Anthony Stern - San Francisco (1968)

Anthony Stern's San Francisco, could be described as a city film and allied with Jean Vigo's A Propos de Nice (France, 1930) and Walther Ruttman's Berlin: die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Berlin: Symphony of a City, Germany, 1927). It could also be described as a film of visible and invisible journeys. It moves between day and night, the city center and its outskirts, the shops and the counter-culture. The invisible journey travels between the two 1960s psychedelic capitals of the world, San Francisco and London.

That Girl In Yellow Boots

That Girl in Yellow Boots is an English lanuage 2010 Indian thriller film directed by Anurag Kashyap and co-written by Kalki Koechlin. It stars Kalki Koechlin, Naseeruddin Shah and Gulshan Devaiya. The film tells the story of Ruth, a British expat, who has come to India to find her estranged dad. In her search she inhabits the bars, clubs and brothels of those who reject the mainstream values of a modernising India

The Velvet Underground: A Documentary (2021)

The Velvet Underground is a 2021 American documentary film directed and produced by Todd Haynes that chronicles the life and times of the rock band the Velvet Underground. Click on the image for the full film.

Juliet of the Spirits

In 1964, when LSD was still legal in Italy, Federico Fellini underwent a single guided session under the supervision of psychoanalyst Emilio Servadio.

He later said it shaped his classic film, Juliet of the Spirits.

Juliet of the Spirits (Italian: Giulietta degli spiriti) is a 1965 fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini and starring Giulietta Masina, Sandra Milo, Mario Pisu, Valentina Cortese, and Valeska Gert. The film is about the visions, memories, and mysticism that help a middle-aged woman find the strength to leave her philandering husband. The film uses "caricatural types and dream situations to represent a psychic landscape".[2] It was Fellini's first feature-length color film, but followed his use of color in "The Temptation of Doctor Antonio"

The Rise and Fall of The Fall

The Fall were a groundbreaking band who created some brilliant music. They combined a poetic aesthetic with the gritty anti-authoritarianism of Punk. This was accomplished under the leadership of the late Mark E. Smith (1957 - 2018). But we need to examine how Smith worked and what his motivations were. This short documentary does that by looking at how he managed the band, leading it for more than 40 years with many different members.

In April 1998, Manchester band The Fall played a live show at Brownie's in New York City, where chaos reigned from the very first song. There was an on-stage brawl, most of the band quit after the gig, and frontman Mark E Smith was arrested by the NYPD. This is the story of what happened at that concert, and why.

Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King

Filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig documents the strange career of Jad and David Fair's avant-garde rock duo, Half Japanese. Formed in the pre-punk 1970s and originally releasing their music on self-distributed cassettes, the brothers quickly gained renown in the fringe-rock underground due to their lo-fi recording style and deliberately minimal musical skills. The film includes interviews with both brothers as well as famous fans like magician Penn Jillette and Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker.

Fear of a Black Hat (1993)

Fear of a Black Hat is to Hiphop what Spinal Tap is to Metal.

Fear of a Black Hat is a 1993 American mockumentary film on the evolution and state of American hip hop music. Written and directed by Rusty Cundieff in his directorial debut, the film stars Cundieff, Larry B. Scott and Mark Christopher Lawrence. Fear of a Black Hat is similar in format to the satirical film about early 1980s heavy metal, This Is Spinal Tap. It is told from the point of view of a graduate student who is documenting the hip hop group N.W.H. (which stands for "Niggaz With Hats", a reference to N.W.A.) for a year as part of her thesis.

The title is derived from the 1990 Public Enemy album Fear of a Black Planet. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 1993, and was later theatrically released on June 3, 1994. While critically acclaimed, it was a box office bomb. Its stature has grown in the years since its release and the film has acquired a cult following.

The Naked Zoo (1970)

A seductive matron lives in Miami with her wealthy, wheelchair-bound husband. Frustrated, she beds a young author. The gravy train abruptly derails when her husband finds out, and murder ensues.

Canned Heat perform in the party scene, playing "One Kind Favor", from the 1968 record Living the Blues.

A cracker of an album:

Celebration at Big Sur (1969) Festival

 

Celebration at Big Sur is a film of the 1969 Big Sur Folk Festival in Big Sur, California, featuring Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and others.

Songs: 

"I Shall Be Released" – Joan Baez

"Mobile Line" – John Sebastian with Stephen Stills offstage

"Song for David" – Joan Baez

shown rehearsing offstage, with stage performance of same song cut in

"All of God's Children Got Soul" – Dorothy Combs Morrison and the Combs Sisters

"Sea of Madness" – CSNY

"4 + 20" – Stephen Stills solo performance

Stephen Stills introduces this number discussing his interaction with a heckler in the previous scene

"Get Together" – Joni Mitchell with Crosby, Stills & Nash and John Sebastian

"Put a Little Love in Your Heart" – Dorothy Combs Morrison and the Combs Sisters

incomplete

non-musical footage of nude sauna, audience happenings

"Swing Down Sweet Chariot" – various

offstage, incomplete

"Rainbows All Over Yours Blues" – John Sebastian

"Woodstock" – Joni Mitchell (playing piano)

non-musical footage of self-identified "freak" with Woodstock-themed bus

"Red-Eye Express" – John Sebastian with Stephen Stills

"Changes" – Mimi Fariña and Julie Payne with Stephen Stills

incomplete

"Malagueña Salerosa" – Carol Ann Cisneros

"Rise, Shine, and Give God the Glory" – The Struggle Mountain Resistance Band

incomplete

"Down By the River" – CSNY

incomplete, over 7 minutes

folk musician improvising outside the festival

"Sweet Sir Galahad" – Joan Baez

"Oh Happy Day" – Dorothy Combs Morrison and the Combs Sisters with Joan Baez

opens with Joan Baez rehearsing same number with Dorothy Combs Morrison

Directed by – Baird Bryant, Johanna Demetrakas

Produced – Ted Mann, Carl Gottlieb

Cinematography – Baird Bryant, Johanna Demetrakas, Gary Weis, Peter Smokler, Joan Churchill

The Stones And Brian Jones / 2023, BBC4

At the age of 14, Nick Broomfield met Brian Jones by chance on a train. Brian was at the height of his success with the world at his feet - yet six years later he would be dead. The Stones and Brian Jones looks at the relationships and rivalries within The Rolling Stones in those formative years. It explores the iconoclastic freedom and exuberance of the 1960s, a time of intergenerational conflict and sexual turmoil which reflects on where we are today. Featuring revealing interviews with all the main players, and unseen archive released for the first time, The Stones and Brian Jones explores the creative musical genius of Jones, key to the success of the band, and uncovers how the founder of what became the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world was left behind in the shadows of history.

Outer and Inner Space (1966)

Outer and Inner Space is a 16mm film of Edie Sedgwick sitting in front of a television monitor on which is playing a prerecorded videotape of herself. On the videotape, Edie is positioned on the left side of the frame, facing right; she is talking to an unseen person off-screen to our right.

Outer and Inner Space is a groundbreaking multimedia document. Edie Sedgwick appears to have a conversation with herself. Time is compressed into the moment and we read a face in four parts which seems to be communicating with itself.

"As spectacularly beautiful as it is a fascinating spectacle, Warhol’s spatially dynamic and dramatically lit film-and-video portrait of Sedgwick, Outer and Inner Space, 1965, is perhaps his most brilliant articulation of the schism between private self and public image, as well as a further exploration of the serial imagery in his paintings. Shot during the summer of 1965, publicly screened in 1966, and recently rescued from oblivion, this was his first double-screen film—The Chelsea Girls would follow in September 1966—and his initial foray into video. Given the chance by Norelco to experiment with a prototype home-video recorder, Warhol used the camera to create a half-hour portrait of Sedgwick (as well as other Factory denizens). He then shot two thirty-three-minute 16 mm reels of the actress sitting in front of a television playing her videotaped image. In the final product, the two reels are shown side by side." ArtForum

Colin Wilson : Strange is Normal

One of the original Angry Young Men along with luminaries such as John Osbourne (see Thomas Maschler's book Declaration), Colin Wilson (1931- 2013) first tasted fame with his book The Outsider, a treatise on outsider genius. As is the way, the mainstream elitist press turned on this working class self taught prodigy and hounded him out of London's class based literary scene.

He fled to the West Country and London's loss was Cornwall's and The World's gain. For over 50 years and 150 books he led us through science fiction (Mind Parasites) and esoteric knowledge (The Occult Trilogy). Truly a man before his time, in the age of The Internet, his philosophy will inform us for centuries to come. Strange is Normal is a late documentary containing interviews from his home in Cornwall with himself and his wife Joy.

Siddhartha (1972)

Siddhartha is the story of a young Brahmin and his search for a meaningful way of life. His journey takes him through periods of harsh asceticism, sensual pleasures, material wealth, self-revulsion and eventually to the oneness and harmony that he had been seeking. The story is based on the best-selling novel by German Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse.

Directed by Conrad Rooks.

Based on the 1922 novel by Hermann Hesse.

Photographed in luminous Eastmancolor by Sven Nykvist.

Colour. 82 minutes.

Filmed on location in India, both in Bharatpur, Rajastahn and in the holy city of Rishikesh, Uttar Pradesh.

Carts of Darkness

Murray Siple's feature-length documentary follows a group of homeless men who have combined bottle picking with the extreme sport of racing shopping carts down the steep hills of North Vancouver. This subculture depicts street life as much more than the stereotypes portrayed in mainstream media. The film takes a deep look into the lives of the men who race carts, the adversity they face and the appeal of cart racing despite the risk. Shot in high-definition and featuring tracks from Black Mountain, Ladyhawk, Vetiver, Bison, and Alan Boyd of Little Sparta.

Guru: Bhagwan, His Secretary & His Bodyguard (2010)

The rise of the so called "sex-guru" Bhagwan and his model commune in Poona and Oregon in the 1970s and 1980s told by his former close disciples, his personal secretary and bodyguard.

Daises/Sedmikrásky (1966)

If the entire world is bad, why shouldn’t we be? Adopting this insolent attitude as their guiding philosophy, a pair of hedonistic young women (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová), both named Marie, embark on a gleefully debauched odyssey of gluttony, giddy destruction, and antipatriarchal resistance, in which nothing is safe from their nihilistic pursuit of pleasure. But what happens when the fun is over? Matching her anarchic message with an equally radical aesthetic, director Věra Chytilová, with the close collaboration of cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, unleashes an optical storm of fluctuating film stocks, kaleidoscopic montages, cartoonish stop-motion cutouts, and surreal costumes designed by Ester Krumbachová, who also cowrote the script. The result is Daisies, the most defiant provocation of the Czechoslovak New Wave, an exuberant call to rebellion aimed squarely at those who uphold authoritarian oppression in any form.

The Story of Bryan Cook and Inner City 90s Sydney

Inner city Sydney in the 1980s and 90s was a very special place. I first spent extended amounts of time in Newtown from 1991. The creativity and energy of the community was amazing. Music, art, performance and writing as well as dancing, singing, sculpting and raving were happening everywhere. Large loft-style warehouse spaces could be rented for a few hundred dollars a week and large groups could live in them too. I moved permanently to Sydney in late 1992 and the city was my base late 1999. The city has changed a lot since then and on my first and only visit back since, in 2023, it was almost unrecognisable.

This is the story of Bryan Cook. A local inner city photographer and Australian independent music lover who captured some of the most unique, unseen photos around the inner city pubs like The Hopetoun, The Vulcan, The Sydney Trade Union Club The Evening star, The Strawberry Hills Hotel and more.

His love of film and digital photography inadvertently captured a music scene that was never given a lot of attention or documented by the mainstream press. Dr Gregory Ferris, an esteemed academic from the UTS, discovered Cookie's extensive, extraordinary and rarely seen photos and exhibited them at the Powerhouse Museum in an interactive display that recreated the Hopetoun Hotel. Cookie has confirmed that the total number of photographs taken over the years exceeded 80,000, a monumental achievement.

This video was the concept of Ed Garland and Nick Bleszynski, who were determined to expose to the world the amazing photography of Bryan (Cookie) Cook and his accidental documentation of a unique time in Australian music history.

Interviews: Clyde Bramley (Hoodoo Gurus)

Jon Roberts (The Barbarellas)

Geoff Datson (Samurai Trash)

Susie Beauchamp (Box the Jesuit)

Dr Gregory Ferris (UTS Academic)

Ed Garland (Waxworks)

Credit to Nick Bleszynski for footage at the Moshpit Newtown and the scene with Dr Ferris.

The Los Angeles Free Music Society 1972-2012

 

In 2012 The Box, a downtown Los Angeles art gallery, ran a six-week exhibition celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS). Entitled "Beneath the Valley of the Lowest Form of Music: The Los Angeles Free Music Society ‘1972-2012,’" the exhibit showcased nearly 40 years of LAFMS artwork, self-made musical instruments, recordings, ephemera, film/video, and installations, and included a schedule of live performances and artist’s talks. 

From the exhibition description:

The LAFMS have created a huge collection of homemade musical instruments throughout their history. A large selection of these objects will be on display in the space, exposing their playful and ingenious approach to sound. The selection on display includes both historical and new instruments made by Rick Potts, Tom Recchion, Joe Potts, Joseph Hammer and others. Rick Potts’ Hinge Neck Guitars, Tom Recchion’s “Strunagaphone” and Spring Boards, Joe Potts’ Chopped Optigan, and Paul McCarthy’s Sonotubes will be among the plethora of functional sculptural objects included. Films by John Duncan, Michael Intriere, Doug Henry, Tom Recchion, Rick Potts, Jonathon Rosen, Janie Geiser and more will be screened. A “record store” ala Poo-Bah Records, a scene of the early development of the LAFMS, will offer CDs, Vinyl, Cassettes and other objects for sale. A non-linier, historical, wall-sized collage of flyers, drawings, notes, correspondence, photos and other ephemera will also be on display.

Another focal point of the exhibition will be a major collection of photographs taken by Fredrik Nilsen. Nilsen, now a well-known exhibition and art photographer, will show prints documenting the LAFMS between 1972 and 1981. These images that have been printed especially for this exhibition, portray the beginning of this pivotal movement. Photographs documenting this vast scene by Tom Recchion, Kevin Laffey, Dennis Duck, and others will also be shown.

Brief History-

The foundation of the Los Angeles Free Music Society goes back to 1973 when Rick Potts, Joe Potts, and Chip Chapman—began making tape experiments and improvised music mixed from TV cartoons and material appropriated from Chapman’s eccentric record collection. A year later, with Tom Potts and Susan Farthing- Chapman they formed Le Forte Four. In Pasadena they became acquainted with Tom Recchion who worked at Poo-Bah Records and kept locals informed of new experimental and avant-garde records. Concurrently at Poo-Bah’s, late night improvised music experiments were taking place in the back room, with Tom and customers-now friends Dennis Duck, the Ace of Space, The Professor, Fredrik Nilsen, Juan Gomez and Harold Schroeder. Out of those sessions Tom and Harold formed The Two Who Do Duets, and went on to form the Doo-Dooettes with the inclusion of Fredrik, Juan and Dennis. It was only a short while later that the factions joined forces under the LAFMS moniker when it became obvious that there was a symbiosis to their approach and aesthetics, as well as strength in numbers. Ace Farren Ford, also affiliated with Poo-Bah, was part of Ace and Duce, also joined the ranks and the first LAFMS concert was produced in 1975 featuring Le Forte Four, the Doo-Dooettes and Ace and Duce, billed as The Los Angeles Free Music Society. Members of the avant-rock group Smegma, who had already been in existence since 1973, also developed out of and beyond the Poo-Bah Records scene before moving to Portland, Oregon in 1975. John Duncan, another Poo-Bah customer and subsequent acquaintance of Tom’s became part of the collective, releasing several of his earliest recordings as part of the LAFMS canon. AIRWAY, Joe Potts’s project and one of the first “noise” bands, emerged spurring on the development of “noise as art” aesthetic, becoming a global influential force and the idea of “maxmimalism.” Influenced by everything from Zappa/Beefheart to Cage, Terry Riley and One String Sam, they were ahead of the curve and their DIY aesthetic presaged Punk Rock, releasing their own efforts and self-produced concerts.

This was only the beginning. As years went on many groups and affiliations began to spring up and each member of the LAFMS began to emerge as solo artist in both visual arts and musical fields as well as collaborate and join other groups.

LAFMS’s work and performances have been pivotal figures in L.A.’s history of experimental art and sound and have had a global impact with international recognition. They are not simply a NOISE group, but embrace all forms of music and have demonstrated an adept capacity for tonal, improvised music, sound art, rock, musique- concrete, “turntablism”, humor, drone, minimalism, etc.

Since 1975, the LAFMS has released over 25 recordings on their own label and participants have released or have appeared on hundreds of releases from labels around the world. A merchandise store with some of these releases will operate throughout the exhibition, where visitors can find in-print and rare out-of-print items available for purchase including a new 2012 edition of “Lightbulb”, an occasional magazine published between 1977—1981 by the LAFMS.

A few infamous quotes about LAFMS

“Free ears and minds are one thing, but what about aesthetics?”—Hal Clark, Electronic Music Festival Hovikkoden, Norway (1974) 

“For decades, [the LAFMS] has influenced literally dozens of free-improv weirdos and avant-garde musician/non-musician types—who in turn have influenced thousands of others.”—LA Weekly (2011)

“A bunch of Hoodlums!”--- Director of Pilot Theatre, LA 1977 (upon canceling a show by AIRWAY and the Doo-Dooettes) 

The Beatniks (1960)

THEIR PASSWORD WAS MUTINY AGAINST SOCIETY! A young singer's chance at fame is threatened by his hoodlum pals.

Director: Paul Frees Writer: Paul Frees Stars: Tony Travis, Karen Kadler, Peter Breck Genres: Crime, Psychotronic film.

The Beatniks is an American crime film in the teensploitation genre directed by Paul Frees that was filmed in 1958 and released in 1959. It was also featured on the movie-mocking program Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Eddy Crane is the leader of a gang that robs small businesses for petty cash. At one point, his gang accosts the broken-down car of a music business executive, Harry Bayliss. Afterward Bayliss wishes to call a tow truck, so he goes into the diner where Eddy's gang is celebrating. Bayliss overhears Eddy singing to the jukebox and offers him a chance to audition for his variety program. Eddy accepts, passes his audition, and is given a spot on television. Eddy sings a two-minute song that is apparently stupendously successful, with Bayliss calling Eddy an "overnight sensation" and prophesying an astounding rise to fame, complete with a hit record, "a guest spot on every top show," and eventually culminating with "The Eddy Crane Show." Atop Eddy's newfound success, he also immediately begins making advances at Bayliss's secretary, Helen Tracy, in preference over his long-suffering girlfriend, Iris.

Sins of the Fleshapoids (1965)

Is a campy, low- budget, Avant-garde science fiction film directed by American underground Pioneer Mike Kuchar.

Set one million years in the future , the story unfolds in a dystopian world where humans have grown lazy and self-indulgent, relying entirely on robotic servants knowned as Fleshapoids to furfill their every need.

However one of this Robots rebels ,driven by a forbidden desire for freedom and love .

Blending melodrama ,satire and surrealism,the film explores themes of decadence ,rebelion and unchecked hedonism. With a visual style that embraces kitsch,exaggerated performances and hand crafted aesthetics ,the movie has gained a cult following as a quintessential example of 1960's underground Cinema.

The Kuchars playful use of narration ,campy costumes and DIY special effects highlight the film's charm.

Sins of the Fleshapoids is celebrated for its quirky ,subversive storytelling and remains a touchstone of experimental filmaking.