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All I Can Say review – Shannon Hoon’s kaleidoscopic images of pre-internet fame
A collaged video diary shot by the lead singer of Blind Melon, before his death in 1995, provides a quizzical time capsule
In 1995 musician Shannon Hoon died of an accidental cocaine overdose, leaving behind (like Kurt Cobain) a partner and infant daughter. But this collaged video diary, assembled from the camcorder archives Hoon shot between 1990 and his death as he rose to fame as lead singer of alt-rockers Blind Melon, is – cheeringly – not a grim trawl through the gutter of excess. Rather, it’s a quizzical time capsule of pre-internet fame from the perspective of a troubled but capable young man who knew his way around a camera.
The brawny, snub-nosed Indiana native, often shooting through a fisheye lens, appears here as the boy in the bubble as he arrives in Los Angeles and quickly integrates into the city’s rock scene. Hoon sings backup vocals for Guns N’ Roses, and then Blind Melon’s jaunty strumalong hit No Rain, released in 1993 a year after their debut album, briefly makes them the toast of MTV. But amid this whirlwind, with the same pointed ability to spin the mundane that marked his lyrics, he constantly gravitates to the marginalia with his camera: a cat emerging from a flowerbed, a roadie sleeping in a laundry cart, Lenny Kravitz licking the lens.
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