Stranger Flashback: Doom Metal Pioneer Bobby Liebling Rises from the Grave in Last Days Here

Here is a revived version of a 2012 Line Out post about Last Days Here (these posts were purged from the internet some time after The Stranger pulled the plug on their music blog in 2014).

Doom Metal Pioneer Rises from the Grave 

Posted by Kathy Fennessy on Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 12:23 PM 

LAST DAYS HERE 

(Don Argott and Demian Fenton, USA, 2012, 91 minutes) 

Liebling: German for "darling."

Don Argott and Demian Fenton's Last Days Here joins the ranks of documentaries about artists who've kept the dream alive against all odds. 

Depending on your point of view, that makes Bobby Liebling, lead singer of Pentagram, an admirable figure or a delusional one. It's also a cautionary tale about a rocker who never picked up a second trade—you too could end up in the family basement, subsisting on Fig Newtons and crack. 

Author Ian Christie (Sound of the Beast) describes Pentagram's music as "harrowing and bone-chilling," while Blue Öyster Cult producer Murray Krugman feels that the Alexandria, Virginia quartet provided the missing link between heavy metal and punk rock, like a "street Black Sabbath," but their flirtations with the big boys—KISS, Sandy Pearlman, Columbia Records, etc.—always fell flat. Sometimes they were to blame, sometimes not. 

Right: Greg Mayne, Bobby Liebling, Geof O'Keefe, and Pentagram 

At the film's outset, the rail-thin, grey-haired, crazy-eyed Liebling appears to be nearing the end of the line. If you thought Ozzy Osbourne has been looking wobbly lately, you haven't seen what 53-year-old Liebling looked like in 2007 (the film ends in 2010). 

Though he dresses like a young man in jeans and hard-rock t-shirts, there's clearly something wrong with him. His drawn face and twisted mouth could only be the result of long-term drug use or chronic illness—more likely a combination of the two. 

Bobby proceeds to acknowledge 44 years of substance abuse; 39 addicted to heroin. Bandages cover his arms and his hands bear puncture wounds. 

Accused of enabling their son, Diane and Joe Liebling, a nightclub singer and a former White House security adviser, believe in his talent, but worry that his best days are behind him. Despite evidence to the contrary, Bobby's manager, Sean "Pellet" Pelletier, who has released two collections of Pentagram material on Relapse Records, First Daze Here (The Vintage Collection) and First Daze Here Too, refuses to write him off as a lost cause. 

Pellet believes Bobby has one record left, and he wants it to receive a proper release. While he attempts to negotiate a contract with Pantera's Phil Anselmo, who runs Housecore Records, Bobby goes to detox, and events take a surprising turn: he meets a beautiful young woman, falls in love, and moves to Philadelphia--at which point, the filmmakers abandon the record-making storyline in favor of Bobby's misadventures in domesticity. 

If it seems too good to be true, it is, and his circumstances change again. And again. 

Says Pellet, "Anything that is bad for his heart, he'll do it: love, drugs, bacon." Liebling, as it turns out, has a thing for bacon pizza.

Until Bobby met Hallie, I didn't think this documentary could get more depressing, and it doesn't, but Last Days Here will try even the more hardened metal heads. I've seen a few scary movies in my time, but even David Cronenberg would recoil at the sight of Bobby's un-bandaged arms. 

A lot of recent music docs have taken on subjects who've persevered through adversity. Rock School co-directors and metal musicians Argott and Fenton don't break the mold, but they do depict a version of bottom that puts most others to shame. In that sense, it's more like Brother's Keeper. 

If it wasn't for the parents who gave him shelter and kept him fed, Liebling wouldn't still be alive, and the film ends on a high that justifies their support and that of Pellet, the best friend a guy like Bobby could ever have. 

*I found no evidence that this alignment came to fruition. 

Last Days Here plays the Grand Illusion Cinema through Thurs, June 21. The theater is located at 1403 NE 50th St in the University District. 

In an interview with Christopher Campbell, Don Argott talked about his next project: "We're working with this heavy metal band called Lamb of God. They’re embarking on a world tour that we're documenting. The film is less about the band and more about their fans around the world. Places including more troubled spots like Israel and India and Mexico. We're in the early stages of shooting, but we’re really excited about it." Images from The Film Stage (Bobby Liebling) and the IMDb (Pentagram on and off the stage).