‘Nerdcore for Life!’ or ‘Self-Imploding Music Scene Documentary’

I am a nerdcore fan. I go to Nerdcore shows, listen to chiptune music, even support local collaboration shows like Pulsewave and Blipfest. I love it. It’s one of my things.

There’s been quite a few docs done specifically on ‘music with an 8-bit influence’ since it began to show up on the radar a few years back. There’s Nerdcore for Life, Nerdcore Rising, Reformat the Planet, 8-Bit Philosophy, and a few that are YouTube-only.  You may have seen an article or two about it.  Mainstream media seemed to pick it up for a week, as if it was some disposable news story, and it hasn’t really been covered since.

Through a mutal friend, I wound up speaking to Dan Lamerieux, the mastermind behind Nerdcore For Life, a documentary covering the scene for two years. I saw him at Shael Riley show taping a performance for the film. Dan would later tap me to do some shooting in NYC for the movie.

Soon after we exchanged emails, I signed up to shoot an interview with MC Lars, one of the featured artists in the documentary, at an apartment in Park Slope.  Z asked the questions (brilliantly). Lars, a great guy and an intelligent interviewee, had some pretty interesting things to say about the scene. Short story: at this stage, all that existed of the film was this trailer in 4:3. It was surprising at first, but then everything seemed to be shot on prosumer video, so I guessed it made some sort of sense. Problem was that I accidentally left on the settings I would normally use our HVX: 16:9, letterbox + squeeze, 24p. After sending Dan my DV tapes of the Lars interview, I re-watched the trailer, cringed at my mistake, and asked him if 16:9 would be alright. “We’ll figure something out” was the gist of what I got back. Whups.

Last week I popped in a prerelease copy of the doc and found that the tail had wagged the dog. The entire film had been letterboxed to match our Lars interview. Maybe that’s a bit presumptuous. Everything was widescreen now- that’s a better way of putting it. It’s probably more festival-friendly this way. While watching, I forgot about the initial resolution until this interview popped up - the taller rapper’s head was pretty much cut off near the eyes. Outside of this shot, the rest of the film feels like it was meant to be 16:9.

What is Nerdcore?  The overall piece is a mashup of people, facts, opinions, throw-downs and throw-ups. Watching this film was very much like NERDCORE THE MONSTER just barfed its guts all over Toyko. An ugly yet intimate view of the scene from 2004-2006 is bared for all to see. There’s a lot of drama that erupted during the doc’s years of filming, including random beef between artists, but also between the artists and the genre itself. Without spoiling some great / viscous moments in the film, there’s hope and hate for the very word ‘nerdcore’ by and from the musicians that are considered thus.

Another signature to this doc is the style of the visuals. Mirroring the DIY spirit of the scene, multiple cameras / resolutions / lighting styles were used to piece the film together.  My understanding from receiving instruction from Dan was that alot of the interviews were done in a way to maximize the comfortableness of each interviewee (one Q&A was done in a hot tub). While this multi-camera, sometimes good lighting - sometimes bad lighting aesthetic isn’t really pleasing to watch, it gives the film a ‘guerrilla’ feel.  All the sub-sections have meaning and tie-in to give you, the non-nerdcore audience, a glimpse into the short history of the music and the people who make it.  You get the feeling that many different cameramen contributed to this piece, that the entire work itself might just be a labor of love.

I have yet to see the rival documentary (yes! there is a rival film), but I know that it won’t come close to the heart-felt detail that N4L discloses throughout its hour-and-change runtime.  At one point, we are guided through the history of the scene by the most well-known Nerdcore artists: names like Beefy, mcchris, YTCracker, MC Router, Shael Riley and others.  Not only is their reverence (and loathing) for the scene exposed, but their love/hate relationship with each other is also highlighted.  That’s something that I wasn’t quite expecting: Nerdcore is an explosive medium with a lot of giant egos, infighting, and name calling by a bunch of mediocre rappers that are sometimes eclipsed by one or two geniuses.  N4L, despite its apparent love for the artists and music, doesn’t pull any punches on this subject.  In their own words, the artists admit that the best and worst thing about Nerdcore is that anyone can do it.  Anyone can make a track in their parents’ basement, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.  Towards the end of the film, I found myself questioning if the scene would last another 5 years.

Overall, I enjoyed the perspective of the film and would recommend it to anyone who has no idea what Nerdcore is and needs a crash course on the history, drama, beef, and love/hate within the community.  Also, it’s a historical document for people in the scene to look back upon fondly years into the future.

=chad

I’ve been pulling alot of days doing prep / wrap for SVU and Gossip Girl this week, and through all of it I’ve been thinking about finally getting on the iPhone boat. There’s alot of downtime where everyone literally sits around and twiddles their thumbs (this morning the riggers and I waiting two hours for a truck to return) and I literally got bored with reading books, my normal go-to boredom killer.  Hurry up and wait, they say.  Ah well.