Inside Motorcity, a trio of brothers created a culturally definitive discography in the early seventies, only to be hindered by the music industry. Lost to the times, a legitimate claim to the origin of punk music would go unheard for nearly four decades. A Band Called Death  explores the formation of Death, composed of David, Bobby and Dannis Hackney. Predating the Ramones, whose first live audience show was in 1974 and debut albumin release two years later, Death formed in 1971, initially as Rock Fire Funk Express. Their tale is one that ends in tragedy, a band that fizzled out and cast sour spells on the brothers. However, good music prevailed, and after being rediscovered, Death has been acknowledged for being some of the first to ever do it. Through all the emotional carnage that lead to legendary music being rediscovered, A Band Called Death also captures the importance of the internet to the synapses needed for the survival and history of music scenes.

The distribution of Punk music has always been on its own accord, whether it’s sold straight from the band, or live recorded tapes passed around and so on; it is antithetical to punk to be centralized and adhere to normal distribution. In the film, the brothers had to pivot away from regular distribution and took it into their own hands to print some records like tons of punk bands to come. Moments like Ramones recording two years after playing their first gigs are typical, yet they are huge steps for the genre. Gaining funds and putting a project together was a huge upheaval for punks. Everything about the genre is unappealing for commercial distributors and industry players; the music, the audience and most of all, the musical acts themselves. Unfortunately for Death, distributors worried all the same. It wasn’t a problem with the brothers themselves, but their insistence of the namesake Death. 

This attitude to keep identity was unwavering, and in true punk fashion the band was not willing to bend and conform for the sake of cash and popularity. In the film, the brothers recalled deciding to pick their hopeful record company through fate. And yet these defining attitudes and their premonitions aren’t fully realized in the timeline of punk history. Eventually the deal they had signed with Groovesville Records, which was prominently featured in the film, had come to an end. In desperation to put the music out, the brothers created Tryangle records. The brothers printed 500 copies of two singles, “Politicians in My Eyes” and “Keep on Knockin’' onto 7” and kept most of them. Not all though. The records would go unheard for decades, sitting in the attic of David Hackney. Before his death in 2000, David gave the masters to his brothers during Dannis’s wedding, with the footage featured in the film; “Someone will come looking for these one day.” He died of Lung cancer, and his wish would soon be proved to be true. 

After the idea of Death long became an afterthought in the remaining brothers mind, the music seemed to return on its own volition. In 2008, Death 45s started popping up in record stores specifically in Nashville. Had the brothers not decided to take matters into their own hands, we wouldn’t be here talking about this film today. Word of mouth spread through “friends of mine” Record collectors jumped at the opportunity for unheard punk music, better yet being released in 1976 possibly predating the Ramone brothers, which was totally unheard of. The band had given some of the original pressings to their album artist as payment, and the artist gave them on to a friend that owned a record shop. Whispers of the band found themselves on compilation records, leading collectors to be wary of these extremely rare records that were highly valuable to them (to the great surprise of the Hackney Brothers.) Not only was it great music, but it was a profound moment in the history of punk music.  These hidden gems were floating around in collector’s and shop’s collections alike, until murmurs turned to raving about the band and the records started popping up on music blogs like Chunklet picked up on the singles, hosting two MP3’s. Had collectors on the internet not pieced together the puzzle, the cultural significance of the records might have gone unknown. The single's probable first buyer from the batch sold by the artist sent CDR copies to the owner of Chunklet. The music caught so much attention in the scene it made its way back to the sons of the Hackneys who were involved with the hardcore scene. The film highlights tiny blog sites dedicated to discussing and archiving the local scenes that frequently interacted with each other, creating a web of communication and space for the scene. Even today, Chunklet is advertising the Hackney cousin’s band Rough Francis and their soon to be released single.

While the film lacks in displaying the importance of Death in an overall view of punk, it aptly highlights the effect the music had on the current scene of punk music. Blogs like Chunklet and other small independent sites would host MP3 downloads, mostly for specific genres varying from site to site, straying away from the wide-scale sharing like Napster. It quickly became another extremely popular mode for sourcing new music in small niches.  “What’s better than learning about new musical artists without having that big holy hell of a bunch of crooks called ‘the record industry’ in the middle?” said a former Napster’s CEO Eileen Richardson. Yet the industry just didn’t catch on to what opportunities they could have made from the internet, and instead went on the offensive. 

On a larger scale, the discovery of the album was in an important time for online music distribution history. Two eventually huge platforms that would change music forever were both founded in 2007; Soundcloud and Bandcamp, both homes to artists on the forefront of pushing genre and developing sounds. Take for example the Soundcloud rap era, starting around 2015 when artists like Lil Uzi Vert, 21 Savage or Playboi Carti began releasing independently made music that would actually envelop the rap scene going into the next decade. Instead, the site is modeled around a music blog aesthetic. (Soundcloud is modeled after social media, Bandcamp more of a to the point and sales front-esque platform.) Bandcamp operates in a wholehearted way, supporting their artists by waiving fees, raising money for Juneteenth and garnering an inclusive environment for fans and artists, reminiscent of how most independent internet music scenes operate. The discovery of the Death 7’’ and the rise of these internet based decentralized distribution is not a coincidence in my mind, new music became what people wanted to hear again, not what publishers and distributors wanted people to hear.

Combined with start up sites like Bandcamp and smaller blogs and networks of fans, the internet undoubtedly has immortalized music and as long as we have electricity. Millions of hours are stored on servers and hard drives. Whether it's music forming a completely new sound like "For The Whole World to See," or housing "video game soundtracks, internet-born genres such as vaporwave and seapunk, music for the “furries,'''' it's there to stay for the long run, but has and is becoming trapped in legal battles like the fight over the Internet Archive or the legend of Napster. However, it only took one record in a shop for Death to roll onto the internet placing it in its rightful place as a beginning of a new genre. This documentary is a beautiful testament to the strength of brotherhood and music, as well as the everlasting search for new music, both in the past and present. These moments in the documentary unwittingly explore the usefulness that the internet has in situations like this, but also an insight with the actual members of the scene recounting how it went. Had word of mouth not spread through the scattered connections in the scene, Death may not have reached wide scale reach. However, as you will find out if you haven't already seen it, the music is too good to ignore. 

It seems a bit obvious, but the documentary A Band Called Death really is about, well, death. This theme runs throughout the film in different aspects, from the deeper meaning behind the name, to the film cinematically matching up its plot points with different tragic Hackney family deaths. However, all together, these help the journey of the Hackney brothers who started the band Death. This band of brothers' tale took the world by storm, catching reactions from writers like Jonathan Kiefer from SF Weekly who remarked, “Death lives!” Who knows, maybe your connotation for death will shift after taking in this almost too good to be true story of brothers. 

The film introduces three brothers, David, Dannis, and Bobby, who grew up in the 70s in Detroit with parents who always supported their love of music. The name of the band was ever changing as the brothers were still figuring out their sound, in between rock and funk music. When their father passed, David was struck with divine inspiration to name their basement band “Death”. David’s idea was that death didn’t have to be something so negative and sad, but it could be turned to a positive light; it could be a release, empowerment, or comfort. David is quoted in the film epiphanically claiming that “Death is real,” and it is something that affects everyone at some point. Though his brothers didn’t agree or quite understand, they followed their motto, “Back up your brother,” and changed the band name. They say in the documentary that David had so much conviction and belief, that they just went along with it. From this, David’s perspective provides a foundation for the first and most obvious theme of death. 

This poignant name hindered the brothers’ careers in major ways as the film shows. At the start of their careers as Death, the brothers randomly picked a recording studio, Groovesville Productions, to try and get their band off the ground. They were successful in recording an album that they ended up playing for the director of the studio, who was ecstatic to sign them. However, they had to change the name. Death, the name David had an ultimately revelating grieving process for, the name that got their message across in their way, the name that would honor their father, did not fit the “image” of the studio. David decided to turn down the offer because he was so set on the name. When he told Dannis and Bobby, they didn’t agree with his decision, but ultimately stuck to their motto, “Back up your brother.” So the Hackney Brothers continued on to other studios to play their tracks and get signed but unfortunately fell short. The name was such a problem for every label that they could never get signed. After they moved to Burlington, Vermont, and the police showed up because of the “Death” posters David had put up, the other two siblings decided they’d had it with the name. When they convinced David of this, they didn’t change the name, but instead created a new band with a new sound and a new name; Death was reserved for the music they discovered back in Detroit. This new band, The 4th Movement, also didn’t pan out so well with audiences, and the three brothers became two as David left to return to Detroit, thus breaking apart Death. There was never any meeting in the middle, Death was divinely intertwined with its specific music and meaning, and David knew that deep in his soul. When comparing the Death journey to a movie, Dannis says Bobby and him are the stars and David is the director. In a quote from the film, he laughs, “Even from his grave, he’s directing the movie. That’s strange.” This all adds to the sum that David knew Death’s fate despite everyone's doubts, and he is a true artist for never sacrificing the meaning of what death (and Death) meant to him. Despite the constant backlash of the name, Death persisted, just as David intended. 

Unfortunately, without death, there would be no Death. Starting with their father’s passing initiating the band’s journey, others also shaped and influenced the band. As years passed and Dannis and Bobby went on with their music careers, David would develop lung cancer and pass away in 2000. Though he still had his vision and message of the band ringing strong until the end, as he made his brother Bobby promise to save and keep the Death tapes and recordings safe. David’s passing had another wave of impact over the brothers, as they would never be all together, the same as they were before as a band. This created a dip in the band’s history where their music and careers were not only impacted, but completely buried for years. After the rediscovery of Death’s music, the remaining Hackney Brothers lose their mother as she joins the rest of her family in spirit. In wake of this, Dannis and Bobby are inspired and fueled even further to honor their father, brother, and now mother. Death has surrounded the band for decades, growing up and growing old. In an interview with the Directors of a Band Called Death, Jeff Howlett & Mark Covino by Cody Clarke from Smug Film, Clarke makes the remark, “It’s one of those perfect, metaphoric things where like, if you wrote a fictional story about a band called Death, and they deal with death along the way and the theme of the story is death, it’d be too ‘on the nose’ so to speak, and would induce eye rolls. But these guys, all of this actually happened.” While it could seem overdone, this is the real story of the Hackney Brothers, and somehow David knew that when he came up with the name. 

The documentary also incorporates the theme of death cinematically. This enhances the film because, in a sense, death becomes less scary or harsh by the end. At the beginning, the three brothers experience the death of their father, which almost acts as an inciting incident because it pushes David and his brothers to change the band name. Later in the documentary, David Hackney passes away and the viewer is left wondering what the fate of Death might be. This is a midpoint for the film, as it creates a loss of hope or seemingly impossible obstacle to the audience. This is cinematically executed with the editing taking a very sensitive point and pairs it with a harsh cut to black before moving on to the next events. This could symbolize how even through mourning, life goes on, and again reinforcing the tragic midpoint. After the Death tracks reemerge from the dusty attic boxes, the brothers become aware of the impact and success of Death. Though the film ends with Dannis and Bobby Hackney continuing to play Death’s music to a wider degree than before, the final passing in the film is that of their mother. This doesn’t necessarily end the documentary on a depressing note, but more somber and philosophical. Dying and death have literally shaped the band over decades and though it is still a tough subject, it seems warmer than before. In the interview with Smug Film, Covino actually says, “It was uncanny how much like a narrative screenplay their story is. It even took me a while to believe what we were learning while filming. Once I realized it was real, the next big question was, ‘will an audience buy it?’” The way the events lined up is truly unbelievable, and the documentary, A Band Called Death, perfectly and thoughtfully plays upon them to enhance the story’s themes. 

Yes, the theme of death, for a film about the band Death, seems a bit overdone, but the directors used it to its full potential while still holding up the values David set for what he wanted Death to be all about. A Band Called Death manages to weave a narrative that transcends its seemingly obvious theme of death. The documentary skillfully explores the profound impact of mortality on the Hackney brothers, from the conceptualization of the band's name as a transformative and empowering force to the tangible losses that affected their journey. The film beautifully captures the struggles, convictions, and resilience of the brothers as they navigate the challenges imposed by the very name that defines their musical legacy. Despite the setbacks and the inevitable passage of time, the documentary portrays death not as an end but as a recurring motif that shapes the band's trajectory. The cinematic treatment of death within the film serves as a poignant reminder of life's continuity, even in the face of loss. A Band Called Death, much like its titular band, triumphs in embracing the inevitability of death while celebrating the enduring spirit of the music that emerged from the brothers' unique and unyielding vision. 

What does it take for someone or something to be recognized? How can someone have a career 20, 30, or even 40 years after they tried to make something of themselves? Is fame that so far down the road good? A Band Called Death (2012) covers a Black punk band, Death, whose music collected dust for 30-plus years, only to have it revived by the internet. The documentary attempts to reinsert Death back into the halls of music by highlighting how important the band could have been if they had been successful in the music business. But even with the fame the group garnered, the surviving members couldn’t care less about being applauded for their work. 

Originally from Detroit, Death was started in the 1970s by the Hackney brothers: Bobby, Dannis, and David. The band’s demos made their way to the ears of Clive Davis, who offered the band a record deal on the condition that they change the name of the band, which the brothers refused to do, ultimately pressing 500 copies of what would be their first single on their own label in the fall of 1976, distributing them for free at garage shows. Soon after, the Hackneys packed up and moved to Vermont, attempted and failed to bring Death’s music to Vermont, leading to the brothers forming other groups. It should be said that David Hackney was the most passionate about Death. Even when the band was turned away by Clive Davis, along with other record labels, he was still determined to make Death a household name, refusing to change the name of the band. Even after moving to Vermont, David couldn’t escape the allure of Detroit, eventually moving back and losing contact with his brothers. Soon after his death in 2000, copies of Death’s first single started being sold online by punk enthusiasts for hundreds of dollars, leading to the group getting a formal record deal. 

A Band Called Death is a form of what Landon Palmer calls a “recovery documentary,” and who outlines that these films often use prominent figures in music as the main frame of indication for musical importance and suggests that the subject(s) of the documentary represents or changes the injustices that are historically in the music industry. From the very start of A Band Called Death, mentions of the Hackney brother's forgotten music is canonized by people of significant prominence in the music industry. Phrases like “Death's music was definitely ahead of its time” (00:01:29), said by Questlove (The Roots), emphasize that Death’s music was and is truly a diamond in the rough. 

Death, while heralded by punk enthusiasts, including those featured in A Band Called Death, still hasn’t received the same kind of media attention that other recovery documentaries have. Little has been written about the band in mainstream publications, aside from a profile in the New York Times, even after the documentary came out, which also received a similar amount of publicity. More often than not, the subject(s) of a recovery documentary gain something positive after the documentary in question comes out, as well as the documentary itself being praised in some capacity – Searching For Sugarman won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2012, while it’s subject, Sixto Rodriguez, appeared on Letterman, played New York’s Radio City Music Hall, and received an honorary degree from his alma matter. 

Because Death never got the acclaim that many punk enthusiasts feel they deserved and only received that attention towards the end of the 2000s, the attention they are given in the documentary doesn’t seem to insert them into music history, and instead, at times, makes the two surviving brothers unhappy to be pulled back into Death, which of course, they ultimately ended up doing when their music was discovered.  There is a scene in A Band Called Death where Bobby Hackney goes through his night-time routine as a member of the late-night maintenance crew at Saint Michael's College. "I've been able to give my kids the choice of going to college through this job,” he says. “To me, it’s a good job. (01:06:05) He had started a new band, started a new life, and as excited as he was after he got the call from the record company about Death’s music, he found himself being pulled back into something that brought about emotional weight, something that he had moved on from. 

Who didn’t move on from Death was David Hackney, who was the most passionate about the group and who told his brother Bobby that the world would one day come looking for Death’s master tapes and wasn’t able to see Death become successful. His absence from the story of Death’s rediscovery seems to leave a bad taste in his brother's mouths because out of the three brothers, he would have been thrilled the most by the band’s sudden reemergence. The group seems incomplete without his presence, and it seems like with all the press generated by the punk hype machine, people failed to talk about David, instead choosing to focus on how good the music was, especially for the time it was made. The surviving brothers are living David’s dream without him, and as Bobby puts it, “…all the things that David said…are coming true and, you know, it just feels weird” (01:09:53). Bobby and Dannis were reluctant to even play a show without David, purely because of his commitment to Death, and that it would feel unjust to play a show without him. Despite this, when the band does play live, David is on stage in the form of a framed photo. 

Labeling A Band Called Death as a recovery documentary is, in part true. The Hackney brothers were left out of the history of punk music, and their music was rediscovered years later. They got the recognition they deserved, but the common theme of renewed success after a recovery documentary is released didn’t have a tremendous impact on Death’s career. Yes, more people are listening to the groups music than there was 20 years ago, but they haven’t received the same kind of attention that subjects of other recovery documentaries do. If anything, their rediscovery only put their music in front of who the group was as a group of three brothers.