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Spending an hour or so with guitar-maker Rick Kelly and the many famous faces who visit his shop – an old-school holdout against gentrified New York – is like the best kind of hangout with your friends: affable, funny, full of love and stories.
At the Greenwich Village shop that gives Ron Mann’s documentary its title, master luthier Rick Kelly picks up “the bones of old New York” and makes them wail. Rick creates electric guitars using timber from demolished 19th-century buildings – preserving the city’s history in sound. His talented young apprentice, Cindy Hulej, teases him for not having a mobile phone or home internet. But this thoughtful, observational portrait celebrates – and mirrors – Rick’s old-fashioned warmth, unhurried pace and delight in details.
Welcome to a guitar nerd’s dream: your personal invitation to hang out in Rick’s curio-packed shop, watching virtuoso musicians test out his work. Settle in for relaxed banter and extended performances from artists including Wilco’s Nels Cline, Bob Dylan’s axeman Charlie Sexton, Eleanor Friedberger (Fiery Furnaces), legendary jazzmen Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot, Patti Smith’s guitarist Lenny Kaye, ‘Captain’ Kirk Douglas of The Roots, Jamie Hince from The Kills, sometime film director Jim Jarmusch (Sqürl), and many more.
“The most unassuming, sneakily beautiful, goddamn treat of a film I have ever seen. Hyperbole? Nope.” – Screen Anarchy
