The Soda Machine
Released 2008
A well-made bilingual documentary by Sophie Fortier and Audrey Gautier, with options of French or English subtitles about a hardworking punk band from Montreal, Quebec. The band has been paying dues since 1999, touring relentlessly and happily playing shows for 15 kids in towns all over Europe and North America and only found recognition - eg being signed by Fat Wreck Chords very recently. Accompanying the DVD is a full CD of outtakes and rarities.
Their music is great - hard-driving pop-punk that reminds me of Jawbreaker - but I'm not that involved in the punk scene so that's probably way off base. But they seem to occupy that same place in between punk and hardcore and pop and maybe even a touch of metal. The CD features 25 tracks of hard-to-find tracks including demos, outtakes, tracks from compilations and 7-inches. Comes with a nice full-color booklet of lyrics, info and anecdotes about the songs. This CD alone may be worth the price of admission for fans of the group.
But unless you're a huge fan of the band the documentary is not going to be of particular interest because their stage presence is relatively static and the story is not super crazy either - just a group of hard-working guys who've toiled in obscurity long and hard and now have found some success. From a punk documentary, the casual viewer might hope for some wild GG Allin/David Yow/Fucked Up/founding-days-of-Orange-County-hardcore style total chaos on stage and off, the tense, angry young man political tracts of an Ian MacKaye, or the just plain weird cool of a Jad Fair type character to make for an interesting documentary watch. The wildest story in The Soda Machine is about the time one of the band members puked in a box and hid it in the closet at someone's house on tour. And endless broke-down van tales.
The Soda Machine is a feel-good film with a hometown-boys-made-good theme. And you do come out of the film feeling happy that the guys found success - they seem like a nice bunch of people and it's admirable that they stuck it out long enough to find the recognition they deserve. But like I said - this would only be great for fans of the band, and maybe that's enough because this isn't likely a film you're going to stumble across unless you're looking for it. The music on the other hand, is great and well worth checking out if even if you're not already a fan, and you might find yourself turning into one rather quickly.
