http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/17/arts/television/dave-grohl-in-foo-fighters-sonic-highways-on-hbo.html 2014-10-17 01:32:34 Dave Grohl in ‘Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways’ on HBO “Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways” on HBO is tied into the band’s coming album, but is a blend of travelogue, history and music that can stand on its own. === Reviewing a Foo Fighters concert in 2003, Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times that they had the “virtues of journeymen: conviction and tenacity.” That description also applies to the fledgling filmmaking career of the band’s founder, Dave Grohl. You could add generosity and, up to a point, modesty. As a director, he’s less a frontman than a skilled and reliable session player. Mr. Grohl broke in last year with the charming documentary And the show’s relationship to the album goes deeper than puffery. In each installment, the band visits not just a city (Chicago the first week, Washington the next) but a studio, where it records a song for the “Sonic Highways” album. Taking the concept a step further, Mr. Grohl claims to write the songs while the episode is being filmed, incorporating words and ideas from the interviews he conducts. (For the skeptics among us, he’s shown working on the lyrics.) Each episode ends with the band playing that week’s new song. Previewing the songs may be enough to draw Foo Fighters fans. For everyone else, Mr. Grohl provides, through interviews, archival clips and his own narration, a musical and social history of the city that’s both surprisingly detailed and decidedly personal. In Chicago, he covers Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Chess Records and “Soundstage,” and also spends time reminiscing with his cousin Tracey Bradford, a onetime punk-rock singer who took Mr. Grohl to his first live music show (Naked Raygun at the Cubby Bear). The Washington segment is more scattered but more interesting, because the music it covers — the city’s hardcore punk-rock scene and go-go, the local offshoot of funk — is less familiar than Chicago blues. It’s also closer to the heart of Mr. Grohl, who grew up in the Virginia suburbs as a fan of hardcore bands like Bad Brains and Minor Threat and was sympathetic to the social activism that was allied with punk. Mr. Grohl, dropping into cities and offering his impressions, calls to mind another opinionated traveler, Another difference is that Mr. Grohl is less present than Mr. Bourdain, though perhaps more controlling. He cedes screen time to his interview subjects, which is smart, and to his fellow band members, which is generous. It’s enough to make you believe that promoting his new album is less important to Mr. Grohl than paying forward 25 years of rock-star privilege.