The Best Summer

In January 2025, filmmaker Tamra Davis was preparing to evacuate her home as the Palisades wildfires raged, when she found a box of Sony Hi8 camcorder tapes she had shot in the mid-90s on a tour of Australia and Southeast Asia with bands in the Summersault festival lineup.

Davis, a prolific music video director for Sonic Youth and others, was married to Mike D of the Beastie Boys at the time, and her close relationships with the artists grant an ease of access back-stage and in hotel rooms beyond the barrier of fame. Between concert footage, Davis and Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna conduct candid interviews with the likes of Kim Gordon, Adam Horowitz, Dave Grohl, and Stephen Malkmus on what they are reading, their personal mottos and feelings about live performance.

The material has been kept unpolished, a nostalgic trace of a moment when MTV was catapulting alternative music into the mainstream, but a more posed celebrity culture of stylists and social media had not yet taken hold, and the era was vivid with punk-edged energy and possibility.

– Carmen Gray