Do any of you check out documentaries about music in general or bands etc. I always been a big fan of what bands do to get from point A to point B before every concert, album etc. As a musician I've learned many aspects of the business through documentaries.Anyways if you are bored and would like to see some really cool ones check the following:

Anvil-the story of Anvil- if you are a struggling musician this movie can either make you feel good for yourself or simply say "fuck it, this shit ain't worth it". At almost funny if it didn't hit so close to home.

Last Days Here- the life and struggles of Pentagrams Iconic singer Bobby Liebling. A very sober look at crack addiction and a man's last chance at life.

Year and 1/2 in the life of Metallica- yes this is as long as the fkn Lord of the Rings trilogy combined, but its a great documentary and it brought Metallica closer to their fans and transformed them from Gods to mere mortals. I enjoyed this one way better than "Some kinda Monster" which almost turned into a Dr.Phil session.

I cant think of any other right now, I havent seen the one on Lemmy but have heard is really good.
How bout you guys?

Until the Light Takes Us- Fantastic documentary about the history of black metal. It features members of Darkthone, Burzum, Mayhem, Immolation, and a few others. Really recommended.

^ that was surprisingly entertaining and has, hands down, my favorite line about metal in it.

Also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQl6PzXU4cQ

and the rest of the parts. A genuinely fascinating look at three towering figures in modern black metal and the results couldn't be more different.

That ^pretty much my favourite.

There's this black metal episode from Vice, that is fascinating, awkward and confusing at the same time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32iX5lbVDto

The heavy metal from Baghdad documentary (anti-poser brigade should watch on own risk btw) was interesting aswell... Not really mindblowing, but it gives an interesting insight to a situation western metalheads can hardly even relate to...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBZ7Ggx-rUE

Until the Light Takes Us-I'm not a big fan of Black metal but its cool to learn how the movement started and the after math of the churches burning and death of Mayhems' guitarist.
Heavy Metal in Baghdad- I really liked, just because I was also a soldier and i was able to see first hand how life in Iraq can be depressing for any one with westernized beliefs.
Both very entertaining and informative. Good stuff!!

A good doc about Celtic Frost, there's many interviews with Tom and Martin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HN8kGB4urg

One of my favourites would have to be Vio-Lence's 'Blood & Dirt', a great all round package and a fantastic insight into the band.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-sDJtXy3lm8

Sodom's 'Lords of Depravity's' are also a good watch.

Edit - Looking at my collection I have quite a few. The more I think about it though it is hard to pass some of the Iron Maiden documentary's, especially 'The History of...' that came included with the DVDs in recent times.

The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years is one of my all time favorite music documentaries. Although there a lot of what some call hair metal bands, it also features members of W.A.S.P. Motorhead, and Megadeth. Great documentary about the music scene in California. The entire thing can be viewed here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwL8Ib9o0aE

I'd recommend this one just for that scene of Fenriz visiting the black metal art exposition
Pretty good overall too

I've only seen Until the Light Takes Us and Decline of Civilization, but as a HUGE Pentagram fan, how can I see "Last Days Here?"

Any online links?

I never even knew Liebling was a crack head, always thought he was a Heroin addict though.

I watched this earlier and found it pretty interesting
Once Upon a Time in Norway- The History of Mayhem
http://youtu.be/7h9XzRdFIhc

Cannibal Corpse Centuries of Torment. 3 hours long and amazing all the way through. I've watched it 20+ times since it came out

I remember seeing it on Netflix but I'm not sure if it's anywhere else that I can think of. Definitely a good movie I will say.

The Metal Evolution doco looks good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Evolution

Only just got it, but had a quick look at the Power Metal episode. He shows some very, very funny moments at Wacken Air.

Sam Dunn will never be forgiven for classifying Cradle of Filth as part of the 2nd wave. Never!

Such Hawks Such Hounds.

Sam Dunn is a confused attention whore.

Metal Evolution in general was kinda lame I watched all the episodes when it came out on VH1 and there was a few decent episodes but he did crappy shit like Shock Rock and Nu Metal and completely ignored Death and Black and some other stuff I would've liked to see.

Sam Dunn's works on the genre in general are flawed, but I really enjoyed Iron Maiden: Flight 666 and I've heard good things about Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage as well.

He had some good ideas but for me at least the execution was flawed. It felt like he just interviews a couple of the bands he thought we important and called it a day. I mean in the 2ish minutes he spent anecdotally talking about melo death the one band he interviews in bloody Soilwork! Aside from that the most in depth and informative episodes he did were the non metal ones.

Gotta agree here, I've watched it multiple times, which is impressive for how long and in-depth it is (I usually go to the special features and at least watch the "Staring Through the Eyes of the Band" segment with each run-through as well). It's really informative/entertaining and spends over half of the running time on the Barnes era, which I'm totally okay with because even though I prefer more Corpsegrinder albums, there's no denying that the early part of the band's history is by far the most interesting. I also like how they get everybody who was ever in the band to interview and meet the rest of the guys, and everybody is totally cool with it. Even Chris Barnes seems like a really cool and down to earth dude in it. The only person missing is Rousay.

Most of the Classic Album series can be viewed on Netflix. Although each is just under an hour, they give some great insights into some great albums. Judas Priest - British Steel, Black Sabbath - Paranoid, and Deep - Machine Head, and Iron Maiden's - Number of the Beast to name a few. They interview most of the members from the album, and give some great insights into the making of the albums.

On the topic of Netflix they have a nice little section of music documentaries. As was stated Pentagram and Anvil are both great.

'Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage' is a must-see if you're a Rush fan. To supplement that, their 'Rush In Rio' concert DVD http://www.amazon.ca/Rush-Rio-2-DVD/dp/B0000CG89W originally was packaged with a documentary disc on their trip to South America entitled 'The Boys In Brazil' and that one is fantastic as well.

As far as Maiden, I found 'The History of Iron Maiden - Part I: The Early Days' http://www.amazon.ca/Iron-Maiden-History-Part-Early/dp/B0006B29Z2 to be a good start followed by the documentary disc in 'Death On the Road' http://www.discogs.com/Iron-Maiden-Death-On-The-Road/release/4128324 which documents their mammoth 'Dance of Death' tour and then the aforementioned 'Flight 666'. They have a ton of concert DVD's out their as I'm sure you all know.

I've found it tough to find a good documentary DVD of AC/DC. Book wise, Mark Evans, their first bass player that was fired after 'Let Their Be Rock' has a book out called 'Dirty Deeds: My Life Inside/Outside of AC/DC' http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Deeds-Life-Inside-Outside/dp/1935950045 was the most enjoyable read of the early Bon years (better than the sterile 'AC/DC: Maximum Rock n Roll'). The 'Plug Me In' DVD set http://www.discogs.com/ACDC-Plug-Me-In/release/4121037 gives a comprehensive look at their live music from the earlest years right through the Brian Johnson years.

I also highly recommend the movie 'Lemmy' http://www.lemmymovie.com/ just for kicks although I can't honestly say it was extremely informative of his early/Hawkwind years. But definitely worth a watch.

The 'Black Sabbath Story: Volumes I & II' http://www.discogs.com/Black-Sabbath-The-Black-Sabbath-Story-Volume-One/release/2618946 http://www.discogs.com/Black-Sabbath-The-Black-Sabbath-History-Volume-Two/release/3414100 are extremely dissappointing imo. They show some video but totally lack when it comes to historical info/interviews. I was not happy with these myself.

Ozzy has several out. 'Don't Blame Ozzy' I watched years ago and didn't like too much. But that was some time ago and I do not have that one. 'God Bless Ozzy' http://www.amazon.com/Ozzy-Osbourne-God-Bless/dp/B005DJ62NM is a very good overview of his career and some highlights/tragedies thereof. Great interviews with some members of Motley Crue about touring with Ozzy and the requisite 'gross-out' stories. Also, the Japanese did a television tribute/documentary of Randy Rhoads http://www.ultimaterandyrhoads.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=39&Itemid=61 which is the best of it's kind. Extensive interviews with his mother and band members like Rudy Szarzo, Zakk Wylde and even a guitar student of his. Seek this out if you are a Randy fan (I apologize that I unfortunately cannot help you locate this)

Has anybody found a decent DIO documentary out there?

Oh man that was great. I've been a big fan of theirs for quite sometime and I've seen snippets of their performance on youtube but that's about it. Time to get this now!

Just watched Until the Light Takes Us and I gotta say that was pretty lame. The whole thing was just basically just following Fenriz around and talking to Varg intermittently so he can spout out his usual crazy shit and occasionally talking to a few other people in the genre. That bit at the end with Frost going all crazy and cutting the shit out of himself was really fucked up though. But yeah not really a black metal documentary at least not one that had anything new or cool to say.

I agree this is a very interesting Documental

Immolation was in it?

why you do this

It's a great look at what it's like to be in a small band on tour.

@ Certaindeath: I think he meant to say Immortal not Immolation.

At least it didn't just re-hash the whole church burnings/murder thing. There is enough documentaries about that already. Fenriz seems like a cool guy, someone who basically shaped black metal.

The whole Frost thing; wasn't that just some kinda lame performance art? I'm pretty sure that it wasn't actually real.

Not really documentaries, but I've enjoyed the interviews with Fenriz and Nocturno for the re-issues of Darkthrone's first few albums. Interesting insight...

Now, it's been a few years since I watched it, but I remember it doing exactly that... i.e rehashing the same thing. I read somewhere that the guys doing the documentary had a really hard time getting some of the subjects, aside from probably Fenriz, to agree to interviews and being a part of the doc, and I understand why. I'd get pretty sick of talking about the same things I did as a 16-20 year old, every couple years.

Honestly, I tend to avoid black metal documentaries, because they all seem to be about the same thing. "Until the Light Takes Us" was a disjointed mess, to me. Like, maybe that they tried to approach it differently, but ran into problems, and ended up just splicing the footage they did get together.

But it did rehash it quite a bit in fact. And as far as the Frost thing goes I'm not quite sure if it was fake or not (pretty sure it was real though) fucked up non the less. But yeah for a black metal documentary I was expecting more interviews with more bands and people from the scene. Also I was hoping for new information or at least interesting stuff not just the same shit over and over again like I already said.

The BBC's Heavy Metal Brittania deserves a mention:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r600m

For once a mainstream programme about metal that treats it with respect and avoids the usual patronising tone the scene usually receives. Not sure if this is available on IPlayer or YouTube but well worth looking or it if you're interested in a documentary about metal's thoroughly British early years!

Pagan Metal is a very good doc on the subject of folk/pagan metal. Has Primordial, Finntroll, Korpiklaani, and others in it.
Also the classic Hard and Heavy Grindcore episode was probably one of the best looks at Extreme metal from the late 80's early 90's.
Until the Light takes Us, probably the best doc on black metal, or metal in general.

hilarious black metal documentary with interviews with everyone from King Diamond, Tom Warrior and Cronos to Sakis Rotting Christ, Primordial, Atilla Chisar, and almost everyone from Norway. Also interviews with Voi Vod ,Kreator, Behemoth, Cannibal Corpse. far to many bands to mention

Cronos taking the piss of Norwegians nicking the black metal term, Marduk insisting that black metal is a Swedish thing because it all started with Bathory, a lot of funny and interesting moments.

lots of live footage and a few cencored video clips. all done in a comedy explicit manner.

And because Fenriz is so cool he gets his very own part where he is drunk and he is trying to show us around his collection and stuff.



Global Metal by Sam Dunn is a really good watch that everyone should see, its a documentary that centers around metal fans all around the world and how they are all united despite their conflicting cultures.

Really good documentary about thrash.

Because of this thread I checked out Last Days Here last night and really enjoyed it.

I'd recommend it.

..and stabbing a sofa. Never was I so embarrassed for black metal when I saw that scene.

Co-signed. It made me feel thankful in general after watching it. Not that I didn't realize a lot of the world has it better than Baghdad already, but the more you get used to something the more you take it for granted. Makes me think twice about complaining when a t-shirt in my size is sold-out at a show or not being able to get the super-duper-special-edition of a release. I'm just happy to live in a place where metal is widely available and having a job that pays for my interests.


Watched that this weekend. It made me very sad. Full of regrets, lost opportunities and what-ifs. But it was nice to see his parents supporting him through it all (although I was a bit surprised they dealt with his drug habit the way they did).

This Hypocrisy documentary is great http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKWboNj2pyQ

Really goes through everything about the band since their inception and gives a pretty good insight into what its like to actually be in a metal band touring for like 2 decades, lots of ups and downs.