SOUND UNSEEN FF REVIEW: Chelsea Christer’s BLEEDING AUDIO updates the “Behind the Music” doc in an album-less world
You don’t have to know who The Matches are to appreciate Bleeding Audio, Chelsea Christer’s documentary feature about their career, that screened recently at Sound Unseen. Once you hear their music, you don’t even have to particularly love it – to this cranky Gen Xer’s ears, it sounds like the same kind of generic punk-infused pop everyone was doing in the early aughts, and the fact that their apparent peers were Blink 182, 311, and Plain White T’s says it all, really. But after you watch the film, there’s a strong chance you’ll be a fan of the band members as people. And that’s a testament to Christer’s ability to suss out and tell a story.
We’re mostly familiar, in this country, with the VH-1 Behind the Music template, that has been done and parodied to death. Band shoots to fame, makes memorable album, gets self-indulgent, wastes money, falls apart, and maybe gets a comeback if nobody major dies along the way. Bleeding Audio suggests it’s time for a new one in an era where nobody really buys albums any more. Band shoots to fame, makes memorable album, tours and tours and tours and tours some more, and never makes any real money.
Core band members Shawn Harris, Justin San Souci, Matt Whalen, and Jon Devoto don’t come across as the sort of tortured artists, tender geniuses or narcissists who often seem to make the most magnetic rock stars. They seem like just a bunch of happy guys who love to play music. They’re even bemused by the fact that so many fans have band logo tattoos, as they proclaim themselves to not really be tattoo people. They built a fan base by regularly putting in streaming showcases in the early days of online music, and bonded with them by playing acoustically outside the video with post-show stragglers after every concert. While an aspiring David Bowie or Axl Rose type might steal your girlfriend, these are guys you could totally double-date with.
But while their music found the right moment in time, their careers did not. Cursed to be the kind of grassroots fanbase band that the music industry was no longer supporting, unwilling to go with a big-label formula that might have made them a premature one-hit wonder, they found a comfortable living elusive. And part of the VH-1 formula remains: a manager making a bad decision that cost them dearly. Said manager does not appear for interviews; one can likely assume the movie might have had more conflict with him around, but this documentary did begin life as a reunion show promo video, which explains the choice.
As such, the central conflict remains band versus changing industry – which is akin to one that film reviewers, among others, know all too well firsthand. The Matches’ third album title remains painfully appropriate, both for themselves and anyone else struggling with career downsizing: “A Band in Hope.” Uttering it aloud makes clear that there’s a thin line between abandoning hope and keeping it. If the band’s career turns out to merit a sequel documentary, we’ll know which side they finally fell on.
