Movie Night: Film Festival!
By Lee McCoy
The Glamour & the Squalor (Documentary)
Marco Collins, subject of The Glamour & the Squalor
For those with longer attention spans, the festival is screening the documentary The Glamour & the Squalor. Directed by first-time filmmaker Marq Evans, this doc tells the fascinating story of Seattle DJ
Marco Collins and the incredible mark he left on the rock music scene. Woven into the 80-minute film are threads of his own personal struggles, of the fight for marriage equality in Washington State, and of the music industry before the internet changed it all.
I daresay all of us can remember when radio stations had real DJs. They were the unseen guardians of the FM airwaves, decreeing which tracks would be allowed into our cars, our homes and our souls. The
DJ pantheon doubtless includes names like Alan Freed and Wolfman Jack, but for their influence on rock music itself, there’s Marco Collins and nobody else. His uncanny ear for greatness put band after band on the air long before the rest of the world figured out what they were hearing.
The film effectively merges archival footage of Marco and the bands he helped break with animations recounting life events that aren’t already preserved with a recording. Particularly heart-wrenching are the stories from his childhood of being bullied at school for being gay (any of us remember “Smear the
Queer”?) and of being rejected by his father who pined for a football-playing son.
The depiction of the record industry in 1990s Seattle is also fascinating, as it has become inextricably linked to the explosion of grunge on the music scene. Marco was on top—both kingmaker and celebrity in his own right—and counted rock music’s royalty among his fellow party-goers. The film features interviews of Marco and others such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Beck, Weezer, Garbage, Courtney Love,
Vitalogy and Harvey Danger who helped shape his story. Not surprising in a film about music, it features a top-notch original score (by Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready). The film also shines in its depiction of
Marco’s battle with personal demons, including the decisions he made that ended a star-making career at VH-1 before it began.
The Glamour & the Squalor screens at Choi Auditorium on Occidental campus on Friday, October 9th at
1:00pm.