Ramones Are Not Dead is a on the road, no-budget documentary about Adelaide’s own Ramonettes doing two world tours playing the music they love to people who love it too. Formed shortly after the death of Joey Ramone in 2001, the trio initially just wanted to pay tribute to the music of these punk rock legends. They played around Adelaide and did a few shows interstate and then they struck on the idea of hooking up with other fans around the world and going on a very basic world tour. At the heart of this excellent film is the spirit of community, generosity and celebration as three Australian Ramones fans travel to Japan, Italy, Croatia, Greece, France and beyond, hooking up with other Ramones fans and cover bands who have organised gigs for them, floors for them to sleep on, and who wether they are 40 years old or 14 years old are joined together in this striking and vibrant community. Unfortunately the company (Warners) that handles all of the Ramones back catalogue, denied permission for the use of any Ramones songs to be used, even performed by the cover bands and not the Ramones. So they have had to use original songs by the cover bands instead of the Ramones songs, which is actually quite a punk thing to do. Hopefully Warners will come around for a later cut. At a time when even big bands with big record deals find it difficult to tour successfully, this documentary shows if you are doing something for the love of it, anything is possible.

There are some parallels with Ramones Are Not Dead and We Are
Wizards. Both deal with fan culture. Both films have had issues with
Warner Music. We Are Wizards is a brilliant look at Harry Potter fans.
In particular a bunch of people who have started creating their own
Harry Potter related music because they love the books and films so
much. Harry & The Potters started as a one of joke band, and all their
material is written from Potters perspective. Two brothers front the
band and are both Harry. Somewhat inspired by this another outfit
called Draco & The Malvoys started writing songs from the Draco
perspective and then it turns out that all over the USA there are
other people with the same idea. There are now over 100 – œWizard
Rock’ acts. This film is hilarious and if you like Harry Potter,
geeks & nerds this movie is for you! Not content to dress up for the
release of each book, Wizard Rock bands play gigs in libraries and
some of them are getting a huge cult following as a gig depicted here
shows with a 1000+ crowd going nuts to The Potters, The Malvoys and
the seven year old Hungarian Horntail – œI AM A DRAGON, I AM A DRAGON AND I DON’T CARE’ – awesome! Also covered in this doco is theguy who records his own commentaries to the films and his growing fear of the wrath of Warners. Warners famously started shutting down internet fan sites as infringing copyright. Often these were run by super fans or in one case a 12 year old girl who got a cease and desist letter from Warners lawyers. The fans took issue with this ludicrous action and a sixteen year old girl started Potter War, a defence and mobilization action against Warners. All of this and more
is covered in We Are Wizards.

An excellent double bill as part of the Adelaide Film Event.