The Mellotron Group

In a message dated 11/28/2009 5:40:48 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
andy.thompson@virgin.net writes:


Hi Hessel  
Does anyone know if the Mellotron  Documentary “Mellodrama” is available 
on DVD already? 
Any of you seen it already? Any  good? 
Don't know whether it's on  DVD yet (doubt it), but yes, I've seen it. Some 
fascinating footage, some, er,  less fascinating, and a fairly amateurish 
vibe about the whole thing (wildly  variable sound quality/background noise 
etc.), not to mention loads of factual  errors. And why bother interviewing 
people who openly admit they only use  samples? Odd. Best interviewees? A 
couple of the American Chamberlin guys  (Patrick Warren and Jon Brion 
especially) and our very own Mattias Olsson.  Worth seeing for some of the insights, 
though, not to mention the footage of a  Chamberlin's internals... 
Andy  T.


 
I -- and probably a number of people on this list -- offered  
assistance/advice/feedback/whatever to Dianna, which was politely  declined.  Both 
Mellodrama and the Mehan Pinder documentary lack, IMHO,  because they were done by 
non-Mellotron, non-musical people despite their good  intentions.  Can't 
comment on the former as I haven't seen it beyond the  teaser clip, but the 
latter, while very nicely produced, has a very awkward  and amateurish "what's 
your favourite color"-Tiger Beat feel to it regarding  topics and interview 
questions.  I admit to cringing when I heard some of  them (and I think you 
can see it Mike's facial expressions as well).   Still...thanks to Dianna 
and Ross...they do exist along with Nick Awde's and my  respective books, 
when a mere 10 years ago Mellotrons were relegated to  just two pages in Rock 
Hardware and a mention in one of Mark Vail's  great books.
 
Cheers,
Frank S.
El Cajon CA