BLEEDING AUDIO (2020) San Francisco Doc Fest

Portrait of the group The Matches, who were formed as The Locals and busted their asses to make a name for themselves before splitting up and then coming together again years later.

Good portrait of a band I had really not run across before, but which I am now very interested in.

Bleeding Audio is a great little film that checks off a couple of things that I look for in music documentary. The first is it has to be interesting enough that I click into the music. I don’t care what sort of music it is, and I’ve seen docs on lots of music genres and some gave me a way into appreciating the artist and some haven’t. Bleeding Audio just grabs you and pulls you in. It’s the cinematic version of a story one of the band’s managers tells of coming into the end of a set, having no idea who the band was, but they knew they wanted to hear more. I wanted to hear more of the Matches’ music. The other ticky box the film checks off is that the film makes clear that the praise the talking heads heap upon the band is not hype. About half way into the film I was haunted by the statement made earlier in the film that one of the bigger producers couldn’t understand why they weren’t bigger. I mean the music is great, the live shows look like a blast and it’s clear that they love their fans, so what the hell happened? I have no idea.

On the plus side we have this film, which is so awesome it’s going to go along way into creating new fans.

Highly recommended

Bleeding Audio closes the San Francisco Doc Fest this weekend.