Our Cinema Could Be Your Life Season Pass 18

From the archive

This film was last shown on 5 April 2024

Festival passes for all films in the OUR CINEMA COULD BE YOUR LIFE season can be bought for £25

Showroom Cinema is proud to present a special season of films celebrating music of a collection of alternative bands that quickly and permanently changed the world. From punk and hardcore to alt-rock, Riot Grrrl, and Grunge, the American underground music scene from 1981-1991 was a tinderbox of musical creativity that burned bright and fast.

The season takes its title from Michael Azerrad’s book ‘Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Underground 1981-1991', named one of the 50 best music books ever written by The Observer. The book explored thirteen bands that changed the landscape of alternative music forever including Black Flag, Minor Threat, The Replacements, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Mudhoney, and Fugazi – and the book recognised their previously overlooked impact in music history, bridging the gap from Talking Heads to Nirvana.

The season opens with a special Q&A with the author Michael Azerrad alongside a screening of We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen, following Minutemen, one of the influential bands from the book whose lyrics inspired the title.

The opening night of the season will also feature a screening of Kurt Cobain: About a Son, on the 30th anniversary of the Nirvana singer’s tragic suicide. The screening will be introduced by Michael Azerrad, who wrote the only authorised biography of the band, ‘Come as You are: The Story of Nirvana’, and whose recorded interviews with Cobain make up the film’s narration.

Special screenings of films about bands featured in ‘Our Band Could Be Your Life’ follow, including Jem Cohen’s highly-acclaimed film about Fugazi, Instrument.

This will be followed by a screening of 1991: The Year Punk Broke, which features Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Babes in Toyland, Mudhoney and more, and the screening will be followed by a virtual Q&A with its director David Markey.

A special Saturday night party, TEEN AGE RIOT, will take place in the Showroom bar and feature music from bands from the book, films, and the wider alternative scene.

The final day sees a special screening of 2021’s Freakscene: The Story of Dinosaur Jr., a rough and raucous documentary on the rollercoaster history of the legendary noise merchants.

The season closes out with a Showroom Classics screening of Cameron Crowe’s Singles. Shot in Seattle at the height of Grunge by former music journalist turned film director, Cameron Crowe, the film features cameos from members of Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, and original songs from Paul Westerberg of The Replacements. Singles is both a time capsule of the Seattle music scene and a standalone classic Billy Wilder-esque romantic comedy.