Melt Banana - The Green Door, Oklahoma City 10/31/02 (DVD)
I’m not even sure what Melt Banana is considered, but I assume some form of hardcore. Overall they’re a group playing scarily schizophrenic music with a shrill female vocalist whose very presence almost overwhelms one’s opinion of her, at least until your threshold is up. The music is kind of crazy and all over the place, which means just about every song sounds similar to the uninitiated. I went from interest in the first five or ten minutes to feeling like I was being beat over the head with a bat by the end of it. Make of that what you will.
Various Artists - La Edad de Oro Momentos de Oro V. 1 (DVD)
This Spanish collection of performances includes a wide array of groups that could almost be the full pallette of 80s new wave and pop, from experimentalists like Tuxedomoon and the Residents to pop groups like Culture Club and Spandau Ballet. How anyone managed to collate this lot is anyone’s guess, but it won’t take a genius to tell which side I was leaning to. At one song a piece, noone really gets much of a chance to show what they’re really capable of and it’s only that this is not really a video collection (rather concert performances)  that makes me not toss this in the “out pile.”
Remember Shakti - Leverhausen, Germany 1999 (DVD)
I can understand why McLaughin’s outfit uses Shakti as this is definitely akin in many ways, but for my ears Remember Shakti are like the band grew up and lost that youthful energy that made them so great. Shakti was a band who could hit home runs on just about every occasion, a band with telepathic precision and inhuman talent. Remember Shakti, especially on this short video, seem to shirk all those dazzling displays for a more mature and gentler vision. And this is beyond the fact that McLaughlin’s guitar tone is different, in fact I can’t remember the last time I even liked one of his tones (although I can’t remember him ever playing less than excellent). Anyway it’s no surprise I’ve gotten this far without directly addressing this show as I barely remember it except for being kind of dull.