Thrice - If We Could Only See Us Now
by Travis Becker

The Rock documentary is a slowly dying beast, like a woolly mammoth caught in a tar pit.  Once upon a time, a Rock film could be artistic and engaging in its own right.  Movies like “Don’t Look Back” and “The Last Waltz” gave Rock fans a rare look into the lives and personalities of established acts and stars that was mostly unavailable at the time.  In today’s music world, where you can tune in to any one of half a dozen music only television channels, choose from a hundred music-oriented magazines, or try to swim the veritable ocean of music information that is the Internet, is there really still a place for the Rock documentary?  A segment of the record industry would like us to think so.  A limited edition DVD, for example,  “adds value” to a release, but if we’re being totally honest about things, they offer an opportunity to widely distribute promotional films on bands and make the unwary listener want to buy more records, more tickets and moret-shirts.  The new release by Orange County’s Thrice, a stop gap between the release of “Artist in the Ambulance” in 2003 and the summer-slated release date for their new record, is such a promotional film.  There’s value here, but it certainly is not destined for a place in the annals of Rock movie history.
       
The awkwardly titled, “If We Could Only See Us Now”, is a combination of a DVD movie, documenting the band’s short career in encyclopedic detail, and a CD of rare tracks, live songs, and covers. Thrice has certainly made a name for themselves in the ever expanding world of Punk Rock, but to be fair, the band has only released three proper albums, two of them very good.  “The Artist in the Ambulance” propelled them to a new pinnacle of mature songwriting and edgy playing, and the metallic edge many of the songs contained was fresh and original.  That being said, I’m not sure it was time to produce an almost two hour long, “Behind the Music”-like documentary.  It’s not that some of the information isn’t interesting, snippets on Sub City records and the in’s and out’s of recording their three albums were engaging to a point.  However, one can only stand to hear the phrases, “I remember, it was back in seventh grade…” or “I remember, it was back in 2002…” before the whole affair starts to get a little repetitive.

For devoted fans of the band, this is your ticket to all aspects of these four guys’ lives, some of which I could have lived without-toilet scenes come to mind.  The film is well put together, no doubt by the best marketing people major label money can buy, and the mix of live footage and interviews feels pretty good, with the scales tipped slightly in favor of interviews unfortunately.  A really cutting edge video artist would have spiced things up and lent some much needed “film for film’s sake” type material to the proceedings.  The live performance tracks included on the DVD make up for any deficiency in cinematography, although annoyingly enough, there is no way to play all of the tracks back to back.  A couple of music videos round out the DVD portion of the package.   
        
The CD contains the bulk of the value in the release, and with the pricing I wouldn’t feel bad thinking about it as an EP with a bonus DVD thrown into the mix that you never have to watch.  The first two tracks are bonus tracks that appeared on other releases taken from the “Artist in the Ambulance” sessions.  It says something for how good that record was that even these two throwaway tracks stand up to most Punk coming through the pipeline.  An acoustic rendering of “Stare at the Sun” follows, which features an interesting arrangement, less impassioned than the version released, but worthy of a spin or two.  The next two  songs, “Cold Cash and Colder Hearts” and “The Artist in the Ambulance” are live recordings from an in-store appearance and despite some iffy sound quality are a pretty good testament of the band’s live sounds, although much less so than the tracks on the DVD.  Two covers, which are decent sounding, but are for collectors more than anyone I imagine, and a live track and a b-side from “Illusion of Safety” finish the whole thing up and are of obviously poorer quality than the “Artist…” stuff.  It wasn’t a great way to finish the disc, but for the sake of completeness, it’s nice to have all of these songs in one place. 
        
The Rock documentary may be dead, but the value-added promotional package is alive and well.  “If We Could Only See Us Now” may fall into the latter category, but it’s still elite among its peers. If the question is, “Is this any good?” the answer is an emphatic yes. Thrice seems committed to releasing a quality product and they don’t falter here.  If, however, the question posed is, “Was this necessary at this early point in Thrice’s career?” then the answer is a big negative. This fun little package will tide over the rabid fans of the band, but will annoy more causal fans expecting a follow up by now.  Goofy exploits caught on film aside, Thrice is a maturing band on the rise in the Punk Rock scene and this whole package does justice to the commitment to great music and integrity that the band brings to the table.  The problem is their music makes that abundantly clear without the movie. 
 

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