I drove out to Montclair this week to see a screening of the documentary We Were Famous, You Don’t Remember: The Embarrassment. Full disclosure: I’m not entirely objective on this film, as I’ve known co-director Daniel Fetherston for twenty-odd years and contributed to the film’s Kickstarter campaign.

That said, as a fan of semi-obscure cult bands and what WPRB’s Jon Solomon described in his introduction as “terminal plaid shirt music,” I am also, without a doubt, the target audience for this film. And it landed for me in a big way, I think in part because the story the film tells — and the story of the band at its heart — contains a massive paradox, which makes for compelling viewing.

To wit: much of the film focuses on how The Embarrassment emerged out of Wichita, Kansas in part of their frustration with the lack of a musical scene there. (I’d always thought of the band as a Lawrence, Kansas group, a notion that the film disabused me of.) But the documentary also points to the band’s point of origin as one of the reasons they had difficulty making a leap forward to a larger label — despite having the likes of Jonathan Demme in their corner.

I’m always here for a good paradox-centric narrative, and We Were Famous, You Don’t Remember has that in abundance. Plus, you know, some great music and candid interviews to boot. Strangely, Thomas Frank makes a great de facto narrator for a film about music — who knew?