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Enter to win Oscilloscope Laboratories' two latest DVD releases: Marc Singer's DARK DAYS and Marshall Curry's IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT, which will be released on August 30th.

Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories:

DARK DAYS and IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT are both documentaries that feature soundtracks predominantly by one artist / group (DJ Shadow and The National respectively). To win these DVDs, tell us in three sentences max within this thread:

1) What is your favorite music documentary that follows one band or one musician and why?

OR

2) What is your favorite single artist / band soundtrack (e.g. Simon and Garfunkel for THE GRADUATE or Cat Stevens for Harold and Maude)?

Again, please limit responses to three sentences max for either question and one response per user. Answering both questions won't double your chances of winning (it'll just be twice as fun). A winner will be announced via this thread by Friday, September 16th!

The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter.

FWIW.

Leonard Cohen for McCabe and Mrs Miller. The songs are so apt and haunting that you'd swear they were written for the film, but they weren't.

"Trouble Man" soundtrack (Marvin Gaye)

Experimentally one of the most ambitious in Gaye's career, and not your average blaxploitation soundtrack. If you think he was ahead of the game here, you must hear the outtakes from "What's Going On" to know he was even more ahead of the curb.

My favorite music documentary is YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME, the Roky Erickson film. It's a harrowing journey to insanity and back, and puts his discography in a whole new light.

Neil Young for 'Dead Man'.

Superfly, Curtis Mayfield. It's probably the album I've listened to most in my life. I wonder if anyone would remember the movie without it.

2) Damon Albarn & Michael Nyman's soundtrack for Ravenous, because it doesn't fit the film at all, and yet it does.

01 Danielson: A Family Movie (or, Make a Joyful Noise Here), which is one of those cases of a documentary crew setting out to film one story-- that of the bizarre Brother Danielson et al, a Christian indie rock group whose esoteric nature alienates both Christians and indie rock fans-- but inadvertently latching onto a far more interesting development, as Daniel Smith's discovery and opener, Sufjan Stevens, blows up huge mid-tour and starts to draw stronger crowds and attention than the Danielson Famile themselves. Moments spent with Smith in the latter half of the film show a man who's been struggling for so long dealing with his neophyte colleague overshadowing him the only way he can-- with politeness, but also clear hurt. Worth noting that after all the events depicted in the film, Danielson rises to the occasion and calls in favors to deliver their best album yet, the widely-acclaimed Ships, which is the belated happy ending missing from the doc.

2) Light Sleeper, by Michael Been. The ridiculousness of his songs contributes to the sublimity of Schrader's masterpiece in a very specific, singular, completely insane way that a more tasteful, less melodramatic selection wouldn't have been able to touch. No less than three of the songs on the soundtrack begin with Been's audible exhalation of breath (something like a heaving, resigned "aaaaahhuuuhhhh"). It's exhausting for everyone.

1) Originally was thinking Man in the Sand purely on musical grounds, but really it has to be The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Nothing can come close to it on charting the beautiful and heartbreaking raw humanity of one single muscian.

1) Anvil!: The Story of Anvil was such a joy to watch - one 2009's best films. I mean it has everything: rock and roll, betrayal, success, disappointments, etc... More than that, Steve "Lips" Kudlow and Robb Reiner made the documentary a much more wholesome experience.

2) Karen O's score for Where the Wild Things Are wonderfully elicited childhood nostalgia for me :]

1 : Depeche Mode 101 : It really captures the rise of the band, full of emotions, the scene where Gahan bursts into tears after their big show gets me every time.
2 : Paris Texas, Ry Cooder : I knew the music long before I saw the film and it's just beautifull.

1.) Stop Making Sense- not only is it one of the most enjoyable concert documentaries ever made as far as the music goes, the film making and concert concept work beautifully together to create a pseudo-narrative: we start out with a man alone, build to a community, experience a dark period, and emerge triumphantly into an explosion of dancing. I wasn't a fan of Talking Heads before I saw the movie, and only knew to look for it due to Pauline Kael's rapturous review- most concert movies are great if you're already a fan, but it's a rare one that seduces you into fandom as this one does. I've seen David Byrne live, and I've seen Stop Making Sense with a crowd, and while the former was amazing it was the latter that had the crowd more excited, more frenzied, and driven more to dance.

1.) This is Spinal Tap...cranks it up to "11".
but seriously:
2.) Koyaanisqatsi/Philip Glass....without the music, the movie wouldn't have had the influence it did.

I was going to say This Is Spinal Tap as well......that counts, right?

2) I just rewatched Magnolia for the first time since it originally came out so I feel obliged to say Aimee Mann. Even with several great tracks being used, P.T. Anderson's audacious musical interlude with "Wise Up" is the sort of filmmaking flourish that, whether you like it or not, certainly leaves an impression.

Herzog’s The Wild Blue Yonder. The story itself is barely comprehendible, but the incredible NASA footage under the south polar icecap and Ernst Reijseger’s stunning unique score make you feel you’re watching and listening in on another world entirely. Profoundly and weirdly moving.

1) I like Keith Emerson's score to Dario Argento's Inferno, or perhaps I was just pleasantly surprised by it, because otherwise I dislike Dario Argento, Goblin, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. In fact, I get nauseous at the mention of either "progressive rock" or "supergroup." I get excited at the mention of "giallo," but then immediately let down at the mention of "Suspiria," only to be recovered by the mention of "Blood and Black Lace" or "Carlo Rustichelli" (for whom I would alternately vote, except that he was the composer, not the artist, I believe). I think I went through the Ludovico Technique with some of these terms.

EDIT: That would be question 2), not 1), of course.

I have have 2 films that I could not decide between. Both films cover questions 1 & 2, I think.

Frank Zappa's 200 Motels: It's truth, it's myth; it's crude, it's sophisticated; it's reality, it's fantastical. In a word, it's Zappa.

Space is the Place: Simply put, a world where Sun Ra can make a movie about his arrival from Saturn, discuss his philosphy, and play his music, is a world I very much want to be a part of.

2) Philip Glass, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters.

There are only a few films I can think of where the music was developed very closely with the script or production; but when that happens, *and* the stars all line up, there’s a certain “wholeness” that occurs. In the case of Mishima, it goes well beyond even that sense of a set of finely-integrated songs that easily bring back the mood of the film. This is a soundtrack that mixes different styles and fits different contexts (film, radio) - or stands alone - and is always able to deliver a hauntingly transcendent quality no matter the setting.

My favorite music documentary is "Instrument" by Jem Cohen and Fugazi. It not only pushed the limits of what I thought both music and film were capable of, but it changed the way I view my life.

The Fearless Freaks - With their friend in the director's chair, an honest sense of trust is found between all. Metallica may let you watch as they sit and cry, but Steve Drozd will sit and let you watch him prepare his next dose of vitamin H. Everything out of Wayne Coyne's mouth is a gem to remember, especially coming to terms with his own mortality as his head is pressed against the floor of a fast food restaurant.

Rage Against the Machine: The Battle of Mexico City (Video 2001)

Interview with noam chomsky by Zach ( with a clipboard of questions, worth in and of itself) , freedom fighter interviews and one of a few bands that inspire, incite and stand behind their message with action. Zach has been in Phoenix where i live on several occasions to stand behind those against AZ SB1070.

1) What is your favorite music documentary that follows one band or one musician and why?

My choice would be I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film about Wilco, because it gives an "inside baseball" view of both the band's creative process and their dealing with label interference during the recording of their best album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and the film shows the human toll by recording the disintegration of the friendship between Jeff Tweedy and the late Jay Bennett.