10 less­er-known music docs you should watch

The rock­u­men­tary genre is an odd one. Still in the shad­ow of Spinal Tap, and often rely­ing on tedious talk­ing heads, it’s easy for film­mak­ers to either over­state or anonymise their cho­sen musi­cal subject.

Chris­tine Franz’s Sleaford Mods doc­u­men­tary, Bunch of Kun­st, does nei­ther of these things. It cap­tures ​“the angri­est band in Britain” among the flat Not­ting­ham sub­urbs that made them. The bus stops, chick­en shops and motor­ways are pre­sent­ed in their unglam­orous grey­ness, so that singer Jason Williamson’s dry wit and urgent stage pres­ence seems almost mirac­u­lous in comparison.

But this isn’t the first film to cap­ture the essence of a musi­cian so well. With sub­jects rang­ing from Lil Wayne to Fugazi, we’ve col­lect­ed 10 less­er-known doc­u­men­taries which pro­vide fas­ci­nat­ing musi­cal por­traits while also stand­ing alone as inter­est­ing pieces of filmmaking.

It’s 1997, and Radio­head are on a world tour to pro­mote ​‘OK Com­put­er’. But for­get any notion of hedo­nis­tic rock excess: the band are qui­et­ly bemused as they greet the syco­phan­tic rush of jour­nal­ists in an end­less round of press jun­kets. Direc­tor Grant Gee’s dis­ori­en­tat­ing mish­mash of songs, bad inter­views and in-band bick­er­ing relays the jit­tery fatigue of life on tour, and the iso­la­tion and angst back­stage. It’s hard to imag­ine a more per­fect coun­ter­part to the album at the films centre.

Before the hoards of teenage girls screamed for the Bea­t­les, they screamed for Paul Anka. The large­ly-for­got­ten teen icon had a series of hits in the late ​’50s and ear­ly ​’60s, before the afore­men­tioned group of mop-tops stole away his lime­light with their edgi­er appeal. This dynam­ic piece of ciné­ma vérité pre-dates A Hard Day’s Night, fol­low­ing Anka at the height of his fame as he seduces a long-van­ished Amer­i­ca, perched right on the cusp of change.

In 1991, Madon­na released her cal­cu­lat­ed ​“behind-the-scenes” doc Truth or Dare. This is a look at the very dif­fer­ent alter­na­tive rock moment which was hap­pen­ing simul­ta­ne­ous­ly in Amer­i­ca: the film’s work­ing title was even the gris­ly pun Tooth or Hair. It fol­lows Son­ic Youth’s Euro­pean tour, but also fea­tures their friends Nir­vana, Dinosaur Jr and Babes in Toy­land, as well as an appear­ance from Court­ney Love. Kick­ing off with Kim Gor­don and Kurt Cobain goofi­ly danc­ing on an emp­ty rail­way track, it shows the lighter, irrev­er­ent side of grunge, and the noisy fun of touring.

Helmed by the idio­syn­crat­ic ex-BBC film­mak­er Alan Yen­tob, Cracked Actor fol­lows David Bowie on a 1974 tour of Los Ange­les. This was at the height of Bowie’s cocaine addic­tion, and it show­cas­es his fragili­ty along­side his dash­ing charis­ma. It’s snap­shot of an artist mid-trans­fig­u­ra­tion, and ten­sion and pain is vis­i­ble in Bowie’s livewire pres­ence. Look­ing back on the film, Bowie would say: ​“I’m amazed I came out of that peri­od, hon­est. When I see that now I can­not believe I sur­vived it. I was so close to real­ly throw­ing myself away phys­i­cal­ly, completely.”

Known for on-stage antics such as self-muti­la­tion, shit­ting him­self, and beat­ing up his band mem­bers, GG Allin is like­ly the most con­tro­ver­sial punk icon ever. Hat­ed films his rag­ing stage shows – which are not for the faint heart­ed – as well as tak­ing a per­cep­tive look at the lone­li­ness at their core. It was filmed in the months lead­ing up to Allin’s acci­den­tal death by hero­in over­dose, and includes shots of his funer­al and corpse. Allin saw a cut in the days pro­ceed­ing his death and threw beer bot­tles at the screen: he loved it.

Music is the Weapon sees Afrobeat pio­neer and polit­i­cal activist Fela Kuti at the height of his pow­ers. Five years on from his mas­sive hit album Zom­bie, he’d just applied – and been refused – to run for pres­i­dent in his native Nige­ria. In this doc­u­men­tary, we catch a glimpse of the merg­ing of his twin obses­sions; rev­o­lu­tion­ary pol­i­tics inter­weaves with his over­flow­ing musi­cal ener­gy. Snap­shots of Niger­ian street cul­ture also make this a wor­thy watch.

Direc­tor Sam Jones lucked out when he decid­ed to film the record­ing process of alt-coun­try group Wilco’s fourth album, which turned out to be the sem­i­nal Yan­kee Hotel Fox­trot. Shot in black and white, it doc­u­ments Wilco’s bumpy incep­tion of their clas­sic record, includ­ing in-band fight­ing, being dropped from their label and singer Jeff Tweedy’s excru­ci­at­ing migraines. The lo-fi cam­era work and slow pac­ing reveals the unglam­orous hard grind of mak­ing a record, a slog repeat­ed in defend­ing it to its subtractors.

If some­one makes a doc­u­men­tary about you, it’s prob­a­bly in your inter­est for them to not end up hat­ing you. This is advice not fol­lowed by Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr, also known as Lil Wayne. The New Orleans rap­per invit­ed direc­tor Adam Bha­la Lough to film him before and after the release of his plat­inum-sell­ing album Tha Carter III, but refused to give him an inter­view. So instead, the direc­tor shows us Weezy mock­ing fans, chug­ging siz­zurp and par­ty­ing. The films sub­ject wasn’t hap­py with the result, attempt­ing to block the films release, but it’s an awk­ward, claus­tro­pho­bic chance for view­ers to peep into hip hop’s man­sions and lim­ou­sines, which seem as lone­ly as they are expensive.

In 1965, Leonard Cohen was a well-estab­lished poet and nov­el­ist in his thir­ties. Two years lat­er, he would release his first album Songs of Leonard Cohen, launch­ing his stun­ning sec­ond iter­a­tion as a trou­ba­dour folk singer who would go on to release albums all the way up to his death last year. This is a look at the artist on the cusp of his trans­for­ma­tion, as he dis­cuss­es his work and ideas, par­ties, bathes and uses the i‑Ching. Cohen is radi­ant­ly charis­mat­ic in this inti­mate portrait.

Fugazi songs are short, imme­di­ate blasts of post-hard­core, so it might seem strange that their doc­u­men­tary Instru­ment is a long-wind­ed, long-ges­tat­ed labour of love. How­ev­er, it does reflect the band’s DIY ethos and strong sense of com­mu­ni­ty: direc­tor Jem Cohen had gone to high school with band mem­ber Ian MacK­aye. Cohen filmed Fugazi over the course of 10 years, tak­ing five years to edit the footage along­side the band. Fugazi fans are an impor­tant part of the film too, Cohen lin­ger­ing on their close­up por­traits with gen­uine ten­der­ness and insight. Of course, there’s goofy rock ​’n’ roll hijinks too: at a con­cert in a gym, singer Guy Pic­ciot­to stuffs him­self through a bas­ket­ball hoop, and con­tin­ues his per­for­mance hang­ing upside down.