This week’s release of Her Space Holiday‘s 10-track, self-titled album marks the end of the one-man musical project that Marc Bianchi started back in 1996. Fittingly, HSH’s final album is also the first on the Austin-based Bianchi’s No More Good Ideas label. While he has some live dates set to support the LP, the genre-defying musician mostly plans for the album to be the closing statement from HSH, who over the past decade and a half has also remixed tracks by the likes of R.E.M., Bright Eyes, Elastica and the Faint. Bianchi can now add MAGNET guest editor to his already-impressive resume, as that’s what he’ll be doing all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.
Bianchi: Streetwise is a remarkable documentary that focuses on the lives of a handful of homeless kids in downtown Seattle. Most of the subjects in the film first appeared in a 1983 Life magazine article entitled “Streets Of The Lost” by Cheryl McCall and photographer Mary Ellen Mark. Mary Ellen was so moved by the kids she met that she convinced her husband/director Martin Bell to consider shooting a documentary. With a little financial help from her friend Willie Nelson, Streetwise was born.
The film is brutal, tender, honest, touching, appalling, hopeful, heartbreaking—every emotion is touched upon until each nerve is left raw. This little glimpse into the lives of these kids proves that fiction can never be as compelling or as absurd as real life.
What is really astonishing to me is that despite the fact that film got rave reviews and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1984, it was never released on DVD. It currently has no distribution. I hope that changes in the near future. Though I don’t think it is the most ideal way to watch the documentary, you can stream portions of it on YouTube.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZERDYwSUgCE
