| This
film is a 43-minute colour film that relies mainly on L7 performance
footage, although the band does engage in some acting. There are three
satirical vignettes exposing the music industry's foibles: a focus group,
lunch meeting with a record company artists and repertoire executive
and a graduation ceremony/contract signing with the devil. The theme
of this movie is art versus commerce. This epic, age-old battle is fought
on many fronts. The idea fascinated Krist some much that it became the
theme of the film. Shot entirely in grainy 8mm film during a L7 Tour with Sweet 75 in October 1997, this film
debuted at the Blinding Light Cinema, in Vancouver, B.C. on May 20,
1999.
"We
were visiting on the first night of the tour together and after
a while we were talking about our bands' respective situations with
the music industry," Novoselic told the News. "We were
sharing a lot of our frustrations about popular music, bands and
the whole system. I went off to bed that night and I was thinking
about our conversation and I thought 'Oh, that's what I want to
make the film about.'"
"The
focus group is about marketing, the A&R guy is about how you're
promised the world and you have a little bit of bad luck and they
drop you, they abandon you, they leave you holding the cheque,"
Novoselic explained. "The commencement is about being frustrated
and how to let those frustrations go."
"The
band is going through the film and they're kickin' ass, they're
pissed off and being angry. The devil is laying everything out and
saying here's the truth, here's the reality of everything. Then
they say a little prayer where they realize that's what's going
on. Graduation and commencement is a rite of passage, it commemorates
a beginning, leaving all that frustration and bitterness behind,
because you realize what the reality is." - Krist Novoselic
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