Berkeley's Cornerstone hosts thrash-metal doc screening with live music
BERKELEY -- The Cornerstone in Berkeley presents a multi-media night of metal Sunday with a screening of the acclaimed documentary Murder in the Front Row before performances by two bands featuring photographer/bassist Harald Oimoen.
Released in 2019, the film directed by longtime Metallica collaborator Adam Dubin (who got his start in film making videos for the Beastie Boys in the 1980s) presented a deep dive into the music and culture of the burgeoning scene that produced some of the most influential bands to emerge from the Bay Area since the since the rise of the Grateful Dead Santana and Journey.
Adding the speed and aggression of hardcore punk to the metal and hard rock styles being perfected by British bands like Motörhead, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and UFO during the mid-to-late 1970s, a group of young musicians spurred an exponential leap forward for heavy music in the early '80s with the rise of thrash metal. Metallica is commonly thought of as the Bay Area's biggest proponent of the newly emerging sound, but many don't realize that the band got it's start in Los Angeles before moving north at the behest of new bassist Cliff Burton in 1982 to the welcoming embrace of what was already a well established and thriving underground movement anchored by early groups including Exodus and Blind Illusion.
Using the remarkable 2012 photo book Murder in the Front Row: Shots From the Bay Area Thrash Metal Epicenter that featured kinetic pictures taken by early devotees Brian Lew and Oimoen as a jumping-off point, documentary director Adam Dubin has delved into the primordial soup of SF's thrash metal history for the film. Murder in the Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story features extensive interviews with not just key players from Exodus, Slayer and Metallica, but testimonials from the rabid fans and scene figures who served as the initial disciples of a style of metal music that would one day have a global reach and influence.
The film received several screenings in the Bay Area upon its release, including an especially raucous and enthusiastic showing at San Francisco's Roxie Theater that featured a number of the doc's interview subjects in attendance. While the celebrated film is widely available on streaming services and through its subsequent DVD and blu-ray. this screening at the Cornerstone in Berkeley arranged by Oimoen will be the first time the movie in a while that MitFR has received a public viewing as it was meant to be watched: at top volume with a loud crowd of beer-drinking metal fans in attendance.
Oimoen, who also made a name for himself as a latter-era bassist in the legendary crossover band Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (aka D.R.I.), will take the stage at the Cornerstone after the screening with two of his current musical projects. His original thrash-metal band Jesus Crisis released a love letter of a song to the scene and film also entitled "Murder in the Front Row" earlier this year. His all-star Sabbath tribute act Back Stabbath will also perform with guest appearances from such local notables as guitarist Bryan Kehoe (MIRV, Les Claypool's Duo De Twang), drummer Chris Kontos (Machine Head, Attitude Adjustment, Exodus and currently with the Boneless Ones), guitarist Craig Locicero (Forbidden, Manmade God, Spiralarms, also currently with the Boneless Ones) and guitarist/singer Sven Soderlund (Mercenary, Mordred).
Murder in the Front Row screening with Jesus Crisis and Back Stabbath
Sunday, July 31, 6pm (film at 7 p.m.) $10-$15
The Cornerstone