Washington, D.C. is in many ways a city of extremes. Starland Vocal Band, Marvin Gaye, Duke Ellington, Nils Lofgren, Chuck Brown, Henry Rollins, Fugazi and Trouble Funk all hail from D.C. In the early '70s, the music style go-go originated here, and has remained a local craze ever since. Dave Grohl sits down with Trouble Funk's Big Tony Fisher to talk about go-go, and explores its origins with Chuck Brown, the genre's undisputed godfather. He also chats with Don Zientara, owner of Inner Ear Studios, which the Virginia-raised Grohl says 'produced the entire soundtrack of my youth,' as well as with members of the harDCore band Bad Brains and Ian MacKaye of Teen Idles, Minor Threat and Fugazi, who all recorded at Inner Ear over the decades. The song 'The Feast and the Famine' is recorded during this episode.
the story of rock singer "Pink" who is sitting in his hotel room in Los Angeles, burnt out from the music business and only able to perform on stage with the help of drugs. Based on the 1979 double album "The Wall" by Pink Floyd, the film begins in Pink's youth where he is crushed by the love of his mother. Several years later, he is punished by the teachers in school because he is starting to write poems. He slowly begins to build a wall around himself to be protected from the world outside. The film shows all this in massive and epic pictures until the very end where he tears down the wall and breaks free. Directed by Alan Parker
The Internet enables us to connect with people, images and information in ways that were unimaginable 30 years ago. But with every click we are re-wiring the physical structure of our brains. Are we evolving or actively de-evolving down a dopamine-laced click-hole? In this episode meet a 17-year-old boy struggling with an addiction to online pornography; autistic technologists in Silicon Valley who are turning their genetic variation to an advantage; plus, Nootropics, a class of cognition-enhancing supplements that claims to rewire the brain.
It was 1985. Guns N' Roses were soon to be known as the last mammoth rock entity to come out of LA after selling over 100 million albums. Jon Brewer brings alive never-before-seen video footage of Guns N' Roses in their earliest days as a fledgling band, filmed and meticulously archived over the years by their close friend. They became known as 'the most dangerous band in the world' and retained the title for reasons this film portrays, via interviews with band members and those who were there on, and off, tour. Venture down seedy Sunset Strip to the Whiskey, the Rainbow and the Roxy, all known as 'the Jungle'.
In the second episode, Professor Iain Stewart discovers how flowers have transformed our planet. He journeys to the remote islands of the South Pacific to track down the earliest flowers. In the deserts of Africa and rainforests of Vietnam, he sees how they brought brilliant colour to the most barren landscapes and sculpted the earth itself. And he learns how they drove the evolution of all animals - kick-starting our human story.
No two islands in the Galapagos are the same. The imperceptible drift of a continental plate keeps each island biologically isolated. David Attenborough explores this evolutionary crucible, encountering tortoises that weigh up to half a tonne, finches that use tools and lizards that communicate using press-ups; for Darwin, this was all evidence for his theory of evolution. We see the final footage of the world famous tortoise fondly known as Lonesome George, the last survivor of his species. David Attenborough was the last person to have ever filmed with him. Darwin’s famous visit had a downside – the arrival of man. David investigates the impact we’ve had in these islands, as our influence is a double-edged sword. We’ve disrupted the natural balance but he also believes Darwin would be thrilled with the advances we have made in science. We’re also now uncovering evidence that evolution is more rapid than Darwin could ever have imagined. Whatever wonders the Galapagos Islands hold today, they are only a hint of what awaits them in the future.
He also chats with Don Zientara, owner of Inner Ear Studios, which the Virginia-raised Grohl says 'produced the entire soundtrack of my youth,' as well as with members of the harDCore band Bad Brains and Ian MacKaye of Teen Idles, Minor Threat and Fugazi, who all recorded at Inner Ear over the decades. The song 'The Feast and the Famine' is recorded during this episode.