Fighting the struggles of Joe Everyman, once again Jeff Klingman.

The explosion of the DVD as the dominant video medium has been swift and ruthless. They’re cheaper to make, smaller, and of higher sound and picture quality than their lame older brother the video cassette. Record companies in their altruistic search for the next $18.99 price tag have woken up to the milk capacity of this cash cow. With outlets for rock performance on television weirdly dwindling as the number of places for them to be potentially shown grows, DVD’s are a nice treat for us nerds. Their uses are varied and growing, so over the next few days I thought I’d spotlight a few of the predominant types with a representative example. How’d that be? Great.

Type #1: DVD as incentive to buy

Sleater-Kinney: The Woods – Bonus DVD (inserted in first pressing of The Woods CD)

You know why record companies have such a problem with people downloading their artist’s new albums instead of buying them? Well, disregarding the enduring truth of the Slavic proverb “People like free shit,” it’s their own damn faults. It’s the constant IV drip of information that’s fed to the press by record company flacks. “Band working on new album!” “Band’s new album gets name!” “New album track list revealed!” “New album artwork revealed!” “New album almost here!” “Three days until new album!” Ahhhhh! It’s too much.

I just want to hear the record, man. I know it’s done. Can’t we figure out a way to get it out sooner? You’ve been punching me in the face about this album for six months, so you know what? I’m going to go check Soulseek. If you would sell it to me, I’d buy it, but you won’t, so screw you. Of course from the record company perspective, this is wrong. But really, I don’t feel that bad. Maybe they could do something crazy like making the album available for paid download as soon as the band has completed it and then if trotting out the physical album takes longer, so be it. Make too much sense?

Since there are no signs of pre-record hype being cut back any time soon, the question of “How do we get people to buy something that we’ve already driven them to steal?” remains a pressing concern. Increasingly, the answer to that question has become, “Uhhh, stick a DVD in there?”

This brings us to Sleater-Kinney. Ten years and seven albums into a career that puts them squarely in the “best modern indie rock bands” conversation (and sort of scoffs at the need for a “best band made up of ladies” discussion), it’s a shame that any incentive is needed to get folks to check out their new disc. But there it is, a live, four track bonus DVD made up of practice performances in Portland, OR clubs where the new material got a road test. It is entirely irrelevant.

It was produced and directed by the super-ubiquitous Lance Bangs. I think he was involved in every indie rock DVD I’ve seen in the last five years. I’m not joking. Some of them have been pretty cool. This, however, looks and sounds like he tossed it off in a weekend. Well, since the band plays in four different clubs, two weekends.

Opening track, “Everything,” is a pretty forgettable b-side with muddled sound and a performance handcuffed by the small size of the venue. It’s also a little sad – screens behind the band are filled with already dated political slogans. But thanks for stopping the Bush girls, we all appreciate it. Next is “The Fox,” off of the album proper and it’s better shot and sounds clearer than the opener, but it’s still not all that interesting. The mixing of the song is not as aggressively in the red as it is on record, but that’s the only notable difference. “Modern Girl” sounds the same as it does on CD, but this time with even more harmonica. Thanks alot.

The last song is “Entertain,” the lead single from the album, and clearly a highpoint. This is the best of the performances on the disc by far, and the only one that really hints at the immense classic rock inspired sound that makes The Woods so good. Drummer Janet Weiss hits like a pissed off collection agent, and the acoustics of Portland’s Doug Fir give the track some real, echo-heavy, room to breathe. Since the song was a work in progress at the time, there is a Corin Tucker verse shoe-horned into the first part of the song that doesn’t really work, and is dropped from the final version. For that reason it might be interesting to obsessives interested in the development of the song-writing process.

The wisdom of the Slavs persists, and I’m certainly not mad that this DVD was included in my copy of The Woods. Ultimately though, it’s not even a good example of the muscle Sleater-Kinney put into their live shows and thus not recommended for fans who’ve never seen the band live. It’s definitely not a compelling reason in and of itself to buy the record in physical form, and I’ll probably never watch it again. But, uh, thank you?

//Sleater-Kinney site
//The Woods – Buy