Aaron Goldman

anacapa high, ucsc

posting history/documentary

on the lam

the new kid, history, editing, walking dogs, multi-tasking, cooking, swimming in lakes, baseball, rock music, scrabble

kafka on the shore, a third face: samuel fuller's autobiography, up in the old hotel, kitchen confidential, the red and the black, word freak, motherless brooklyn, auster

dreaming in america, day for night, spinal tap, stolen kisses, spellbound...the doc, the graduate, rushmore, chloe in the afternoon, fallen angels, down by law, claire's knee

lucero, the dying californian, the benny lackner trio, m. ward, outkast, tom waits, neil young, the clash, bob dylan, gang of four, buzzcocks, jawbreaker, old 97's, gram parsons, blonde redhead, rolling stones

daily show

Luceros Dreaming in America by New York Filmmaker Aaron Goldman
A New Documentary Chronicling a Blue-Collar Rock Groups Struggle to Survive

Dreaming in America chronicles Luceros struggle to survive and is due out October 11th 2005. From their troubled past, to the recording of their new album Nobodys Darlings, Dreaming in America serves as an emotional testimony of a band that makes music because they love it, theyre compelled to, and their lives depend on it. There are hundreds of such bands crisscrossing the country at any given moment. This is a film about one of them a band on the edge of greatness, working to break through.

At the heart of the documentary is the story of a blue-collar rock group's fight to exist and thrive since they formed in the late 90s. As the music industry has exploded over the past few decades, the ability to "move units" has become the defining calculus of the business. Dreaming in America starts with the band between labels and, though they had sold north of 20,000 records, the boys had not earned a single cent through royalties. Lucero had broken from their indie rock past and was considering the treacherous leap to a major label deal with the Warner Brothers backed East West imprint. Unlike anything seen by the industry before, East West offered them their own label and the ability to retain the rights to the music they created an offer they couldnt refuse.

Inspired by films like D.A Pennebaker's classic look at the enigmatic genius of Bob Dylan, Don't Look Back, Jem Cohen's Fugazi documentary, Instrument, and, more recently, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, the highly acclaimed Wilco movie by Sam Jones, Dreaming in America takes a brutally honest look at a brutally honest band. The film documents Luceros seemingly endless travels as they slug it out on the road, playing more than 250 shows a year, recording in a barn with legendary producer Jim Dickinson...