For anyone who was a Jackass viewer at the height of their MTV powers, the large flowing mop of grey hair that could sometimes be seen flashing by in the background of a stunt will be a familiar sight. The hair in question belongs to one Lance Bangs, director, documentarian, cameraman and regular Jackass/Dickhouse Productions collaborator.
During the production of Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are, Jonze and those collaborating on the film with him, ran one of the most inspiring blogs the web has ever seen (the We Love You So blog is now sadly defunct but you can still thrall the archives starting with this handy best of post) and it was here that I came across the Lance Bangs output beyond Jackass. He has directed music videos for the likes of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Shins, Odd Future and in 2007 started producing documentaries for VICE magazine. His mostly music related stories were serialized in the show ‘Bangs‘ on the mags VBS.tv. Bangs’ shoots and cuts the whole lot and this complete control allows him to the tell the stories he wants, in his way.
The first, and still my favorite, of these that I watched was the story of Family, an L.A store run by three high school friends. It’s a story that’s pretty familiar here at the Pig, with the three friends setting up a shop to sell whatever they damn well pleased, from homemade cassette tapes to the novels that inspired Morrissey lyrics. But like all ideas born out of passion and a little stupidity, the shop went on to become so much more. The video below, guaranteed to spark your interest, is part one with the remaining segments after the jump.