Runnin’ Down a Dream Trailer

dir: Peter Bogdanovich

2007

Before I get into this, I want to be clear: Tom Petty is the Man. For most of the 70s & 80s, Tom was the only guy on mainstream radio you could be sure still listened to his copy of Nuggets.

Runnin’ Down a Dream looks amazing, if only because a four-hour DVD cut will allow them to use as much vintage footage of the band as they can find.

But here what Tom says at about 2:50 in to the trailer:

“There’s something special about this group of people. I treasure it now, because one link in the chain gone could make it all go away.”

What the hell?

Is that comment highlighted because the kid who edited the trailer thought it sounded uplifting or is it a cheap shot at ex-drummer Stan Lynch?

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers managed to alternate between Ron Blair & the late Howie Epstein on bass, but things haven’t been the same since Stan quit in 1994. Steve Ferrone may be a more technically accomplished player, but Stan meshed better with the band.

Maybe it’s out of context and there will be half an hour’s worth of serious Stan love in the completed film.

Or maybe I just have an overdeveloped ear for band politics. I thought the Bruce Springsteen Wings for Wheels documentary was most notable for how everyone went out of his way to make amends and give credit to Mike Appel. And all I can remember about Michael Stipe’s speech at R.E.M.’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction is how he pointedly left Jefferson Holt off a thank-you list of what seemed like a hundred people.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers = still worth seeing any night you can get a ticket. But it was better when Stan was in the band.

Charlie Pickett & the MC3

“If This is Love, Can I Get My Money Back?”

(Florida 1988)

Fact: Charlie Pickett started making records in 1981, a mere 15 years after the garage band explosion of 1966. It’s now 2007, more than 15 years after the alternarock explosion of 1991. You can work out what that means for yourself.

That’s not a random fact: Charlie’s first cousin Mark Markham led Mark Markham & the Jesters, Ft. Lauderdale’s most successful 60s punk band with a single picked up by RCA for national distribution.

Mark made a big impression on his much-younger cousin. Charlie Pickett & the Eggs recorded Mark’s song “If This is Love Can I Get My Money Back?” on their first single in 1981. I’ve been looking for a copy of this record since 1982 with zero success. I hear it’s amazing.

Charlie somehow made it to Minneapolis and recorded a decidedly not-punk album called Route 33 for Twin/Tone Records in 1986. Even though everyone remembers Twin/Tone for releasing the Replacements and Soul Asylum, the label always tried to make mainstream records on the cheap. Records by the Suburbs, the Wallets, Curtiss A and Figures may have their charms but they don’t really fit with the label’s underground image. Route 33 was probably Twin/Tone’s best fake-major-label record, but it didn’t make Charlie Pickett a star.

So Charlie went back to Florida and put together the MC3. Safety Net Records got Peter Buck to produce The Wilderness, a full-on garage band record that included this fine new version of “If This is Love.”

Since this was 1988, the label made some CDs but good luck finding one.

• Download: If This is Love Can I Get My Money Back?

(Safety Net Records NET 15)