If
anyone is entitled to laugh at the garage metal band Skum, it is Alice Cooper.
He participated in even crazier shenanigans during the early stages of his
career, yet he made it to the top and stayed on top. Fittingly, he serves as
the subtly acerbic narrator for their shoulda-coulda story. A group of William
& Mary soccer players very well might have formed an appallingly untalented
hard rock band, but when Clay Westervelt brought them together for a reunion,
they kept their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks. The emphasis is on mock
and rock when Westervelt’s Skum Rocks (trailer here) screens as a legit
doc at the 17th annual Dances With Films in Hollywood, USA.
Skum
were almost profiled on Behind the Music style
program for “Disaster Bands,” but they turned out to be too disastrous.
Nonetheless, Westervelt and a pick-up crew kept following the story. Founding
members Hart Baur, Todd Mittlebrook, and Scott Bell had no musical aptitude,
but they did not let that dissuade them. Eventually, they recruited some band-members
with genuine chops, but quickly fired them when they provided too much
competition for their admiring lady fans. Somehow they built up a cult reputation
in Miami after graduation, partly because of their success in
battle-of-the-bands. Again, this was not due to talent, but the extra credit
Baur (now a high school teacher) offered his classes.
Even
though they never really made it, Skum lived the rock & roll lifestyle to
the fullest, leaving everyone who ever tried to do business with them reeling
in bankruptcy. Like an inadvertent Max Bialystock, they oversold shares of
their long promised debut album, but fortunately their sole masters were stolen
under appropriately bizarre circumstances. That temporarily spelled the end of
Skum—and the music industry was grateful. Oh, but there has to be a comeback.
While
not Spinal Tap or the real life Super Duper Alice Cooper, Skum Rocks is still pretty funny stuff.
It hits all the rockumentary bases, including the band’s revolving door for
drummers and one member’s pornstar obsession. Sure, they are “playing
themselves,” but the dudes from Skum nail the aging un-self-aware hedonist
rocker vibe, particularly Baur and John Eaton. Of course, Cooper sells it
perfectly with his stranger-than-fiction voiceovers. Following Super Duper, Supermensch, and An Honest Liar, Skum Rocks represents the fourth “documentary” he appears in this
year. It is quite a body of work that makes for entertaining binge viewing.
