Photo courtesy Diet Lite
Diet Lite
Diet Lite
The greatest asset of Milwaukee indie rock trio Diet Lite’s tour documentary, Stumble Out the Gate, is the glimpse it gives into road life for the three musicians starring in it.
Max Nieman, Kelson Kuzdas and Evan Marsalli make scruffy, ragged tunes befitting the nature of their trek from their hometown to Nashville, with a few dates in between. But Diet Lite could be any number of other bands making the same kind of journey for the love their artistry, taking time from their day jobs to flail on their instruments and, if they're fortunate, have enough money from merch sales to afford a motel room before traveling to their next show. Gate itself was funded in part by the proceeds of the group’s T-shirts and other goods offering mementos by which to remember their gigs.
Like Don't Look Back, D.A. Pennebaker’s look at Bob Dylan that inspired these guys to want to chronicle their trip, Gate director Bridger Flory assumes viewers’ interest in his subject and lets Diet Lite’s members’ personalities unfold throughout the movie. All three seem to take life just seriously enough for the pleasure of bringing the opportunity for their peers to decompress and hear some tunes after paying their $10 bar cover.
And if music doesn’t provide them an out from the work that now helps funds their current semi-avocation, the guys can look back fondly on what may amount to an extended, unsupervised adolescence that allowed them to eat at a Waffle House or two and get some heads nodding. They might not manage Dylan’s mid-1960s surreal wit and cultural gravitas; few do. But Diet Lite do share the occasional extra-musical insight (the difference between good and bad sausage isn’t noticeable as the gulf between inferior and superior bacon) and a fair grip on how to move and affect rooms full of sweaty twenty-somethings. Gate offers a glimpse of the reality behind their reality.
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