LGM Film Club, Part 164: Oil City Confidential

Last night, I watched Julien Temple’s 2009 documentary Oil City Confidential. Temple’s documentary on Joe Strummer was so good that I figured I’d check this out. It’s about the band Dr. Feelgood, which had a brief moment of glory in the mid-70s as a sort of bridge from the blues rock of the 60s to the punk scene just starting to spring up, explicitly rejecting prog ridiculousness. This band came from Canvey Island, a depressed and dark part of Britain, dominated by oil facilities along the mudflats. It’s pretty interesting as a sociological study, but the documentary itself isn’t really that great. Part of it is that it just kind of rote, especially the inevitable fall of the band from personality differences, booze, and drugs. We’ve seen that story before. But also Dr. Feelgood was not a very good band. They really were playing pretty boring white blues-rock that doesn’t age well. Their style was a lot more influential than the music. But hey, you might like it. Here’s the trailer: