There's a scene near the end of the punk-rock documentary "D.O.A." where The Sex Pistols are playing a country and western ballroom in San Antonio, near the end of their ill-fated 1978 tour. The band hold the stage penned in by a baying mob, barely able to make it through their songs as the crowd pelts them with debris and hurls abuse. A dazed Sid Vicious glares at the crowd, blood pouring down his chin and chest, and proclaims "You cowboys are all a bunch of f***in' faggots!" The hall roars with the anticipatory bloodlust of a lynch mob.
Watching this scene, it's clear that nobody came to hear the music -- in fact, three out of four strings on Sid Vicious' bass were broken. The crowd -- all feather-haired chicks and mustachioed good ol' boys -- were there to gawk, jeer and abuse the alien, reviled figures on the stage. In other words, rock 'n' roll as freak show.
"Brothers of the Head," based on a 1977 book by U.K. science-fiction author Brian Aldiss, takes that idea and runs with it. Directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe have fashioned a documentary about a band that never was, The Bang Bang, a 1975 proto-punk group fronted by a pair of conjoined twins.