Rockin' All Over the World Movies

While we're on the topic of rockumentaries, here's an interview I did a while back with Chit Chat (formerly of MGF, if that was ever your bag) about the 'Off the Record' program of rockumentaries he's hosting on 'World Movies'.

“And then I got a phone call about two hours later, from the press… Somebody saying, “look, I’ve got a report there’s a live turkey in your band room, and that you’ve requested it…”

For eight years, the man known as Chit Chat- musician, television personality, porn director- lived the rock’n’roll dream with Machine Gun Fellatio. Now World Movies subscribers can ride the roller coaster with him as he co-hosts the ‘Off the Record’ season- featuring nine classic rockumentaries in nine weeks.

The fun kicked off on April 4 with ‘Festival Express’, the tale of the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and The Band taking a private train on one of the wildest tours ever recorded, and, of course, “jamming on acid.”

“At one point, they just ran out of beer. Out of alcohol, all together. So they pass around the hat, and they pull the train over at a liquor store, and just load up with shit. Like, they get 800 bucks worth. And in 1971, that’s like 4 billion dollars on alcohol. And then the Grateful Dead just put all this jello-acid in it… I’ve never been a really big fan, but you kind of get into them.”

So, the Grateful Dead liked acid. But what can upcoming docos tell us that we don’t know, Chit Chat? Well, amongst other things, ‘Depeche Mode 101’ teaches us that Depeche Mode are “possibly heterosexual”, and were somehow one of the biggest bands in the world, able to make $82,000 in t-shirt sales from one gig in 1989.

In ‘The Filth and the Fury’, ‘24 Hour Party People’ and ‘Live Forever’, viewers will experience the highs and lows of the punk, Madchester and Britpop movements. As well as the great music, these films manage to “chuck together like 20 years of English politics”.

‘Some Kind of Monster’, the tale of Metallica in therapy, shows us that where we once “wanted to see our heroes superhuman, now we wanna see them human. Post-Osbournes and all that sort of stuff, now we demand that we see counselling and therapy sessions…”

Despite being a big fan of their music, Chit Chat insists that the Radiohead documentary ‘Meeting People is Easy’ will make you want to “whack them in the fucking heads”, although in fairness, that may not be anything new.

‘Off the Record’ will also include the ultimate rock/mock/umentary- ‘This Is Spinal Tap.’ For those that have seen the film; here’s a bit of trivia: Chit Chat claims that Nigel Tufnel - the ultimate embodiment of rock clichés and the film’s most popular character - was based on legendary guitarist Jeff Beck, a friend of actor Christopher Guest.

“Jeff Beck had Buddy Holly’s guitar in his house, which you weren’t allowed to touch. And then he had an amp that went to 11. So that whole rave is a complete rip-off of Jeff Beck. You look at him, and he actually is Jeff Beck in that role.”

Not only has Chit Chat seen this fictional tale of the world’s most dysfunctional hair-metal band “100 times”, but he’s had more than a few Spinal Tap moments himself.

Keep in mind that we’re talking about Machine Gun Fellatio here. No strangers to making bizarre requests of venues and promoters; cocaine in Wizz-Fizz packets; oven mitts, lubricant, turkey basters and finally a live turkey itself were all part of the ride(r).

At the peak of their popularity, they were denied (bizarrely) only ten sheets of A4 paper to write their set list on, and (less bizarrely) cocaine at government functions. As these rockumentaries prove, the life of a rock star takes place in a different world to the one most of us live in.

“People say you change when you get into a band. Fuckin’ oath, you do! One day, you’re working a straight job, and the next minute, you’ve got 10,000 people singing the words that you’ve written, and wanting to fuck you, and giving you lots of free coke and turkey basters, and you’ve got sneaker companies giving you free sneakers and Playstations…

“You turn up, and your hotel’s booked, and there’s a new car waiting for you, and you never have to clean up, because you’re in hotels… and you wake up, and you go, “well, what should I do with this bag of coke?””