie: The Drug Sniffing Canine." Many of the ideas are pretty funny, and themusic fits pretty well.

Section 2: BREAKTHROUGH

First Artist: Joseph Arthur
Directed by Josh Salzman.

Joseph plays acoustic live (at an undisclosed location) in this video. This video isaccompanied by a short interview segment with Arthur where he discusses hismusical origins.

Second Artist: Nash Kato
Directed by Sele M'Poko.

This 10 minute segment has bits and pieces of interview with Kato, andperformances of 2 songs, Blue Wallpaper and Queen of theGangstas. Many might recognize Nash Kato as the former lead singer for UrgeOverkill.

Third Artist: P.J. Olsson
Directed by Tara Veneruso.

P.J. performs some acoustic material here in his rehearsal space, and the video isaccompanied with another segment interviewing him. The interview is more of ahumorous thing rather than a serious musical discussion.

Section 3: SOUNDTRACK

The movie: The Virgin Suicides
Segment directed by Jonathan Stearns.

This segment is an interview with Brian Reitzell, formerly of Red Kross. Reitzell didthe music supervision for the film The Virgin Suicides. The film itself wasscored by amazing French band, Air. Reitzell's contribution was more to surroundAir's work with appropriate 70's tunes to fit the mood of the film. The interviewsegment is interesting and proves that there are actually some movies where themusic supervision is more than just picking top 40 hits for the "kiddies". Thesegment is accompanied by 3 clips from the film and the original trailer.Section 4: FRONT ROW

First Artist: Camper Van Beethoven
Directed by Jonathan Stearns.

In this live segement, Camper Van Beethoven (a.k.a. Cracker) play 2 CVB songs. Also included in an interview with band members David and Johnny (as they arereferred to). This apparently marks the first time CVB have performed as a singleunit in several years.

Second Artist: Air
Directed by Roon Tamuli.

My truly favorite moment on the disc is this live performance by Air in LosAngeles. Air performs Dirty Trip in this segment. The song was part of theirVirgin Suicides soundtrack. Air's music is a very hard to describe form of"trippy rock." One could try to compare them to classic acts like Hawkwind, Gong,or even Pink Floyd, but they distinctly seem modern. My favorite term for Air is"ambient lounge music." Also features is an interview with Air, and the video fortheir European single Les Soleil est Pres de Moi. The video is either part ofa much larger documentary film, or a "mockumentary."

Rating for Style: B
Rating for Substance: B-

 

Image Transfer

	One
Aspect Ratio	1.33:1 - Full Frame
Original Aspect Ratio	yes
Anamorphic	no

Image Transfer Review: As usual for Circuit discs, image quality depends on the segment. Most of thesegments are shot on basic home video. These segments have a lot of pixelizationand compression problems, however the other material is much better and ofsharper detail. Overall, the visual quality is fair, but since most of it is filmed withbasic video, it can't really be faulted too much.

Image Transfer Grade: C+
 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
Dolby Digital 5.1	English	no

Audio Transfer Review: Unfortunately, the disc's audio is somewhat problematic. Everything is in Dolby 5.1. Each segment, each video, menus, and even the trailers are in 5.1. Except, the 5.1doesn't sound specifically engineered for the needs of 5.1. Instead, every singlepiece on the disc pumps tons of front channel sound into the surround speakers. Infact, overall the 5.1 track seems to be every speaker containing the same level ofsound data. At first, I assumed this might be a problem with my setup, so I listened toother discs and rechecked settings. It was definitely the disc. The result is a very loud, washed out sounding audio mix. Since the surroundsessentially become equivalent to the fronts, the center channel is the big loser, being drowned out in the fray. This also means that even mundane material like basic interviews have this loudfront channel material coming from the rear speakers, like background noise andhiss. I had to turn the rear channels waaaaay down to even watch the disc.

Audio Transfer Grade: D+ 

Disc Extras

Full Motion menu with music
Scene Access with 0 cues and remote access
3 Other Trailer(s) featuring The Virgin Suicides, The Green Mile, Three Kings
Packaging: Snapper
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: single

Extra Extras:

1. DVD-ROM Weblinks

Extras Review: Like previous Circuit discs, each artist has a small profile along with his videosegment. Other than some extra trailers and DVD-ROM Weblinks, that's about it.

Extras Grade: C+
 

Final Comments

While Circuit 6 is definitely a good music disc, the unusual audio mix leaves aslightly bad taste behind. Having now seen Circuits 1, 4, and 6, I also think that theproducers might want to have more than just acoustic performances. Too manyartists are simply sitting at home with an acoustic guitar. Also, the lengthy introcannot be skipped. While the opening is cute once, having to watch it every timeyou insert the disc is a little annoying. I bypassed it by stopping the disc andpressing "menu." All that aside, volume 6 has a good structure and well-madescenes. Quickband is certainly getting better with every disc and tightening up theformula. It's also nice to see the mood lightened a bit with the presence of suchunconventional artists as Arling & Cameron and Air. Recommended.

Dan Lopez 2000-06-21