Thursday, June 27, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com PUNK PIONEERS Revi s ting'A New documentary two brothers, Bobby and Da went unnoticed in the dark an follows the history of dust to brood and wait. But no longer. Detroit punk band In 2009, the New York T published a piece covering D By SEAN CZARNECKI band called "This Band Was Daily Film Editor Before Punk Was Punk," g -~- steam to the rising recogr David Hackney left his brother, this proto-punk trio from D Bobby, a boxful of master tapes named Death was receiving. from their long-defunct band this story that the new docu Death and these prophetic last tary "A Band Called Death words: "The world's gonna come lows and will release to audi. looking for these one day." He knew on June 28 at the Birmingh what his brother didn't believe. Theater cinema. For this re His dreams would go unrealized band members Bobby and D in life. In 2000, he died of cancer. Hackney and Bobbie Dunca And for four decades that boxful of down with the Michigan Da records created by David and his talk about the band's history 1 Band Called D annis, their future. id the "We were just being family and making music that we loved," Bobby said. "We had no idea that rimes we were laying down the ground- avid's work for punk music, you know. Punk In 1974, if you called somebody a iving punk, you got a bloody nose. Espe- nition cially in Detroit." etroit Both Bobby and Dannis insisted It is all that drove them in their passion men- was to make "hard-driving rock 'n' " fol- roll." ences "Detroit was a much differ- am 8 ent town then," Bobby said. "Just anon, so much activity. We used to get annis inspired to write rock songs just n sat by driving down Jefferson Avenue ily to because it was so vibrant." y and As in the rock-saturated movie itself, the trio rattled their neigh- borhood with the vicious energy of their songs in atime when Motown was the popular genre and black artists flourished. They were rebellious, loud and with a band name like Death, different. It was David who believed in the band's aesthetic. It was he who, after all, formed the band and led it. When it comes to telling the story of Death, you inevitably tell a story about brothers and the band's VME visionary leader. "You know, we were approached by other people with those ideas (of making a documentary)," Bobby said. "But the one thing about Jeff, as a filmmaker, is he really got into the heart and soul and spiritual mind of David. That was kinda the doorway into our entire family and to our entire music legacy." Bobby is talking about Jeff Howlett, a new filmmaker who marks his directorial debut with "A Band Called Death" alongside co- director Mark Covino ("Lucid"). Together, they crafted an intimate portrait of a decades-spanning family epic in the hope of bringing us closer to a talent unrecognized for half a lifetime. "We just kinda led him into being a member of our family," Bobby said. "And we trusted him and he gained not only our trust but the trust of members of our family across the country." The film itself has achieved measurable success. At the 2013 South By Southwest festival, it nabbed the Audience Award for the 24 Beats per Second category. Whether Howlett and Covino's efforts will popularize Death is Detroit punk band Death still has a wealth of unreleased songs in its possesion. uncertain. "We're just on the journey and we've been told that the journey's only really just begun," Bobby said. "We've gotten such a tremendous response - from top actors in Hollywood to just the man on the street." This kind of reception comes at a surprise to the two brothers. According to Dannis, the aver- sive material the band recorded required time for it to be appreci- ated to any great extent. "In my generation, people were afraid to say the word 'death' because of the stigma or whatever. But when we come down to (the younger) generation, they're not afraid anymore. They're not afraid to say 'death,' they're not afraid to deal with the associations of it." "In a lot of ways, they're a lot smarter than we were," Bobby added with a laugh. "Knowledge is so accessible now. The average 15-year-old knows just as much as a 25-year-old where back in our day a 15-year-old was just a 15-year-old." Those 40 years have gained them an audience. They have liber- ated Death of its repulsion, its stig- ma, but yes, they stole things, too. Those 40 years spent in obscurity crushed David's artistic pursuits. They separated a musician from his deserved fame. They killed him and they took away a brother who will be missed greatly. Death goes back on tour in David's honor, to finish what he started. In doing so, they recruit- ed guitarist Bobbie Duncan who brings a "refreshing New York style," as Dannis said. "David left a wealth of songs," Bobby said. "David and myself wrote so many songs together that we had intended to record because we were convinced that we would eventually end up getting a big contract, so we better have a lot of songs ready. I've got a wealth, a wonderful well to pull from of all these great ideas and great music. There's gonna be a lot of great Death music to come." ARE YOU DOWN TO PARTY? JOIN DAILY ARTS AND HELP US MAKE LAME ADVERTISMENTS! ... AND WRITE ABOUT ART. Email arts@ michigandaily.com Camp t's hard to believe, but there's a place where Edward Snowden, Benghazi and Kim Kardashian don't dominate the news - well actually, 4 Kim always finds a way. For the eighth sum- mer in the last nine years, I DEREK get to go back WOLFE to the woods. To a world of dirty cabins, mass-produced food and fun on the beach. I'll be spending my summer at one of the largest camps in the world where the outdoors around me is my office. And for the third straight year, I'm going to be a counselor - this time for 14-year-olds. It's really a strange situation. At home, I'm still very much a child. Sure, I can live in Ann Arbor and make it to CVS or Meijer if I need groceries or other supplies, but for the most part, when I'm at home, my parents still take care of me at this point in my life. But at camp, my hierarchy is turned upside down. I'm the most important person in these kids' lives. I'm truly the closest thing these campers have to a parent for the three or six weeks they spend at camp. In the previous years I have worked, I have experienced the most challenging moments of the life, but also the most reward- ing. A high score on an exam is an incredible feeling, but few things compare to helping a camper suc- cessfully water ski for the firsttime. Much has been said about the benefits of young children going to camp. However, the benefits of being a counselor shouldn't go unnoticed either - especially since each year, many college- age students face the choice of embarking on a hopefully paid internship or becoming a coun- selor at both sleepaway and day camps. And while it's true that counselors have been stereotyped as lazy and simply trying to avoid a real-world job, the return - if we want to talk about investments - has the potential to be immense if a full effort is put forth. The opportunity for leadership is tremendous. In my experience, I have had the chance to plan and execute unique, inspiring pro- grams for kids with many differ- ent staff members. It has helped is real my ability to work with others, develop interpersonal skills and learn to know when to take charge and when to take a step back - a skill that is a challenge for any- one to develop. This also hap- pens when doing day-to-day tasks with the 10 or so kids I'm respon- sible for. I'm their leader and am expected to take care of them. Few things compare to helping a camper. Like any job, there are ups and downs. But in no other activ- ity have I found my confidence rise like it does as a counselor. Parents across the country are counting on counselors - remind you, complete strangers -toensure their children conquer their fears, make friends and attain positive memories. It's a responsibility not to be taken lightly, because the interaction between camper and counselor changes lives for good or for bad. So at the end of the summer, when a parent thanks me for my work, near-euphoria ensues. Perhaps, most importantly, being a counselor thrives on the service-above-self philosophy. There are many professions - all of them, actually - that demand their members to put the com- munity's needs above those of the individual. It's a concept hard to grasp and something I still strug- gle with. But if service-above-self can be mastered in the camp set- ting, then where can't it be? The desire to pursue that resume-building internship is tempting, no doubt. On the surface, spending a summer in the woods with a bunch of little kids appears like a colossal waste of time. Taken seriously, though, it doesn't have to be. To have one of the best jobs in the world before turning 20 is surreal. I know I'm not ready to enter the "real world" where suits and ties replace Nike shorts and flip- flops. But the opportunity to essentially be a child's parent and a role model sure seems like one of the most "real" jobs out there. -Derek Wolfe can be reached at dewolfe@umich.edu. Thursday, June 27, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com NOTABLE QUOTABLE 6)hough Congress has great authority to design laws to fit its own conception of sound national pol- icy, it cannot deny the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment." -Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in his majority opinion on United States v. Windsor, which struck down the part of the Defense of Marriage Act denying same-sex couples federal benefits. Life through electronics magine with me, if you will, that you're at a concert of one of your favorite bands. You have arrived fashionably late but man- age to squeeze yourself into some prime standing real estate, behind a girl who is- shorter than PAIGE you, and only PFLEGER four rows of people away from the stage. Not too shabby. You wait and wait, and conve- niently, once your feet start to hurt, the lights dim, the proverbial curtain rises and the stars of the show take their place, audience cheering. You're euphoric - when it comes to the concert experience, you have nailed it. But don't be so quick to rejoice. The band strikes the first chord, and suddenly the stage is obstruct- ed. Why? What has happened? Well, a sea of arms has risen up above heads, propping up hands holding iPhones set to record. For you, it's nearly impossible to see. For the others, well, why does it matter if they watch the concert now when they can just experi- ence it all later, over and over again on high-definition screens wherever they go? You're left with a choice - join the electronic revolution and experience things solely through pixels like a Cubist nightmare, or settle on not see- ing a show you paid good money for. With an air of defeatism you allow yourself to become another human tripod, just a stabilizing ground for your smartphone to take a video that automatically gets spammed to Facebook, a pic- ture that your followers see on Instagram and Twitter and an actual experience missed. It seems to be a common prac- tice that's now just pure human habit. Is something crazy hap- pening? Well, what are you wait- ing for? Pull out your phone and take a picture. We're really nat- urals at gawking, which is the reason we have traffic jams after small accidents - you can't help but join the masses, slow down and take a look. Social media sites have done nothing but justify this kind of behavior, by giving us a million different places to chronicle anything and every- thing that's going on. Your life, no matter how well-lived, isn't considered worthy unless you have so many followers on Twit- ter, so many friends on Facebook, so many reblogs on Tumblr and so on. So it has almost become a challenge of who can document it best, turning the focus away from actually enjoying the things that are happening in front of our faces, to capturing them instead. I take you next to the dystopian worlds created in literary works such as "1984", "Fahrenheit 451" and "Brave New World," to name a few. A mixture of pessimism and lack of faith in the human race has led me to a love affair with novels telling of a future that we have ruined ourselves, and I believe that these social media sites that have convinced us that we are all worthy of being encapsulated autobiographically are just a small step down a road leading us to a world much like those great authors have warned us about, and here is why - if our only enjoyment comes from likes on Facebook and retweets on Twitter, we're going to forget how to live our lives like humans instead of robots dependent on electronics for survival. So put the phone down, and live a little. "Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted." -Aldous Huxley, author of "Brave New World" Huxley isn't mistaken, either. We're taking so many things for granted, and being enabled to do so with our smartphones and computers. Watching a sunset over the ocean counts just as much, if not more, if you watch as that last lip of light disappears over the edge of the water, even if you don't quite catch it on camera. While you were busy chronicling your existence, the world continued to spin around you and no matter how much your social media accounts make it look like you have lived, you're completely missing the fact that life is more than a sepia-toned photo - it's about truly experiencing the world we live in. So put the phone down, and live a little. -Paige Pfleger can be reached at pspfleg@umichedu. CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and viewpoints. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while viewpoints should be 550-850 words. Send the writer's full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.