Documentary of The National To Open Tribeca Film Festival

Guess which brother is in a rock band and which one is the film maker.

More news from The National, this time from the "I'm so glad my brother is in the band" department.

From the email, painstakingly formatted into a blog post:

New York, NY (February 28, 2013)—The Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) today announced that the world premiere of Mistaken for Strangers, executive produced by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Marshall Curry and produced by Matt Berninger, Carin Besser and Craig Charland, will open the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by American Express. Director Tom Berninger chronicles his experience on tour with his brother, The National’s frontman Matt Berninger, in this funny and affecting film, which will also play during the Festival’s 12^th edition. The premiere, taking place on Wednesday, April 17, will be followed by a special performance by The National. The Festival will run through April 28.

Mistaken for Strangers follows The National on its biggest tour to date. Newbie roadie Tom (lead singer Matt Berninger’s younger brother) is a heavy metal and horror movie enthusiast, and can’t help but put his own spin on the experience. Inevitably, Tom’s moonlighting as an irreverent documentarian creates some drama for the band on the road. The film is a hilarious and touching look at two very different brothers and an entertaining story of artistic aspiration.

“Mistaken for Strangers exemplifies the independent spirit and vitality that Tribeca is excited to showcase every year,” said Geoff Gilmore, Chief Creative Officer. “We are thrilled to open with a film that embodies the journey of an independent filmmaker, and is at its core a highly personal and lighthearted story about brotherly love. It will be a great night of both indie film and music.”

“We’re really happy to premiere this movie at Tribeca, as New York has been home to us for these past 15 years,” Matt Berninger said. “I was happy to give my brother whatever access he needed. I just didn’t expect this movie to include shower scenes.”
“When my brother asked me along on tour as a roadie, I thought I might as well bring a camera to film the experience,” explained director Tom Berninger. “What started as a pretty modest tour documentary has, over the last two and a half years, grown into something much more personal, and hopefully more entertaining. It’s a huge thrill to be showing this movie at the Tribeca Film Festival.”

The National band members include Matt Berninger, Bryce Dessner, Aaron Dessner, Bryan Devendorf and Scott Devendorf. In 2010 the band released High Violet, which sold more than half a million copies worldwide. A brand new studio album from The National is slated for a May release on 4AD with a world tour to follow.
The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival will announce its feature film slate on March 5 and 6, 2013.

About the Tribeca Film Festival:
The Tribeca Film Festival helps filmmakers reach the broadest possible audience, enabling the international film community and general public to experience the power of cinema and promote New York City as a major filmmaking center. It is well known for being a diverse international film festival that supports emerging and established directors.

Founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff in 2001 following the attacks on the World Trade Center, to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of the lower Manhattan district through an annual celebration of film, music and culture, the Festival brings the industry and community together around storytelling.

The Tribeca Film Festival has screened more than 1,400 films from more than 80 countries since its first edition in 2002. Since inception, it has attracted an international audience of more than 4 million attendees and has generated an estimated $750 million in economic activity for New York City.

About the 2013 Festival Sponsors
As Founding Sponsor of the Tribeca Film Festival, American Express is committed to supporting the Festival and the art of filmmaking, bringing business and energy to New York City and offering Cardmembers and festivalgoers the opportunity to enjoy the best of storytelling through film.

The Tribeca Film Festival is pleased to announce the return of its Signature Sponsors: Accenture, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Bloomberg, BOMBAY SAPPHIRE® Gin, Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), Brookfield, Cadillac, Conrad Hotels & Resorts, ESPN, GE FOCUS FORWARD (in partnership with cinelan), Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Heineken USA, JetBlue, Magnum® Ice Cream, NBC 4 New York, NCM Media Networks, The New York Times, and OppenheimerFunds, as well as its Cultural Partner the Doha Film Institute. The Festival is also honored to welcome the following new Signature Sponsors: IWC Schaffhausen, PepsiCo.

Tickets for the 2013 Festival:
Tickets for the Festival will be $16.00 for evening and weekend screenings, and $8.00 for all late night and weekday matinee screenings.

Advance selection ticket packages and passes go on sale Monday, March 4 for American Express Cardmembers, and on Monday, March 11 for the general public. All advance selection packages and passes can be purchased online at www.tribecafilm.com/festival, or by telephone at (646) 502-5296 or toll free at (866) 941-FEST (3378).

Single ticket and discounted ticket package sales begin Tuesday, April 9 for American Express Cardmembers, Sunday, April 14 for downtown residents, and Monday, April 15 for the general public. Single tickets can be purchased online, by telephone, or at one of the Ticket Outlets, with locations at Tribeca Cinemas at 54 Varick Street, Chelsea Clearview Cinemas at 260 W. 23rd Street, and AMC Loews Village VII at 66 3rd Avenue. The 2013 Festival will continue offering ticket discounts for evening and weekend screenings for students, seniors and select downtown Manhattan residents. Discounted tickets are available at Ticket Outlet locations only. Discounted ticket packages can only be purchased online and by phone. Additional information and further details on the Festival can be found at www.tribecafilm.com.

The National Announce New Album And Summer 2013 Tour

Some recent activity in the National camp as the band wraps a new record and plans a new tour.

Here's some garbage that clogged up my email that wasn't from Condoms Depot.

[Brooklyn, NY, February 25, 2013] -- Following the announcement of their return to New York on June 5th at Barclay’s Center, The National are pleased to announce their North American and European summer tour. The tour begins on May 16th and covers the eastern United States and Canada before heading to Europe.. Highlights include Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee in June and Cincinnati's Bunbury music festival on July 14.

A brand new studio album from The National is slated for a May release on 4AD. This forthcoming release is follow up to the critically acclaimed High Violet (2010), which brought the band global critical and commercial success. People Magazine described the album as “stellar, moody atmospherics.” and Rolling Stone called it “a seductive collection of subtly surging anti-anthems, with evocative lyrics about the terrors and unexpected joys of adult life.”

Formed in 1999, The National consists of vocalist Matt Berninger and two pairs of brothers: Aaron (guitar, bass, piano) and Bryce Dessner (guitar), and Scott (bass, guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums). Their first full-lengths, The National and Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers, and a crucial mini-album, Cherry Tree, preceded their signing to Beggars Banquet in 2004. Alligator (2005), included underground anthem “Mr. November,” and raised their profile as the National grew into an incendiary live band. Boxer (2007), featuring songs like “Fake Empire”, “Mistaken For Strangers” and “Start A War,” sold over three times as many copies as its predecessor and saw them transformed from underground stars into a rock institution. In 2010 High Violet was released on 4AD and has sold 300,000 copies in the US.

Both individually and collectively The National’s members have been involved in countless artistic, charitable and socio-political pursuits.

5/16: State Theater Ithaca, NY
6/05: Barclay's Center Brooklyn, NY
6/06: Merriweather Post Pavilion Columbia, MD
6/07: Mann Center for Performing Arts Philadelphia, PA
6/08: The National Richmond, VA
6/10: Red Hat Amphitheatre Raleigh, NC
6/11: Stage AE Pittsburgh, PA
6/13: Lachine Canal Montreal, Canada
6/14: Yonge Dundas Square Toronto, Canada
6/15: LC Pavilion Columbus, OH
6/13-6/16: Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival Manchester, TN
6/21: Hurricane Festival Scheessel, Germany
6/22: Southside Festival Neuhausen ob Eck, Germany
6/25: Cirque Royal Brussels, Belgium
6/28: Live At The Marquee Cork, Ireland
6/30: Parco Della Musica Rome, Italy
7/01: City Sound Festival Milan, Italy
7/02: Salata Zagreb, Croatia
7/14: Cincinnati, OH Bunbury Festival

The National - High Violet

I didn’t think a band is supposed to work this way in these times: follow up the most successful album of your career with one that could potentially become the least likely to succeed.

But I can’t say enough about High Violet, The National’s fifth album and most ambitious release to date, not only in terms of how its woe ultimately takes the wind out of any momentum that Boxer may have provided it, but how focused, smart, and goddamn good it sounds in those dark corners of personal abyss.

Yes, High Violet is one of those albums: trudging through slow-tempo depression, looking for drugs you’ve hidden to shed a little light on your condition. But it’s also an effort of meticulous concentration. There’s not an inch of magnetic tape wasted and no notes that haven’t been democratically thought out.

It’s the album that everyone thought those other N.Y.C. bands that graced the music mags at the first part of this century would be making by this point. Instead, it was released by the least likely to succeed-the band that stuck to practicing and reading Dostoyevsky rather than waste the day shopping for clothes and reading N.M.E. cocktease articles about themselves.

Singer Matt Berninger admits “I don’t have the drugs to sort it out” on “Afraid Of Everyone,” but you get the feeling that it has nothing to do with the success that the National have found during their run. Instead, the discontent sounds like the same old shit that you and I stress about, the shit that has you popping an extra Vicodin, Oxycodone, or Adderall just to give some feeling to the machinery.

At first-particularly in High Violets’ first half-it’s hard to hear the splendor but by “Bloodbuzz Ohio” rolls around, things start getting great. Quickly.

Much of the band’s success falls on the throat of Berninger. Understand, I will do anything in my power to cut a lead singer down to size, but here, Beringer’s baritone is critical to the overall timbre of defeat. Put him in a vocal league next to Ian Curtis, Richard Butler, and Michael Gira, but he’s clearly ahead of his peers in the post millennium N.Y.C. rock resurgence. Strangely enough, Beringer has less of a range than Julian Casablancas or Paul Banks, but he sounds a helluva lot more honest that either one of ‘em.

As do the respective other members at play here. Brothers Dessner and Devendorf paint huge landscapes the record, as colorful as the album title may suggest. They do it with simple patterns and slow-build arrangements. The weird thing about their dynamics throughout High Violet is how the next step up in the song’s grandiosity may be an extra tambourine or some gentle strings. Their restraint is admirable and it allows the listener to put as much emotional weight into the song as they want to.

Truth be told, that may be a benefit as occasionally you’ll catch yourself getting all worked up only to hear Beringer utter “I was afraid I’d eat your brains” or “I’ll explain everything to the geese.”

But whatever, High Violet is so appropriately arranged, professionally executed and so blatantly intent on sounding like one of the year’s best album that it actually becomes exactly that.

This review originally appeared in Glorious Noise.