With a few unmemorable music non-fictions, this year has also brought a number of very good ones, some in a minor key. That last does not imply lesser quality but simply that the films in question are likely for fans only, their subjects occupying a special niche that will not attract a wider audience. Two such are David C. Thomas’ MC5: A True Testimonial and Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields’s End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones, which happen to be similar in more than twinned limited appeal.

The former captures the white hard-rockers, punk precursors out of hardscrabble factory Detroit, “downriver hoodlums” who inadvertently got caught up in radical politics of the era, suffered harassment from the FBI and uncomprehending commercial labels, filled raucous clubs and fell apart and died in disagreement and substance abuse.

A very few years later, amid white flight from an abandoned Manhattan and a bland national pop scene, the street-rough, jeaned leather-jacketed Ramones surged from un-cool Queens to fabled Bowery CBGB, literally ground zero for the coming punk and alternative scenes. Inspiration for many now-famous who followed and, like the Michiganders, a seminal sensation in England, they, too, floundered commercially. But despite acute personality clashes, bickering, disappointments and drugs, the group did attract two top pop producers and managed to tour continuously for over two decades.

With faces recognizable from the film and filled with appreciative fans, the 108-minute digital screening -- release prints will be sharper 35 mm and thirteen minutes shorter -- was in keeping with the naturally unpolished Ramones. Nowhere explained here, the group’s name -- vocalist Joey Ramone (Jeffrey Hyman) recalls that people sometimes thought them Hispanic -- arose, according to one outside source, in Silver Beatles Paul McCartney’s brief nom de chanson, Phil Ramone. (Coincidentally, “MC” was made up out of whole cloth and only later back-formed to signify “Motor City.”)

Beginning and ending with the 2002 Waldorf-Astoria induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, the directors, who also co-produced with Fields co-editing, take us out and back to past and present in the Forest Hills neighborhood. Black and white footage from the 1970s and ‘80s mixes with present-day interviews -- one wonders why the latter need be at such unflattering, warty minimum distance -- tracing the roots and trajectory of the four original high-school graduates or dropouts.

Finding direction in music and camaraderie in a liking for underground icons such as Michigan’s Iggy Pop and the Stooges and the New York Dolls, they changed their names in a way that Britain’s Spice Girls would later copy and, far from accomplished musicians, jelled their disharmonious style in at first seedy, sparsely attended, noisy venues. Amps turned up full, breaking the bottom skins of drums and depending on only a few chords for rapid-fire songs with no pause for breath between, they blasted and ranted gross-out sarcasm, love or its failure, humor, defiant rebellion and attitude. Although later softening their sound a mite to the tune of bubblegum pop and surf sounds, the four attracted a loyal following and heartened many others who were to gather the financial rewards the Ramones never touched.

Along with raw performance energy, more than most the film unveils the emotional tensions that plague such necessary closeness. Funny, self-deprecating and egotistical at once, bassist Dee Dee Ramone (Douglas Colvin) is last seen from behind, alone and sad in a hotel hallway after the induction ceremony, and would soon be dead from heroin. He had remarked that “it’s not easy being a rock and roll band. We can all communicate and like each other, but we can’t live together.” Matters were most ticklish between conservative taskmaster-organizer guitarist Johnny Ramone (John Cummings) and insecure, liberal Joey, and came to a head when the singer’s first, true girlfriend left him for the other. (An interviewer asks Johnny if that was serious; now his wife, the unseen woman’s offscreen voice prompts him that it was indeed.)

Distancing himself by reverting to his real name, Tommy Ramone (Tom Erdelyi) quit as drummer to serve offstage as the group’s co-producer. Dee Dee later quit in a huff, replacements came in with new Ramone names, the band toured and eventually split up. Joey’s death from cancer at forty-nine haunts the survivors, though they deny it or are unsure. End of the Century, too, is a haunting study, if your eardrums can take it. 

(Released by Magnolia Pictures and not rated by MPAA.)