Wetlands Preserved

From 1989 to 2001, the Wetlands Preserve flourished just off of New York's Houston Street. Founded by a Deadhead, the club attracted rising bands in the burgeoning "jam bands" scene, along with ska and hip-hop acts, while maintaining an activism center that held "eco-saloons" and launched inventive street theater protests. Dean Budnick's Wetlands Preserved, produced by second and final owner Peter Shapiro, is a heartfelt tribute to a joyous anomaly in New York's nightlife scene that eventually surrendered to Tribeca's increasing gentrification in the days following September 11.

Phish, Sublime, Ani DiFranco, Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews, moe., Pearl Jam, the Roots, and Fishbone all cut their teeth at the Wetlands, and Budnick does his best to accentuate his talking head interviews with music. But by limiting himself to recordings that were actually made at the club, Budnick is forced to play less-then-stellar audio for which he rarely has accompanying video. Instead, he relies on animations by a range of artists to illustrate the clips.

The results are inventive and pleasing, but they don't give enough of an impression of the musicians or the atmosphere that made the Wetlands unique -- especially since the more improvisational bands don't make much sense in two-minute snippets, anyway. Budnick does the best with what he has, but for a film about a concert venue, one wishes there was more first-hand footage.

But if there's one thing that the hippies who used to fill the Wetlands oddly-shaped upstairs and opium-den downstairs like almost as much as a show, it's talking about the shows of yore. Budnik's line-up of talking heads is first-rate: founder Larry Bloch, the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir, the Roots' ?uestlove, Phish's Mike Gordon, keyboard wiz John Medeski, music critic Richard Gehr, and former employees are among those sharing colorful (and hazy) episodes from the club's storied history. Former employees tell of nights spent trapped inside the club's VW bus that served as an information booth, ska fans critique the trippy murals, and apparently nobody had any idea of the Wetland's legal capacity.

Wetlands Preserved certainly works as a fond and funny family album for anybody who ever spent a sweaty night there, and it conjures just enough of the place and time to give everybody else an idea of what they missed. Since the Wetlands closed its doors and donated its day-glo VW bus to the rock'n roll hall of fame, New York's improvised rock scene has dispersed, relying less on individual venues than on Internet forums to find places to gather. The Activism Center at Wetlands Preserve continues its work.