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The Best of Musikladen Live - Stephen Stills dvd movie.

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The Best of Musikladen Live - Stephen Stills & Manassas
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	List Price: $19.98 *Features* • Color • Dolby • DVD-Video • Live • NTSC In Theaters : 16 May, 2000 DVD Release : 28 January, 2003
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The Best of Musikladen Live - Stephen Stills & Manassas description
Stephen Stills had graduated to solo stature after central roles in two influential but internally combustible bands, Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, when he opted to form the short-lived Manassas in the early '70s. The band was a sensible compromise--a platform that provided Stills with a versatile ensemble of instrumental peers posing far less threat to their leader's ego. He had wisely chosen one of California rock's most dependably tasteful musicians, former Byrd and Flying Burrito Brothers cofounder Chris Hillman, as his de facto lieutenant, providing a solid vocal foil and a capable songwriter. Stills designed a lineup that could move convincingly from country-rock to swaying, percussive grooves with a Latin thrust.

This 40-minute live studio performance, taped without an audience for a German broadcast, captures the essence of Manassas's debut album Down the Road, confirming the strength of Stills's choices as well as the ultimately slight value of the songs written for and with that band. At its best, Manassas sketches a warm Stills-Hillman vocal stamp that's pleasing if still generic, and the instrumental interplay is likewise confident if only fleetingly inspired. The production injects some now dated, even corny visuals, including solarized psychedelic shots used as backdrops. But the original mono sound quality is detailed and well-mixed, confirming the superior equipment and more sympathetic ears of the German crew. This is a satisfying document for aficionados of California's laid-back '70s wing. --Sam Sutherland

The Best of Musikladen Live - Stephen Stills & Manassas Customer Reviews

♥♥♥♥♥

a musician friend says: "My Vision of the Afterlife!"

If you like the idea of Stephen Stills, in no-nonsense form, playing a giant hollow-bodied guitar at high volume with grade-A rhythm players, this is the stuff that dream is made of. There's a lot of hollow-body Gretsch but later in the set some massive, Hendrix-inflected Les Paul stuff too. (The word is "wahwah.") The performances here are literally amped up and intensified versions of about half the tracks from the first Mansasas Lp, providing a set that moves across generic borders with pioneering verve: this band is equally convincing doing country, "Cuban Bluegrass," or Stills' odd-signatured and riff-heavy "Bound to Fall." If you play this DVD loud through a nice system (and you must do that), you're there, and that's a nice place to be. The recording is fine, although for some reason Chris Hillman's (also beautiful and giant) guitar is not especially apparent in the mix, but his voice is. The band's performance is unusual in that they are alone on a sound-stage, with utterly no audience, but they have a positive nerviness and the set gains "sweat" as if a good audience is present. I even like this film visually. (Perhaps because my only caveat about this DVD is that this band, in this performance, sounds tighter with images than without--sans-images, occasional looseness is apparent. Curious effect!) The jump cuts between band members are abrupt at times, but the rear-screen solarizations provide technically dated but visually cool multi-hued images of the band from camera angles varied from the main shot. I'll be frank--I like Stills, but I didn't know this band was this good.

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