To Know Him is to Love Him

Phil Spector circa 1958

The Scenics were priviledged to attend a screening of "The Agony and Ectasy of Phil Spector", playing at the Real Art Ways Cinema October 29 through November 4. After settling in and remarking on how nice it was to not be in an over air-conditioned movie theater, the movie rolled and the A/C kicked on.

The movie consists mainly of interview segments of Spector in his home, with interspersed courtroom scenes from his 2007 trial and classic footage of artists he had produced. The film maker tended towards an overly busy style in some of these scenes: Audio from an interview or classic hit playing to courtroom video clips, with subtitles displaying quotes with usually complex statements regarding the emotional and artistic impact and meaning of those same hits. Perhaps the idea was to pay tribute to the wall of sound with a wall of media. It doesn't work, but luckily there are not so many of these moments as to bog down the film.

More importantly, we were impressed by Phil's incredible fashion sense and swooned over his intelligently articulated atheistic viewpoint. As Katie Scenic gushed "I'd love to hang out with him, even if it kills me".

Overall the movie is a must see for anyone who knows these songs, is interested in our American pop music or has anything to do with recording music. After the November 3rd showing there will be a panel discussion featuring David Shuman, Assistant Professor of Audio Engineering Technology at the University of Hartford as well as other area music recording personalities and perhaps a Scenic.

So the big question, did he kill her? Well, it does seem that Mr Spector was well known for brandishing firearms. Check out this interview of the Ramones on working with Phil.



The chord the boys are talking about seems to only appear in the music video....