In 1995 musician Shannon Hoon died of an unintentional cocaine overdose, forsaking (like Kurt Cobain) a companion and toddler daughter. However this collaged video diary, assembled from the camcorder archives Hoon shot between 1990 and his dying as he rose to fame as lead singer of alt-rockers Blind Melon, is – cheeringly – not a grim trawl by the gutter of extra. Reasonably, it’s a quizzical time capsule of pre-internet fame from the angle of a troubled however succesful younger man who knew his method round a digital camera.
The brawny, snub-nosed Indiana native, usually taking pictures by a fisheye lens, seems right here because the boy within the bubble as he arrives in Los Angeles and shortly integrates into town’s rock scene. Hoon sings backup vocals for Weapons N’ Roses, after which Blind Melon’s jaunty strumalong hit No Rain, launched in 1993 a 12 months after their debut album, briefly makes them the toast of MTV. However amid this whirlwind, with the identical pointed means to spin the mundane that marked his lyrics, he always gravitates to the marginalia together with his digital camera: a cat rising from a flowerbed, a roadie sleeping in a laundry cart, Lenny Kravitz licking the lens.
Blind Melon’s present-day standing as 90s alt-rock also-rans means the primary curiosity of All I Can Say lies within the nature of movie star reasonably than the band itself. Seen backwards down the kaleidoscope, the music-biz hullabaloo and rock posturing appear as quaint and out of date as the numerous random cultural marker-posts, like a Rolling Stones music changing into the primary to be launched on CD-Rom. However Hoon is instinctively conscious of this absurdity, complaining of the fuss over their iconic girl-in-a-bee-costume mascot: “I believe individuals are analysing it method too deep.” (He’s fortunate he wasn’t well-known 30 years later.)
At one level Hoon says that he hopes to maneuver into film-making, and it’s true he has a watch. The movie’s flotsam movement is in fact the work of three different administrators, however the authentic angles are Hoon’s; and plenty of – just like the shot dodging the wheels of a shifting freight prepare – are adventurous. It might probably’t in fact be taken at face worth as the reality about his drug habit or broader emotional life, however it’s a superb portrait of a seeker wading by the human actuality on the coronary heart of fame.