Burn to Shine

Feature by Ewen Millar | 01 Oct 2008

The mandate for Burn to Shine is simple: find a house that is due to be demolished; recruit a number of local bands to play there; film the demolition of the house and release the DVD.

Produced by Fugazi's Brendan Canty, each DVD is rigidly formulaic and starts with the camera traversing the exterior and interior of the house, whilst a sombre narrator intonates the poignant history of the previous owners who built, but often did not live in, their dream homes. The camera pauses on overturned mattresses, garish fittings, and rusted pipes -- the fragile relationship between home-owner and house seems initially to be the main focus. This makes it all the more jarring when it suddenly cuts to Shellac letting rip in the living room, something that seems akin to witnessing a terminally ill old-man expire whilst having Steve Albini scream in his ear.

The transition from psycho-geography to bands playing music is less than smooth, but once we're there, it's easy to forget the hipster window-dressing that bookends each DVD. Volume 1: Washington DC highlights include Q and not U (a 3 piece enamoured with Fugazi), Weird War (imagine Jarvis Cocker covering Prince), and Ted Leo on solo electric guitar duties. Elsewhere, the best thing about the noticably uncomfortable Garland of Hours is their dancing bass player, who looks like a thug from the old Batman TV show, while The Evens look like they simply can't be arsed.

Volume 2: Chicago is an improvement. Shellac are on searing form, with Steve Albini giving his best militia cult-leader impersonation, and post-rock jazz act Tortoise unleash the most accurate xylophone playing that I have ever seen. Wilco phone in a suitably slick act, whilst all that's missing from The Ponys and Pit er Pat are the lumberjack shirts (if they aren't on Sub Pop, then they should be). The highlight though is alt-country act Freakwater, who perform a traditional country song that is quite sublime.

Volume 3: Portland features The Shins on fine (read bland) form. Sleater Kinney benefit from a minimalist recording that strips back the excessive reverb evident on their albums, whereas The Thermals suffer from a vocal mix so crystal clear that it (bizarrely) reduces Hutch Harris's megaphone-esque shout to a Brian Molko rasp. Mirah and The Decemberists provide their takes on folk music and sea-shanties respectively, and The Gossip are strangely subdued in the heartland of American alt-rock.*

Volume 5: Seattle sees the ugliest man in tweemo-rock, Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard, dressed like he's just gone fishing with Chaz n Dave, whereas Eddie Vedder tries his best to not look like he's just flown in from Hawaii after surfing with Brad and Keanu. Both provide solid acoustic numbers, as does David Bazan, whose moralistic sermonising is almost palatable in its stripped back form. Minus The Bear and The Long Winters both probably own Soul Asylum and Counting Crows albums, whereas Blue Scholars provide some articulate hip-hop that should please even those who go to make a cup of tea during the world music section of Jools Holland.

Each DVD culminates with the destruction of the house that they were recorded in, the intention being a commentary on the fleetingness of the music created within: blink, and you'll miss it. Nonetheless, the loftier concerns of ownership and reclamation, of mortality and transition, seem absent in many of the acts that are happy just to get exposure.

Burn to Shine then, is basically a hipster Live Aid, where no one is asked to donate any money because everyone is clever enough to know the cause is futile, but we can all join hands and look solemn as the flames are lit up, after listening to some great bands.

*We haven't clapped eyes on Volume 4: Louisville yet, but it involves sets by natives such as Dead Child (Dave Pajo from Slint's new metal band) Will Oldham (AKA Billie 'Prince' Billy), Lords and Shipping News.

Burn to Shine Volumes 1-5 are available via Trixie DVD

http://www.trixiedvd.com