Reviews
 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
Another Country
Tift Merritt
Be Your Own Pet
Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
Juno – Music from the Motion Picture
Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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So the title is a misnomer – why call the past four decades the “McCartney Years”? Even by his own self-obsessed standards that is not precisely true, since he spent much of that time (and most of the videos contained herein) as the leader of Wings. I’m sure that the reference is meant to indicate his time after the Beatles, and as such, this is quite the mother lode. Three disks combine to provide approximately six hours of entertainment, with material culled from the entire scope of McCartney’s post-Beatles career, and it is essential viewing for any fan of the “McCartney Years.”
Two disks compile virtually every video McCartney released. Some are slick and well-produced affairs while others are little more than home films spliced together for accompaniment to a studio recording. There are a total of 50 videos included here, so the range in quality is remarkable. Perhaps more remarkable is how the less slick films tend to be the most ingratiating. Mid-eighties videos for “Ebony and Ivory,” “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” and “Spies Like Us” are embarrassing to witness today, while films for “Mull of Kintyre” (which appears here in two versions), “Heart of the Country,” “Hi Hi Hi” and “C-Moon” have a charm of their own specifically because they lack the slick overproduction of TV-ready videos. The lack of consistency can be annoying, but the value here lies in this being the most complete document of McCartney’s visual creations.
The third disk in this remarkable set compiles a number of performances, ranging from a film of Wings in their prime, circa “Venus and Mars/Rock Show” to McCartney’s appearance at Glastonbury. I would tell you the date of these performances, but the package itself is sorely lacking in useful information such as this. A paltry booklet distills McCartney’s entire life down to eight pages of bullet points, and that’s it, so don’t expect anything more than video, video, and more video. The Wings performance is vintage cool, utilizing smoke and bubbles (!) for effect while both Paul and Linda sport a mullet. This is in stark contrast to the pure bombast of the Glastonbury event. Here, more fireworks accompany ‘Live and Let Die” than you’re likely to see in NYC on the 4th of July, and it only builds to the spectacle of a ½ million Brits singing “Hey Jude.” A collection as complete as this deserves to be better annotated, but most fans will be happy to while away the hours seeing footage that otherwise may have been entirely overlooked.
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