Devil's in the Details, Vol. 1

Midwest punk trailblazer and Meatmen frontman Tesco Vee takes his fans through an extended tour of his semi-illustrious career and overwhelming ego on this DVD. The Meatmen: The Devil's In The Details, Vol. One has been transferred to disc in the full-frame aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and the material ranges from brand-new animation and comedy sketches to live footage of the Meatmen's original lineup. Most of the music footage was clearly shot by amateurs with camcorders, and even the more professional stuff has been sourced from tapes that have obviously seen a lot of use, so anyone hoping for a high quality presentation from the band's archives is likely to be disappointed. As for the new material, while the stuff looks fine (if often homemade), it's hard to say how long anyone wants to watch Tesco impersonate Satan or show us home movies of his teenage son (the lad seems to be following in his dad's footsteps), and there's enough here to test anyone's patience. The audio has been mastered in Dolby Digital Stereo, and the quality is variable to the same degree as the visuals, though overall the sound is significantly better than the images. The songs and dialogue are in English, with no multiple language or subtitles included. And while the main menu (best not described to the easily offended) does allow viewers to cue up individual segments, there is no onscreen guide to which spot will take you where, so folks looking for the Baltimore episode of Tesco's MTV show Way USA or the clip of the Meatmen doing "I Got A Problem" on public access TV will have to use trial and error to find them. (There is a "cheat sheet" on Tesco's website; be warned it's Not Suitable For Work and go to http://www.tescovee.com/cheat.php for the details.) If you're a Meatmen loyalist, The Devil's In The Details offers as much as you could want from the band's long and twisted history, though only the most obsessed (i.e. folks who are as interested in Tesco's ABBA memorabilia as his music) will watch this whole thing more than once.