Music Mondays Presents Danielson: a Family Movie

Tonight, Alamo Music Mondays presents Danielson: a Family Movie, JL Aronson’s odd, adorable, utterly engrossing documentary look at the popular Christian indie band The Danielson Famile.

Shot over the course of five years, the film follows the Danielson project from its inauspicious art school beginnings through to bona fide indie-rock stardom. Weaving interviews, live performances, animated sequences and candid footage, the film examines the band from myriad angles, exploring the personal and creative lives of each family member. For the most part, though, the lens is trained on Daniel Smith, the eccentric, God-loving, shrill-voiced driving force behind every single Danielson project (Smith has released albums under various monikers, using shifting configurations of family members, contemporaries and friends as his backing band).

Far from a sterile puff-piece, Danielson: a Family Movie is a hugely enjoyable story about faith, determination, family, popular culture, integrity, failure and success— even a dash of jealousy. It’s probably the most fluid, natural, enjoyable music movie we’ve seen since Sam Jones’ I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, and it made quite a splash at SXSW Film earlier this year.

Smith is a classic outsider; too abstruse for the “Christian music” establishment, too chock full of ideas to settle down, but so downright strange that mainstream music fans often don’t know what to make of him. His story is sad, funny and inspiring all at once—and it gets even more interesting when Smith’s friend and semi-protégé Sufjan Stevens (who toured extensively with the Danielson Famile as a fill-in) hit the big time during the course of filming, entirely eclipsing everything Smith had accomplished up to that point.

Short appearances by Daniel Jonhston, Steve Albini and author Rick Moody round out the story, and some early live Sufjan Stevens performances add a shot of mainstream appeal (while, unfortunately, detracting from Smith’s own performances).

In addition to tonight’s screening, the film will also be playing three more times at the Alamo Downtown over the course of the next month. But we recommend you go tonight if you can—since it’s Music Monday, admission is (as always) a mere $2. Plus, we're going tonight, and we'd like to see you.

[Official Movie Website]
[Danielson Website]
[Danielson on Myspace]

Danielson: a Family Movie (or Make a Joyful Noise Here)
Monday, December 11th
Alamo Drafthouse Downtown
9:45pm, $2 / $1 student, AFS
[Tickets]