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you know, as a longtime fan of singer-songwriters like Todd Rundgren, John Wetton, Neil Finn and Ben Folds, i’m well aware that without financial support from a major record label, it’s more than likely that an artist would lose money touring around the country with a full band and sound/stage crew in tow. and so artists like Rundgren, Finn and Folds end up touring alone with minimal equipment in order to keep expenses as low as possible. so when i watched Glenn Tilbrook – One for the Road recently on DVD, i wasn’t at all surprised to see in the documentary that Tilbrook was touring across the U.S. in an old beat up 1988 RV with no band. sad but true, it this day and age, legendary singer-songwriters like Tilbrook can only fill up small clubs and can only afford to bring along a couple of acoustic guitars with him on tour. how unjust! the man wrote Tempted, Black Coffee in Bed and Hourglass for goodness sakes!! Tilbrook along with tons of other working musician/songwriters are in the same boat and they are fighting to stay afloat in an industry geared only toward selling millions of units of easy to market music to impressionable teens. The DVD is an interesting glimpse at a middle-aged musician happy to travel across the country and sing for his supper. I love Glenn Tilbrook’s music and his live performances but…unfortunately the actual documentary was poorly done. the person responsible for the documentary, Amy Pickard, is just a fan of Tilbrook’s and not a skilled filmmaker. So yes, it’s a nice little video memento from a fan’s perspective but I really believe she missed a big opportunity here. Pickard never goes into any depth with Tilbrook about his life or his view points about music, Squeeze or songwriting. and the video is edited in a way in which Glenn never gets to say more than a few sentences before another abrupt jumpcut to a performance or another clip about the infamous RV. yes, yes i’ve heard all about Pickard’s sob story about the little financing behind this project, her being unemployed during the filming and the four years it took to edit the footage down etc. but that’s no excuse for her downright awful interviewing skills. just watch one of the extra segments on the DVD where she interviews ex-Squeeze member Chris Difford. you’ll get to experience a whole slew of cringe-worthy and totally banal questions from Amy Pickard interspersed with a whole lot of “uuummmm….”, “you know what i mean?”.. “like… uummm” … “and like I said to Glenn …” and such. after enduring 40 minutes worth of lame assed questions, a viewer’s brain turns to mush, i swear! how did someone this incompetent get this fantastic opportunity to spend time with one of pop’s most talented songwriters??? that’s the question that continually pops up during the viewing of this DVD. and can us fans finally get a properly produced DVD of this legendary musician sometime soon? anyone? anyone? bueller? …yes, it’s sad indeed.

Related posts:

1. Long Road Out of Eden
2. Other World

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TV and movies, reviews by retroDan