Cool Offerings on the Sundance Channel

Once again, in the coming week, the talk shows are offering no musical guests of much relevance to this blog, other than a rerun of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno with Suzanne Vega will air on Wednesday (August 22). Seems like there were all sorts of performances that would deserve a heads up -- until I started making a concerted effort to pass the info along...

But I noticed that The Sundance Channel will be airing a Joe Strummer documentary this week, and while poking around on the network's website, I found a few things worth mentioning. The documentaries aren't necessarily new, but if you haven't checked them out yet, you may want to. Click on the name of the program to find air dates and times. Descriptions are as written on the Sundance website.

• Let's Rock Again - Shortly before Joe Strummer's untimely death in 2002, filmmaker Dick Rude profiled the legendary guitarist and Clash co-founder as he toured with his band the "Mescaleros" in the United States and Japan. Prefaced by a montage of Clash-era archive footage, LET'S ROCK AGAIN! features some memorable high-voltage performance footage from 2001 when the "Mescaleros" were promoting their second album. Intercut are frank and amusing interviews with Strummer, in which the rock icon's philosophy and personal energy are movingly captured.

• New York Doll - The anarchic history of punk rock has been chronicled in countless documentaries, yet few are as astounding and touching as Greg Whiteley's profile of Arthur "Killer" Kane, former bassist for the proto-punk/glam band The New York Dolls. Early success and extreme excess marked The Dolls' professional career, but when everything bottomed out, Kane shut the door on his past, converted to Mormonism, found peace and took a job in a library. Now, after years in seclusion, Kane dons leather pants and reunites with former Dolls for a London show. Note: Morrissey facilitated the New York Dolls reunion and is featured throughout this documentary. Appearances are also made by Chrissie Hynde, Bob Geldof, and Iggy Pop.
  

• Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Food, Death...& Insects - Celebrated for his wry, darkly comic, twisted rock songs, British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock is profiled in this Sundance Channel original documentary, directed by John Edginton. Hitchcock and the band Venus 3 — featuring REM veterans Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin — are observed recording an album of new material at Hitchcock's London house. Later, Hitchcock is seen performing live in Hoboken, New Jersey, and Seattle. With appearances by musicians Morris Windsor, Nick Lowe, John Paul Jones and Gillian Welch.
  

• Music Rising - Hurricane Katrina didn't merely scar the landscape, it uprooted lives and destroyed livelihoods. Affected were thousands of musicians whose instruments were destroyed in the storm. Music Rising follows the efforts of prominent musicians — including U2's The Edge and Gibson Guitar's Henry Juszkiewicz — dedicated to helping their New Orleans colleagues by replacing their instruments and returning to them the means to earn a living. Included are many first-hand accounts of the storm and concert appearances by Arlo Guthrie and Willie Nelson.