Malfunkshun: The Andrew Wood Story Remembers the Love Rock Legend

If you've ever hummed a Malfunkshun, Mother Love Bone, or Pearl Jam tune, you owe it to yourself to grab a copy of Malfunkshun: The Andrew Wood Story when it's released on DVD later this year. (As you do if you've ever abused a substance, played a KISS record, plucked a guitar, or appreciate music in the least.) The touching documentary first played in Seattle via SIFF five years ago; it will finally get its available-to-the-masses due in August.

To celebrate the release, director Scot Barbour, Malfunkshun guitarist (and Andy's brother) Kevin Wood, and his mother, Toni Wood, presented the film at the new Hard Rock Cafe last Friday. And then Kevin, vocalists Shawn Smith and Tom Mick, uber-producer Jack Endino, and several other old friends and colleagues briefly recalled Andy's talents and lovingly played his "love rock" tunes—along with some new ones.

Malfunkshun captivated a sit-down crowd (peppered with visitors from Bainbridge, where the band formed 30 years ago) while the restaurant chain's logo bounded around TV screens all around its airy second floor. And the doc's heavy subject matter—the short, drug-fueled life of a talented vocalist and musician and the much shorter life of his two bands, Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone—elicited tears from family members and fans alike.

The opening voiceover sets a harsh tone that gradually softens, but never gushes: Don't ask a junkie to be your frontman, says the Wood family's late father (who was possibly an addict himself). The tip punctuates a nighttime view of the Seattle waterfront, as seen from a metaphorical islander's ferry-approach to the city. Then Barbour takes us back to see how Wood unfortunately became that "junkie." While eagerly sprinting, and finally staggering—as his handwritten, therapy-mandated "drug-a-log" testifies—through the roles of beloved son, brother, fiancee, and best friend. And, of course, unforgettably flamboyant stage presence.

Windows on these facets of Andy's life are opened through interviews with those closest to him before he ever played or sang a note—Kevin says his first song came at three years of age—and when he died following an overdose in 1990. That includes brothers Kevin and Brian; mother Toni; bandmates Regan Hagar, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Bruce Fairweather, and Greg Gilmore; friends including Soundgardeners Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil; and would-be wife Xana LaFuente. Each clearly misses Andy and remains affected by "L'andrew the Love Child," who ironically pursued love rock while believing that "love is pain."

The interviewees' frankness and fondness make Malfunkshun riveting; their humor lends it—and the late Andy—a disarming charm. In one scene, Kevin, speaking while driving a green island road, says that he read a Satanic bible shortly after he and his brother formed Malfunkshun, as he thought the text might imbue him with a devilish shredding ability. (His post-film axe-wielding with a revived version of the band and his Shawn Smith-fronted act All Hail the Crown prove he never needed help. Or that he got it.) Several home-movie "interviews" with Andy—who through one monologue sits on a couch and puppeteers a large stuffed frog in his lap—display the guy's childlike innocence, faux delusions of grandeur, and honest wit. They're the qualities that drew people to him both on and off the stage.

Live and studio-recorded Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone songs play throughout the film, of course; the MLB tunes much more polished and straightforward, showing the evolution of Andy and his fellow musicians' sensibilities. Every song was, at the time—and is, in the documentary—a building block in the foundation on which Seattle's world-conquering grunge genre would be built. When Andy died and MLB folded, Pearl Jam (and Temple of the Dog, briefly) formed. Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden soon released big records. And history was made. He missed it all; it owed so much to him.

Following the Malfunkshun screening, Barbour, Kevin, Toni, and Endino professed gratitude for each others' roles in Andy's former mortal and future celluloid lives, appreciation for everyone in the room, and love for the man who had so much to share it came out in golden words and notes. The live music that followed—with Smith and former Feast vocalist Mick singing Andy's Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone lyrics—was love rock at its finest.