You blog about stuff long enough, and it comes back around. 13 years after they created it for Mute Records, Jeremy Deller and Nick Abrahams have released their fandom documentary, My Hobby Is Depeche Mode.
The film was screened several times beginning in 2009, when it was known as The Posters Came From The Walls, but has not been seen much since. The revised title comes from one of the film’s iconic characters, whose son is pictured above.
It is wonderful. And I am fascinated and a bit wary to watch it now, in the contorted political landscape of 2019. That German kid is an adult now, though, and it might be interesting to check in with him, see how it turned out.
[I’ve just started watching it again, and the HD aesthetic already feels like a lost era. Also, the politics is less jarring than the evolution of fandom. This now feels like an artifact of a pre-tumblr, pre-social media, pre-ao3 era. Oh my heck, I forgot about the guy with 500 vintage concert t-shirts. Does he have an etsy?
OK, there is a thread of liberation, of freedom, of music that becomes associated with or gives license to standing apart from the strictures of whatever the local status quo, from Eastern Bloc and Iranian religious authoritarianism, to the heteronormative Valley teenagerdom, to nerd vs. jock rivalry. It’s not entirely clear where Kedrick the concert shirt collector fits, but there does seem to be a respect of peoples’ DM on the DL.]
Our Hobby Is Depeche Mode [vimeo/nicholasabrahams]
Jeremy Deller’s page about it [jeremydeller.org]
Original 2009 film site (requires flash lmao) [theposterscamefromthewalls.com]