Two friends. They got together and made great music. The they fell apart. End of story. Both remain fine musicians to this day, and have influenced a generation (or two, or three). Leave it at that. This is about history, not about promotion (I like Oregon, too, but the previous poster's agenda is just too transparent). We may be interested in what they are doing now, maybe not. This is about what they did then. And what they did was affect players and song writers for many years to come. Peter & Steve where that, then. Bow down to them both for that. But get a life...it's over. If you don't know who these people are, or have never heard more than "Boobs A Lot", or you are not at least 60 years old (as of 2012) this movie is not for you. This is not a feature film, it is a documentary piece of history, if you understand the difference.

I reviewed this for a British fan magazine, "Blue Navigator". Here's what happened when I walked in on the movie at Film Form in NYC. (I'd seen it on DVD at home already.)On screen, Weber is rapping to an interviewer about being a hedonist, being spontaneous, saying how he might or might not be drunk by noon, that sort of thing. He views it as a lifestyle. We see glimpses of Weber's house in the country (which has since been demolished, unfortunately). There is some impressive footage of the old place - a humble yet unique and marvelous dwelling. (Peter later explained to me that Weber's mom's farm had two stone barns from the 1700s, and when their roofs decayed, she and Steve had moved into what used to be the chicken coop.) Later in the movie, Steve and Peter are sitting in the garden there, having a little tiff about Weber's having, at some time, taken credit for songs which had come from Peter. Peter is laughingly accusative; Steve wants to be cool, and he's not at all receptive to having a serious conversation on camera. They calm down eventually, and life goes on.There are clips of Dave Reisch talking about how the band got along, how they traveled, why they moved to Portland – the band was very well received there, drugs were cheap, and it was a great home base for touring in the West. Later Dave shows us where he lives, on top of a mountain – incredible view. Interviews come at us right and left, and we follow the band on tour for a while, often focusing on Weber and his hedonist shenanigans. He's close to drunk at the sound check, for instance.There's a nice rooftop interview with Robin talking about band conflicts, and about how Weber seemed to be the only one who hadn't sobered up. Good interview with Peter's wife Betsy about their early days, and how Peter had still been living with Antonia when he and Betsy fell for each other. Peter does a nice interview at work, showing us his desk, his computer, his waste basket. Robert Christgau gives a good interview, says some nice things, especially about Peter. Dave Van Ronk has an equally good interview. Sam Shepard says a few things ("We were on Laugh-In?"). There are more interviews but I can't recall them now, sorry. While road scenes fly by, and we are in cars with the Portland band plus Peter, for the reunion tour, the music on the soundtrack is from the early Rounders. It's a good juxtaposition. If the music had followed the chronology, the brilliant 1960s stuff would have been in the first part of the film, and the tour would have generated the later soundtrack. (I know the big band was good, but compared to the duo? I ask you to picture songs like "Euphoria" with numerous solos; they were a dance band, a whole other thing. Perhaps I should admit my own leanings toward the introverted side of music. I'm sure some people prefer the ragtime fun of the big band.)The movie does a great job of putting the story together and holding our interest. We are often reminded of the original duo, and how important a part Steve has always played. As the van crosses the Golden Gate Bridge, we hear "Bound to Lose", the last song on the first album. What a great song, and what a great performance. As good as anything I've heard, even 40 years later. Thrilling, mesmerizing, haunting, absolutely telepathic - Steve and Peter are perfect together. The guitar and banjo, the harmony voices, the stance, all are simply beautiful. "Sailing down the rivaar..."Then we hit the final chapter of the documentary: Steve wanders off and never shows up in Portland for the reunion. Peter phones long-distance in vain, and finally the show must go on. We learn that Weber has now been completely out of touch with everyone for six months, and on that doubtful note the film sails into the sunset.In some alternate universe, there's a Hollywood version of the Rounders story: a cleanly rewritten bio of this great folk/blues/old-timey duo that became a success, grew to seven members, toured the country, played many many shows, splintered into spin-offs, reunited, won some big award. I can imagine the breakup scenes, the bottles hitting the mirror in the dressing room, the yelling at girlfriend scenes, woozy druggy scenes, lonely kicking the can down the street at dawn sequence, almost-empty mansions of gloom, tearful reunions, audiences going crazy. Curtain. But here in this universe, we have the gargantuan labyrinth of human events and unclear messages. These messages, if we can make them out, are not very Hollywood: music is transcendent but history is tragic, time makes fools of us, drugs are useful but tricky, inspiration and discipline go hand in hand, it's hard to know who to trust, love conquers almost all, where's the money, etc.I really like "Bound To Lose" - the title, the footage, the camera-work, the editing, and the characters. It's about these guys who forged a new synthesis of styles, another new world on which, as on earth, it's difficult to support and sustain life as we know it.

Weber's not the total fool he appears here (though he apparently loves to play one), nor is Stampfel more dedicated musically. Weber's played music daily all these years, and probably doesn't need all THAT much rehearsal because of it....Residents of Portland Oregon were lucky enough to experience some 20 YEARS of continuous playing by Weber and Jeffrey Frederick, fronting identical bands known as the HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS and THE CLAMTONES. I would refer interested parties to The Freakmountain Ramblers for a currently working manifestation of this band. Also on the Freakmountain site, there is a Jeffrey Fredericks link with some newly issued old material well worth hearing.

This starts out as the funniest rockumentary Christopher Guest never made, thanks to Steve Weber, to whom the word "mercurial" doesn't do justice. Weber's on screen antics pale compared to stories of his even chemicalier past: a Fug claims that Weber once treated a toothache by dropping acid. One running joke is that no one can believe Weber is still alive, least of all his long-suffering 40-year bandmate, Peter Stampfel. (The other running gag is that almost everyone thinks the band sucks.) Even before he went straight in the mid-Seventies, Stampfel, the more musically dedicated of the pair, had to deal with Weber's epicurean and Bacchanalian tendencies, which naturally precluded practising.The movie (which evolved out of, of all things, a documentary about Stampfel's champion and lookalike, critic Robert Christgau) isn't a history, so swathes of Stampfel's and Weber's lives are left unexplored, and inevitably some of these absences are cause for regret: Hurley/Stampfel/Frederick's "Have Moicy!", strong evidence for the existence of collective genius, isn't considered, and the Rounders' mutual ex Antonia is only mentioned in passing. What is there is a depiction of a very odd couple. Early on, they're shown light-heartedly needling each other on stage; later, though, their arguments are weirdly passive-aggressive, like in "Some Kind of Monster". Stampfel obviously has a lot of affection for his pal, but experience has taught that relying on him is inadvisable. Weber's mind is unreadable: what's going on there beside working out where the next drink will come from? Whatever it is, he doesn't let anyone know. Near the end, it's heartbreaking when Stampfel comes to the conclusion that although he'd like to play with Weber again, it's alright if he never does.You get the Rounders' music or you don't, only be warned that in either case you'll be totally disorientated after a first listen; the best way into the catalogue of the Rounders and friends is still Have Moicy! The soundtrack here includes comparatively well-known classics like "Euphoria", "Boobs a Lot" and "Griselda", as well as rarities like the Holy Grail of Rounderdom, "F--king Sailors in Chinatown" (if the filmmakers are reading this, you must put "Chinatown" on the DVD; this is not negotiable). Stampfel's wedgied funnyvoice (which turns out to be more or less his normal speaking voice) balances Weber's lackadaisical ease. The music evokes Weber's idea that enjoying the present moment is everything, especially if it's lunchtime. But it requires Stampfel's professionalism to sustain the illusion. So in the end, guys, does it really matter that much who wrote those songs?