Sound City (Dave Grohl, 2013): USA

Reviewed by Mikael Myggen. Viewed at the Lobero Theater, Santa Barbara Film Festival

Now this is something unexpected.

I’ve been following Dave Grohl of the notoriously famous alternative rock band “Foo Fighters” ever since early 2006,  when Guitar Hero 2 was released on consoles. I remember playing one of their songs “Monkey Wrench” on my Playstation 2, and liking the song enough to look into the artist behind it. It wouldn’t be long after before I discovered that Mr. Grohl is an exceptionally talented individual. Not only is he a touring lead singer and guitarist for the Foo Fighters, a band which he started himself, he was also the drummer for crazy-popular band “Nirvana”, who peaked in popularity during the early 90s. Nirvana was important to the music industry for two big reasons: they were arguably the first real grunge band to become mainstream, and their debut album “Nevermind” completely shattered sales records all across the US. I had known about and been a fan of Nirvana for years, so this discovery was pretty mind-blowing.

And speaking of blowing minds, that’s exactly the goal of Sound City: to rock your socks off. For the most part, the film is exceptionally good at doing this. Sound City is the story of a record company known by the same name, located in Hollywood, CA. The film starts off with Grohl talking about how hilariously crappy and run-down the building was when he came there to record an album for the first time. The film progresses through the 70s to present day, and talks about some of the things that happened during the lifespan of the recording studio. Information in the film pretty interesting, especially for music buffs, including technical things like why the Neve recording board was so amazing for it’s time and even today, how acoustics are different and important for drums, and what the digital boom of the 1980s did to the music industry. Sound City’s tone is somewhat humorous, and it works well with the content, ensuring that even if you aren’t a music fanatic, you’ll be entertained. Watching the film makes me feel like I’m reading an accelerated version of Rolling Stone. It’s fast, aggressively loud, and in your face, which matches the tone of early rock and roll perfectly. It might be a bit overly aggressive to some, but as the saying goes, “If the music’s too loud, you’re too old”

Another thing becomes clear early on: this isn’t a documentary about Nirvana, the Foo Fighters, or even Grohl himself. It’s about Sound City, and the music that came from it. Sound City has one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever seen in a documentary, featuring a ton of music from numerous artists, far too many to list in a single paragraph. There isn’t much silence in this film, and that’s because the film knows how damn good it sounds. Not only is there a ton of music to be heard, there’s also a huge selection of people who were picked to be interviewed for the film. IMDB.com lists 52 people in total, all of them having some kind of important relevance to the music industry…although I’m pretty sure they actually interviewed more people than the website lists, as I can’t find certain names that were included in the film

The editing is top-notch, and the pace feels comfortable, although a tad too slow at times. Photographs of the past that are included to show parts of history are sometimes edited to have people “pop out” of them slightly, which is a nice visual touch. Colors in the film are nice and vibrant throughout, and the camerawork feels appropriate. The ending of the film almost starts to become a drag, but the film quickly realizes this and starts to mix things up. The mixup in addition to including a special surprise guest at the end really helps to keep the audience’s attention throughout.

Sound City is definitely a documentary worth seeing, and it marks the possible start of Grohl’s career as a director of films. I’d recommend this film to just about anyone, especially if they have a taste for traditional music.