Compulsively embracing his brooding homosexuality, the Smiling Man walks the final circle.
Features live footage from the Greed/Holy Money tour in 1986 in London and Nottingham and the A Long Slow Screw video.
A forgotten faceless celebrity ascends into heaven along the path of self-discovery and through a land of faded memory.
The Smiling Man descends into hell, and, trapped in the walls of his own homosexual longing, he must now confront his motherly obsession.
From their roots as a brutal, confrontational industrial band, through breakups and chaos, to their odds-defying current status as one of the most accomplished and ambitious bands in the world, one whose concerts are more like ecstatic rituals than nostalgic trips. SWANS has always been a collection of singular performers, but there's been one constant since its formation in 1982--singer, songwriter Michael Gira. 'Where Does a Body End?' is a SWANS documentary with unfettered access to hundreds of hours of Gira/SWANS archives of never-seen-before recordings, videos, and photographs. An unfiltered story of a life in the arts, frequent difficulty spanning decades without a safety net, creating work because Gira says "What else am I going to do?"
Live footage with three bands: Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Crime And The City Solution, Swans. Recorded at Knopf's Music Hall, Hamburg, August 15th, 1987.
This performance is (most of) what was used for the legendary Swans Are Dead live album. This specific version is from a tape of the VPRO broadcast of the concert.
Swans live at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, Georgia January 29th, 1997 Rare pro-shot video of the band's 1997 tour. Not Alone, Hypogirl