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LA’s a life-long lover of music, I have become fanatical about certain musical artists. The intensity of Nirvana issuing in a new era in rock music, the smokey intimate voice of Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac, the timeless hooks for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers all had an effect on me growing up. Over time their music never lost its hold on me, and I began to appreciate their songwriting skills as well as their mastery of their various instruments.
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Sound City is a documentary film that celebrates the recording studio and those that keep it running. Tracing its opening in Van Nuys, California and its cyclical rise and fall pattern as various musical luminaries take temporary residence as they create their passion projects. Now legendary musician Dave Grohl makes his directorial debut in this documentary love letter to the studio where he and his band mates in Nirvana recorded their landmark album Nevermind all those years ago in 1991. Celebrated for the amazing sound quality that was captured (mostly for drums) through the now iconic Neve 8078 analog mixing board, Sound City had always been revered in the music industry, especially by those who had recorded there. Dave Grohl does a great job investing you in the history, and bringing you in on a behind the scenes look as he and noted musicians come together and reunite with that Neve mixing board to create a new record of songs brought to life before our very eyes. Past Sound City recording artists such as Stevie Nicks, Rick Springfield, Corey Taylor, Josh Homme, Trent Reznor and even the legend among legends himself: Paul McCartney contribute to an eclectic collection of music.
I love music documentaries and especially about recording albums, but when you get emotionally invested in the studio itself, the people who inhabit it and the musicians who create there, it becomes something more than just a run of the mill documentary.
-The Arbiter