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Clips from Documentary Now! - Gentle and Soft: The Story of the Blue Jean Committee Part 1 (S01E01)

"- So we stroll into our first session at capstone,"
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"All excited."
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"- So these guys walk in,"
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"- I just go ka-bap."
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"You know, right in the mouth."
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"Gave him a concussion."
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"Clark comes into the same exact room and says,"
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"The blue jean committee.""
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"Gene had this vision"
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"[bluesy music]"
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"[clunky, out-of-tune blues music]"
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"♪ ♪"
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"♪ chicago ♪"
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"- ♪ oh, whoa, whoa ♪"
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"- ♪ chicago ♪"
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"♪ chicago ♪"
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"- ♪ oh, whoa, whoa ♪"
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"- ♪ can I get a couple of beers ♪"
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"♪ hey, miss ♪"
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"♪ one, two, three, four ♪"
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"♪ can I get a beer ♪"
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"We had "wind off the lake" and "goodbye, dan ryan," uh..."
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"That's--that's about mustaches. Uh..."
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"♪ lip service ♪"
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"♪ everybody's steamin' ♪"
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"- And it tanked, big-time."
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"Financed it ourselves."
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"- I think it hit clark pretty hard."
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"In this little apartment"
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"Over at wabash and cullerton."
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"Tried to drink himself to death."
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"- Wabash and cermak."
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"Drinking and druggin'."
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"I was paying for sex."
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"I'm walking out of bennie's"
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"With a 12'er of old style,"
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"When I saw the most beautiful sight."
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"I saw two seagulls cruising along."
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"[tranquil acoustic guitar]"
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"And beach balls and, you know, stuff like that,"
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"And, you know, for the first time in a while I felt good."
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"Wasn't till I sobered up that I realized"
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"That the birds were pigeons, but..."
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"You know, who gives a shit?"
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"He says, "you know what?"
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"[bleep] chicago.""
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""nobody says '[bleep] chicago.'""
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"And he says, uh, "california."
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"We're gonna be a california band.""
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"And the sun on your skin."
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"You know, that kind of shit, you know?"
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"Write music about that."
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"- Uh, you know, people often mention"
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"How the beach boys didn't surf,"
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"And they sang all these songs about surfing, you know?"
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"I--I mean, I think it's an interesting analogy"
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"To the blue jean committee who wrote about living in california"
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""I don't know what to-- you know, what are we"
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""hills and--and grapes?"
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"Wine? I don't know.""
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"- The fact of the matter is no one gave a shit about chicago."
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"I mean, we're not making any money."
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"I mean, that's just where the money was."
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"- So then, uh, clark says he'll write the songs if he has to."
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"We had no songs and no album."
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"So we're, uh, you know, stuck on an island, in a way."
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"We're just stuck out there in chicago"
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"And then, uh, what changed everything"
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"Was meeting, uh, alvin izoff."
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"- He was the biggest manager in the world at the time."
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"It was gonna be him."
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"- Clark had gotten a tip from a pal of ours"
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"Who worked at, uh, o'hare."
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"He was a skycap."
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"Alvin izoff had been coming into chicago."
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"Clark got an idea that we should camp out at terminal 3,"
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"And, uh..."
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"I hop in the bock of my limo."
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"He said, "who are you?""
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"Shut up. Listen to the tape.""
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"- ♪ kielbasa ♪"
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"- ♪ kielbasa ♪"
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"- ♪ kielbasa ♪"
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"- ♪ kielbasa ♪"
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"- ♪ kielbasa ♪"
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"[tape clicks]"
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"- Boy, could they sing."
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"- And you could see in his eyes"
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"The guy saw money, you know what I mean?"
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"- My big thing was reinventing a band's image."
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"I totally changed their look."
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"The whole california thing, however,"
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"- You got to remember,"
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"We'd never even been there."
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"- I gave up after about six hours."
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"I said, "[bleep] it, let's just fix the wardrobe.""
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"♪ ♪"
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"- Yeah, but don't insult the sausage."
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"- Then my cousins caught wind of it,"
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"I mean, it was nuts."
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"- Yeah, that was a scary time."
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"It's the first time in my life"
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"And, uh, that was the key to everything."
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"It was the only place we were safe,"
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"Which was a weird blessing in disguise"
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"Because that let gene,"
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"Was able to come up with something,"
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"And that--that became the "catalina" record."
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"- Every song on that record is incredible."
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"- I mean, like, now it's, like,"
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"I mean, every song on that record could have been a single."
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"- Was a single."
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"- Monday night we roll tape."
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"- You know, alvin's trying to mess with our clothes"
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"And our look and everything."
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"I love music, and I want to break down"
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"I found it, the harmonies and the vibe of the whole thing,"
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"And, uh, somehow the lyrics were there too."
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"♪ wiseman say if you want to know a man ♪"
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"And gene just wouldn't stop."
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