Local filmmaker's music documentary screening tonight

If you haven't seen the acclaimed documentary "A Band Called Death" by filmmaker and area transplant Jeff Howlett and his friend Mark Covino, I recommend you truck on up to Con Carolinas tonight at 8 p.m. in Concord and check it out. The film about three African-American brothers in Detroit who actually started the first punk band in the `70s, but whose music went undiscovered until a few years ago, is movingly heartbreaking.

The story of how Death was discovered by record collectors and the band members children (who only knew them as reggae musicians) after leader David Hackney's 2000 death is chilling and uplifting, but it's so good I don't want to give anything away.

Howlett, who relocated just over the border in South Carolina from Vermont where he knew the Hackneys, will be on hand for a Q&A tonight following the screening.

Although most of it isn't music related, Con Carolinas has a ton of programming this weekend. You can find the complete schedule here. Topics range from TV and film to literature and publishing to costuming, gaming, visual art, and filking.

Featured guests include "Battlestar Galactica's" Michael Hogan, Judith O'Dea (Barbara from the original "Night of the Living Dead"), actor Doug Jones ("The Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer," "Hellboy," and "Pan's Labyrinth"), "Mystery Science Theater 3000" creator Joel Hodgson, and authors such as John Scalzi, Catherine Asaro and Faith Hunter.

Con Carolinas is a science fantasy, speculative fiction convention. It takes place at the Embassy Suites near Concord Mills Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.