AngelHeaded Hipster: The Songs Of Marc Bolan & T.Rex
Dir: Ethan Silverman
Glam catalyst’s undervalued legacy reassessed and remodelled.
A documentary that attempts to simultaneously serve two purposes and ultimately delivers on both, AngelHeaded Hipster documents the making of the eminently satisfying and star-studded Hal Willner-produced tribute album of the same name, alongside a neatly realised encapsulation of Bolan’s tragically short, if hugely influential and inspiring, life and career.
So on the one hand you’ve intimate and illuminating footage of Nick Cave wringing every last drop of intrinsic pathos from a pugnacious Joan Jett endeavouring (not entirely successfully) to badass the living scheiße out of and the ageless and unassuming Wayne Kramer – barely acknowledged, in Willner’s top-line house band – spicing Kesha’s instinctively salacious into the arena of the inspired. While on the other hand you have winningly charismatic Billy Idol, all spikes, boggled eyes and sneers, colourfully reminiscing about the newly electrified T.Rex snatching victory from the jaws ofRod and the Faces, an obviously irked Bopping Elf turned the baying mob around with a deftly delivered “Fuck off” and a set of rare, Eddie-
