Customer Reviews

Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie

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When the Chamberlin and Mellotron became available to the consumer market, they were basically intended to be used as home entertainment. But when artists like the Beatles, Moody Blues, Gary Paxton, Brian Wilson, and Curt Boettcher started to use them in the studio, they added that certain something to their recordings. The sound of the instrument is still highly regarded and even today Mellotrons are being manufactured in analog and digital formats.

As esoteric the subject of this documentary may seem, there is a lot here to hold the casual viewer's interest. The history of both machines are interesting. The simple idea that led Harry Chamberlin to create an instrument that utilized tape playback in 1949 was so innovative and revolutionary, it made one of his salesman steal two of Harry's machines and take them to England. This salesman went to the Bradley brothers and claimed the instruments to be his own design and the Mellotron was born.

You have to watch the rest of the documentary to see how the story unfolds.

The DVD also comes with a slew of extra material and anecdotes from Tony Banks, Ian MacDonald, Michael Penn, Brian Wilson, Rick Nielson, Matthias Olsen, David Kean, Matthew Sweet, Al Kooper, Jon Brion, Richard Chamberlin and others.

The Mellotron is brought forth in this documentary as a "character" in it's own right: a musical character that is important
to get to know in order to further appreciate modern song classics, a musical character that has a sorted past.
An instrument that has a temperamental character, especially when brought on tour with musical giants.

All these stories and more are told in Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie

Dianna Dilworth does a great job with incorporating archival footage from the birth time of this instrument.

Also well worth seeing are Moody Blue's Mike Pinder, Bigelf's Damon Fox and Froth, Jesse Carmichael of Maroon 5 and many others speak passionately about this instrument.

What is old became new again as musicians find exciting inventive ways to use what are now collectible Mellotrons.

This instrument, the Mellotron, has served as "the kid in the candy store" in many musical giant's lives. I learned this
because of watching this documentary.

Whether for the history of music and Progressive Rock or the history of a business, passion and musical instrument this is a great documentary. Excellent packaging, well researched and great input from musicians. I recommend that YOU buy it!

Listen to any of the Beach Boys records produced by Brian Wilson and you'll find two electronic instruments that Wilson has taken to new heights. That wooooooo-wooooo sound on "Good Vibrations" is a Theramin but the other is the Mellotron, developed in the late 1940s by a California inventor Harry Chamberlin. Chamberlain's invention was NOT a synthesizer. It used recording tape loops to recreate the sound of many instruments. Falling somewhere between an electric organ (which electronically imitates woodwinds, strings and percussion) and the Moog synthesizer, the Mellotron used actual recordings. Chamberlin wanted this to be use in the home. His idea failed because of both cost and the complicated maintenance for a home user. But his salesman shipped one to the United Kingdom where it found its way to a few of the musicians in the growing British rock scene and band like the Moody Blues and King Crimson began to incorporate it in their recordings. Wilson heard about it and was fascinated as well. You could hear it on many records of the late 1960s through the 80s, when the British company went under. The original units are now collectibles.

The above is just a summary. The story is better told by Director Dianna Dilworth in her 80-minute documentary that, after winning accolades at film festivals, is out on DVD. I saw an advance copy but waited for the final. It's attractively packaged with a small booklet of photos and corporate history. The DVD contains 16 deleted scenes including a delightful one with Wilson noodling around on his personal Mellotron.

Highly entertaining and well-researched Dilworth's film is worth seeking out by anyone interested, not only in keyboard instruments, but how one inventor's idea to create an all-encompassing instrument changes the world of rock music for decades to come!

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

I've been a fan of the Mellotron sound since I first heard King Crimson's seminal album, "In the Court of the Crimson King." Ian MacDonald's masterful use of the Mellotron showed the world what this 'British' instrument could do. With the Internet age, I began researching the history and found out that the real inventor was a Californian named Harry Chamberlin. My research had led me to believe Bill Frantzen visited Bradmatic looking for someone to supply 3-track tape heads. This documentary reveals he passed off the Chamberlin as his own invention. Mellodrama failed to tell how this breach of patent was settled; I had read a small settlement of $20,000 was paid to Chamberlin.

One reviewer gripes about who was interviewed, who was not, and what music was heard (or not heard) in the film. Well, they did not interview Rick Wakeman, but maybe he was not available. Further, I know a documentary filmmaker, and you don't go into that business to make money. It costs money to travel with the necessary crew and documentaries rarely make back their costs. I did not expect an exhaustive review of the subject. Diana Dilworth and her team did a great job. By comparison, look up user reviews of the 2004 documentary "MOOG," which are almost universally bad, usually lamenting the film as a lost opportunity. Yet Bob Moog contributed so much to the modern world of music. Moog did better, but was dogged by even worse business problems than those that affected Harry Chamberlin, the Bradley Brothers, Alan R. Pearlman (of ARP reknown, who's company folded in 1981), etc. Innovators have it tough.

Given what I know about the Mellotron as an electro-mechanical instrument, what I know about the musicians who used it and the history of the instrument makers (Mellotron and Chamberlin), this film is a success and respects the history and the musicians. Recommended!

By the way, there is a documentary coming out in February 2011 about the Cry Baby Wah-Wah pedal. From the trailer, it looks like it's going to be a parade of talking heads raving about 'the sound', At least with the Mellotron, we're talking about more than one sound. Than again, you can buy a genuine Dunlop Cry Baby for about $100. Can't say that for a Mellotron, unless you are buying a digital emulation like M-Tron.

I recently contacted Bazillion Points book publisher and heavy metal author Ian Christe about reviewing his books for MetalSucks. Bazillion Points is best known as the home of Daniel Ekeroth's excellent tome, Swedish Death Metal.

Ian was kind enough to send me a hardcover of Hanoi Rocks guitarist Andy McCoy's autobiography Sheriff McCoy. I was not able to start on that book as I was neck-deep into Slash's autobiography. Luckily for me, Ian also enclosed a DVD of a feature-length documentary, Mellodrama.

During one of my reading breaks I decided to pop in this film and am I glad I did. Mellodrama is easily one of the most entertaining, informative, and educational music documentaries I have seen in ages. It even has a little something for you metalheads, prog rock types, and horror film score fans in MetalSuckistan.

I knew absolutely nothing about the musical instrument known as the Mellotron going into this film. What I came to learn is that it was the first keyboard to emulate other musical instruments via the usage of magnetic tapes. In plain English, the Mellotron was the first sampler. Well, I should say that the Mellotron was actually a rip-off of another instrument, so, in essence, a sampling of a sampler.

It was (and is) also an instrument used by various rock/metal types including Opeth, Enslaved, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin; as well as Italian film composers including Goblin and Fabio Frizzi, for such classic horror flicks as Suspiria, Zombie, and The Gates of Hell.

Director Dianna Dilworth traces the origins of the Mellotron back to the 1950s as the invention of American Harry Chamberlin, whose ultra-heavy tape-driven keyboard was titled, imaginatively, the Chamberlin.

The story of how Harry's invention was basically stolen from directly underneath his nose is fascinating in its own right. His chief salesman ran off with two of the instruments and sold them to a company in England as his own idea. The British version, known as the Mellotron, soon became a favorite amongst musicians with bands such as the Moody Blues, Yes, and the aforementioned Led Zeppelin. The intro to The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" probably best exemplified the unique sounds created by the Mellotron.

Dilworth expertly chronicles the deception in the creation of the Mellotron, the rise of the instrument among some of the world's most famous recording stars, as well as its inevitable decline. She also does a brilliant job of laying out how Harry Chamberlin became the original Godfather of sampling, the evolution of sampling from the Chamberlin to today's reliance on synthesizers, to the retro-fascination with the Mellotron by many of today's musicians including Michael Penn, Kanye West, and Radiohead.

It's not often I learn something new about music or musical instruments these days. Mellodrama, however, introduced me to an entire world I had no idea existed. From the fascinating instrument to the current culture of worship that surrounds it to the exposure and creation of sampling, Mellodrama opened my eyes on several fronts.

While not an obvious entry into the heavy metal documentary realm, Mellodrama jumps to the front of the pack as the best so far for 2010. Plain and simple, if you are fascinated by music -- any genre of music -- then you will appreciate this film. It is well-made, informative, entertaining, and gave me something new to chew on and add to my musical lexicon.

This review originally appeared at MetalSucks on February 2, 2010

You can pre-order my new book here:
Savage Son

I don't have much to add about the movie that hasn't already been said by the other reviewers. For those of you who might be interested in playing with Mellotron sounds, there are freeware software instruments that feature recordings of Mellotron sounds. Do a web search for Meltron, Tapeworm and Redtron. You don't necessarily need a midi keyboard, though it would be helpful to make real "music" rather than sounds. For those who are more serious, there are commercial applications including Sampletron and (the big daddy) M-tron Pro. There's even one for the iPhone called Manetron.

Great documentary, well documented and great input from musicians. The history of both machines Chamberlain and Mellotron is fascinating. Firts, the idea to create an instrument (Chamberlain) that playback tapes in 1949, then the story of this salesman that steal two machines in order to create a competitor (Mellotron) in England.