The Dears bandleader Murray Lightburn likes to take things apart before building their prime elements into better-working things. In the months leading up to directing his debut film, Never Destroy Us: The Dears at Pasaguero, which you can view in full below, Lightburn’s also become something of a manic shutterbug, approaching his photography with scientific acuity.
Between shoots, I found Lightburn more than once at his dining room table, disassembling and reassembling dusty old 35mm cameras with needle-nose pliers and tiny screwdrivers. Happily sorting through a tabletop sea of miniature springs for that missing piece.
The documentary tells of how Lightburn broke up his own band before building it into one of this country's most blazing live acts. Murray directed; wife and bandmate Natalia Yanchak produced. Like much of their creative output, this film is another of their joint efforts. The band worked with American filmmaker Michael Mohan in Mexico, and came home from a sold-out concert series in the country with a nine-camera HD shoot of the shows.
Why Mexico? Before recording their fifth album, Degeneration Street, the Dears wanted to play the songs in sequence for an esteemed audience. They spun the proverbial globe, indexing their previous tour itineraries and decided their fans in Mexico City had a gold-hearted appreciation for their music, with enough of an appetite for introverted darkness to sup on the album’s heavy themes. The concert series became a defining moment in an almost impossibly long career, as the band righted its rudder on the waves of unprecedented love the Pasaguero audiences offered Montreal’s original, orchestral art rock band.
The film cuts archival footage and performances into interviews with the band’s current members. This self-described dream team takes us from its humble, ambitious beginnings in early-'90s Montreal, along a wildly contoured, often compromising route to international acclaim.
Members Rob Benvie, Roberto Arquilla, Patrick Krief and Jeff Luciani help to expose band life mechanics, while Stars’ Amy Millan, music journalist Lorraine Carpenter and recording wizard Howard Bilerman round out the telling of this tale of dedicated and enduring friendships, notwithstanding an above-average dose of emotional, backstage dust-ups.
The band has found that elusive missing piece, and Never Destroy Us is a testament to the payoffs of perseverance.
Related:
Sneak preview of the Dears' upcoming live album
Concert: The Dears honour the stage at Canadian Music Week 2012
Must listen: new ethereal pop from The Dears' Patrick Krief