The 2025 Palisades fire had at least one upshot. When her neighborhood was evacuated, director Tamra Davis scoured her house for irreplaceable things to salvage. One such treasure was a box of Hi8 tapes containing footage that she’d shot in the summer of 1995. At that time, Davis was riding high on the success of her first film, Billy Madison, so she ready for an epic vacation. She decided to join then-husband, Mike D on a tour through Australia and Asia. She would bring along her video camera with no specific agenda, except to make some cool ass home movies with her indie rock family, that included Sonic Youth, Bikini Kill, Pavement, Beck, the Foo Fighters, and Rancid. Nevertheless, Davis was well qualified to film bands, having cut her directing teeth on a whole bunch of music videos. What sets The Best Summer apart from other music documentaries is the intimacy afforded by Tamra’s insider status. This means we get to see many of these guarded show folk in an unusually relaxed state. They are further disarmed by Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hannah who acts as a sort of Riot Grrrl Terri Gross. She’s so friendly, intellectual, and nonchalant, that even the coolest of the too-cool-for-school crowd can’t help but appease her.
The Best Summer is a perfectly preserved time capsule of a turning point in music history. Circa summer 1995, Beck was known as the “Loser” guy, The Beastie Boys had yet to become Beastie Men, and Bikini Kill were in the process of breaking out from the cloistered Oly scene. East Bay punk band Rancid had a surprise hit with “Radio” and they were working on their follow-up, “…And Out Come the Wolves”. Pavement were those irreverent preppy guys in polo shirts on MTV singing about haircuts and drummer troubles. Dave Grohl was trying to get his new band, the Foo Fighters, off the ground with former Nirvana bandmate Pat Smear. Sonic Youth were already indie gods, but they’d just added a toddler to their tour entourage in the form of Kim and Thurston’s daughter, Coco. Even though I was attuned to this scene at the time, I had no idea this festival even existed until I read about it in Kathleen Hannah’s memoir Rebel Girl. This film acts as a terrific companion piece to Kathleen’s book, because we also get to see Kathleen and the Beasties’ Ad-Rock pretend not to be falling in love with each other on this tour…
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Effed by the Wind 