Beulah - A Good Band is Easy To Kill
Released: August 2, 2005
89 minutes, plus over 2 hours of bonus material
San Francisco's Beulah should have been massively more popular than they were but the same can be said about countless other bands who toil not quite in complete obscurity but who are perpetually on the cusp of the an elusive breakthrough. They essentially broke up in 2004. Fans of indie pop-rock should definitely check them out.
Front man Miles Kurosky begins the DVD by complaining that someone said a Beulah album was good but not as good as Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks. He goes on to state that he thinks the Beulah album is better than Dylan’s and argues that Dylan’s emotions due to the break up with his wife are not more intense or profound than Kurosky’s. He believes that he was brutally honest and practically “bled on the tape” but doesn’t think Dylan did. His exclamation “Fuck Bob Dylan” is odd but even more so, sad. He’s absolutely frustrated that Beulah had not achieved the type of commercial success that their music would warrant.
He says that certain bands you can only compare to their past, not to other artists. He’s totally right, of course. I loathe when I try to turn people onto lesser known but great indie songs only to have they say, “Yeah, but the Beatles are better.”
At the DVD’s outset, we see Kurosky making last minute arrangements on the phone and then rehearsing in preparation for a 31-date tour in 2003 in support of their Yoko album.
At the first show, in LA, he muses about how the show might result in them getting signed to a major label and receiving a huge amount of exposure. At one stage or another’s, it’s a dream just about every band has.
The DVD follows the band as they travel to each venue play a tune or two and then repeat, with lots of footage of mundane but intimate moments. Trey, the merchandise manager, discusses what he does and it seems sad in way as he appears to be spinning his wheels. He drives, handles equipment, tries not spend any money, eats fast food, and spends time hurrying up and waiting, “keep the groupies away from the band and sleeps occasionally.”
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