Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk by John Doe & Tom DeSavia

Under the Big Black Sun is an essential rock document.  It chronicles the formation of the LA punk scene, focusing on the years between 1976-1980.  The book consists of essays by the folks who were there.  John Doe, Exene, Dave Alvin, Mike Watt, Jane Wiedlin and plenty others.  In fact, don’t bother reading the book, you’d be better off listening to it.  The audio version features the authors lending their own voices to the proceedings.  The audio book drips with enthusiasm, personality and authenticity.  I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about this history, but there was still plenty of fresh material to be gleaned.  Most fascinating was discussion around how the introduction of hardcore into the scene really changed the face of the LA punk world.  In Under the Big Black Sun, hardcore, epitomized by Black Flag, brings about less inclusion.  The scene becomes more violent, less open, less friendly to women, minorities, and the lgbqt scene.  Things unravel as the kids from the beaches and the suburbs roll into town.  Rollins gets his say, but unlike in Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, which champions Black Flag as such a seminal band to the development of the indie rock industry, in Under the Big Black Sun, Black Flag takes on a much more villainous role.   Good stuff.

Of Walking In Ice by Werner Herzog

I hate to admit to being underwhelmed by anything Herzog, but Of Walking In Ice just didn’t do it for me.  In 1974, Herzog walks from Munich to Paris, presumably because he feels that if he does so, he can help keep alive esteemed German film critic Lotte Eisner, who has fallen ill in France.  In and of itself that’s great.  Plus the weather sucks.  That adds drama.  Along the way he keeps a journal.  It is a diaristic ramble, to be sure.   He breaks into houses along the way to sleep.  That’s kind of cool in a 70s way.  There are definitely some prime Herzogian philosophical nuggets, but for me, it was pretty darned unfocused.  What kept me going was the scant page count.  I know I will be hated and hunted down by the lovers of cinema for this review.  But I’ll take my chances.

Black Hole by Bucky Sinister

Bucky Sinister is one of my all time favorite poets, both on the page and at readings. After years slugging it out in the poetry trenches, he’s just published Black Hole, his debut novel. Exciting stuff. 

Black Hole is fantastic.  Sinister would be the first to admit that it owes a debt to Philip K. Dick.  A Scanner Darkly jumps to mind, as Black Hole is drenched in drug-fueled sadness as we bear witness to a character losing his mind, and quite disturbingly, his hold on time. Black Hole features an ageing hipster, Chuck, with an insatiable appetite for drugs.  But the drugs that he dabbles in are new designer drugs, the side effects not quite known. Chuck has not quite figured out how to grow up. He’s a 40 year old drug addict who hasn’t given up the party. His friends are either dead or have grown up, shedding their punk rock leathers for family man garages. On top of that, his beloved Mission is undergoing a rapid change. In with tech, out with warehouses, squats, and Mission eccentrics. He's at a loss how to move into middle age. He's become the weird old guy at the party. 

Chuck is at loose ends, and as he dabbles with new designer drugs, he spins in and out of control. The drugs are making him black out.  When he awakes he seems to be skipping through time.  He time travels to the near past, forced to relive the mistakes and trials of his youth over and over again. He gets opportunities to fix his mistakes, but he’s not that smart or lucky.

Black Hole is at its best when it addresses how we approach middle age, especially for those who cut their teeth in the punk universe. What happens when you recognize that the world around you has changed, but you can’t figure out how or where you fit into the new order of things? Worse yet, what if you realize there is no place for you? 

How we approach change is central to Black Hole and as Chuck grapples with change at the personal level, he is confronted with a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco. Black Hole becomes a great vehicle for exploring the current changes in the Mission.  No worries though, Black Hole is not shrill or didactic.  It’s equal parts funny and melancholy.  Sinister has been honing his chops as a stand-up comedian for the last ten years and Black Hole is full of funny.  It features a world where the nouveau tech crowd are clamoring to buy mini whales, the hottest status symbol pet on the market. It also laments a world where a crazy person, running around the Mission covered in feces, is no longer acceptable. 

Ultimately though, Black Hole is filled with longing and sadness. It’s a toast to a time gone by, a time that is being brushed under the carpet of history. It’s not a condemnation of the new Mission, but a rumination on how we experience change and stagnation. 

Girl In A Band by Kim Gordon

Just tore through Kim Gordon’s bio, Girl In A Band.  It’s a good read. It’s a quick read.

As a bio, it hits all the stages in her life, but it does so with a light brush.  It’s not a drama-fueled bio à la Mary Karr. It’s not as philosophical, nor does it delve as deeply and shed a light onto a specific time period like Patti Smith’s Just Kids.

At times it feels like a hit and run overview, but within that, it’s all good. The book is very much about Gordon’s development as an artist and her quest to live the artistic life.  I use the word “artist” consciously, because though Gordon is best known as a musician, it’s her interest in other art forms that serves as her wellspring.  To be fair, Sonic Youth always came across as “arty”.  I always liked that about them.  Gordon doesn’t shy away from this conceit.  Her inspiration comes from folks like Mike Kelley, Dan Graham, and Gerhard Richter.

The book is framed by the dissolution of her marriage, and that story gives the book its arc.  Gordon has moved on from Sonic Youth, is starting new bands, has re-focused her energies on her art career, and is moving towards a different stage in her life.  That change is lurking everywhere in Girl In A Band.

For those looking for the comprehensive Sonic Youth tell-all/tome, this is not it.  Gordon takes the stance that the band’s history has been well documented elsewhere.  She moves through the band’s career by devoting chapters to specific songs and/or albums that resonated with her.  It’s not the broad view that she takes, but the more personal glint into the world of Sonic Youth.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It does leave you wanting more stories and insights, but what’s on the page is strong.

Gordon is pretty open talking about the challenges and triumphs of rock and roll parenting, as well.  Though she doesn’t regale the reader with story after story, her take is insightful and heartfelt.

Finally, art is the core for her.  It informs her work as a musician and artist throughout her career.  Personally, I love when artists take their inspiration from mediums that are not their own.   This is Gordon’s m.o., so I loved that aspect of the book.  If I have any complaint is that the photos in the book aren’t that strong, and the book is devoid of any telling photos of her artwork.  As much of a fan as I am, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know her work as a fine artist.  She talks enough about it in the book, that some photos would have been nice.

Small quibbles for sure. 

My Two Cents about Big Eyes

I loved Big Eyes.  Dare I say this is Tim Burton at his subtlest and most mature?  Big Eyes is a stunning, subtle period piece.  Burton could have easily gone way over the top and turned this into a kitsch fest.  But he restrained himself, and this is good. Big Eyes, will definitely have a broader appeal than something like Ed Wood.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved Ed Wood, but Burton’s approach to Big Eyes will draw a bigger audience to the Walter and Margaret Keane story. Walter Keane came to fame in the 60s as the painter of sad forlorn girls with giant eyes.  As it turns out, the paintings had been painted by his wife Margaret, and he was taking all the credit.  Scoundrel! If the goal of Big Eyes is to help shine a light on the wrongs suffered by Margaret Keane, then this more mass appeal approach is the way to go. I heartily approve.

A Post In Which I Defend Dave Grohl and Sonic Highways

1.

Lots of backlash directed towards Dave Grohl’s Sonic Highways doc on HBO.  The complaints seem to be:  

a) The Foo Fighters suck. 

    b) Dave Grohl conflates his importance in rock history by placing himself next to   those more worthy of adoration (e.g. Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Rick Nielsen,  Buddy Guy).  

c) This documentary project is a nothing more than a cloying, self-serving attempt to sell records.

2. 

I can’t get behind the backlash.  

3.

Though I’m not a fan of the Foo Fighters, I actually have a lot of respect for Grohl.  This is a guy who seems genuinely humbled by the success he has had.  He seems to have a clear sense of where he’s from and who were seminal influences in his life.  He seems genuinely interested in shining a light on and paying his respects to those who paved the way for his success.

4.

What this means, is that you have a national show on HBO where a decent amount of time is spent talking about post-punk, hardcore, and the American underground scene of the mid-80s.  Why people from that scene feel a need to trash talk Grohl seems nothing short of bizarre.

5. 

I’ve only watched two episodes of the series so far, but the Chicago episode spends lots of time giving Steve Albini his props and showcasing the likes of Naked Raygun.  Let me say that again.  Naked Raygun!  Naked Raygun, a band that for all intents and purposes is a footnote in rock history, not only gets a ton of exposure on an HBO show, but they are afforded the same respect as blues legends like Buddy Guy and Muddy Waters.

6.

So, why are we made at Dave Grohl? Because he’s successful?  Because he’s taken a different path over the last 20 years than a bunch of crusty old punks who didn’t have his success?  Whatever.  I don’t have a beef.  He’s making a doc about rock history and he’s doing it from the perspective of someone my age, who has a similar set of musical touchstones.  These types of big historical rock docs have always had too much of a boomer perspective for my likes, and I’m excited to see such an undertaking crystallized through a punk rock lens.

7.

Is this doc just a fatuous sell-job for the new Foo Fighters record? Maybe.  But what do I care?  Selling records ain’t what it used to be. If this is Grohl’s way to stay relevant and move units, so be it.  Why get mad at an artists for trying a different approach to stay in the public eye.

8.

Like I said, I’ve only seen two episodes so far.  Will they all be decent?  Who knows.  But I hear he jams with Joe Walsh at some point.  I can’t wait.  Ya dig!

Black Snow by Mikhail Bulgakov

Black Snow is one of those books that is easy to read but hard to pick up.  You know the type.  Fun, light, well-written, but for some reason you’re just not sucked in.  You look at it sitting on the nightstand, beckoning you, but you just groan and waste a little more time checking Facebook or hustling up another Words With Friends game.  Black Snow is a farce by Mikhail Bulgakov, writer of the brilliant The Master and Margarita and Heart of a Dog.  Black Snow is a fictionalized account of Bulgakov’s attempt to adapt his novel The White Guard for the stage at the Moscow Art Theater.  It’s clear that his experience was frustrating.  There are some funny parts, but it’s so absurd, and so many characters flit in and out of its pages, that it’s hard to care too much about the travails of Bulgakov’s alter ego Maxudov.  Without a doubt Bulgakov has many scores to settle, but perhaps the 1920s microscene squabbles of the Russian theater world don’t have the impact they should in 2014.  Bulgakov’s biggest target in Black Snow is none other than theater great Konstantin Stanislavski.  There’s something exciting about this feud and Bulgakov is merciless, treating Stanislavski like a fool. At the end of day, I wish Black Snow was more biting, but somehow it just seems silly. 

Frank

Rarely do you hear me complain about a movie being strange, but make no mistake, Lenny Abrahamson’s Frank is a strange one.  And I’m not sure the film is better off for its strangeness. Apparently Frank is very loosely based on the Frank Sidebottom character developed by British comedian Chris Sievey.  I knew none of that going in, so my apologies if my lack of knowledge affected my reading of the film.  But hey, a film has to stand on it’s own.

Frank starts off brilliantly.  A struggling songwriter, John, tries desperately to wring songs out of his environment.  He fails, albeit in an endearing way.  He’s young, marginally talented, and he’s yearning to find his voice and find meaning in the world around him. It’s sweet. It’s funny.  It’s inspiring.  He’s a young soul searching for his people. By chance he gets an opportunity to fill in on keyboard for a traveling band Soronprfbs. They’re a bizarre, angsty, experimental noise troupe lead by a guy named Frank who dons an oversized puppet like mask.   Jon impresses and is asked to join.  It’s a dream come true.

Frank, played by Michael Fassbender, is an odd duck.  He never takes his masks off, and lurking beneath is a man with a history of mental illness.  But he’s a musical genius and a guru to the members of Soronprfbs.  He hears sounds others don’t. He finds art and music in everything.  He’s inspired by straws, by homemade instruments, by field recordings, by loose strands of upholstery. Frank is a winning film when it explores creativity, championing outsiders who find art in unexpected places.  Also, at the comedy level, the dysfunctional band dynamic is played for laughs, and it works.  It’s a great rock film at the outset.

But then the tone changes and the film’s message gets pretty muddled.  The band holes up in a remote cabin working on their masterpiece.  It seems heavily based on Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica sessions.  Frank is a tyrant, the band is isolated, starving, and Frank browbeats them into a mad perfection.  The film turns dour, never regaining its comedic lust for life or inspired look at the world of creativity.  It’s an abrupt change, it’s unexpected, and for my likes feels a bit out of control.  From this point on, it was hard for me to grasp what the movie was going for.  The film’s first act sets you up for an exploration into the creative process and then takes a right turn and looses its footing.  There are still elements of humor, but they fall a little flat amidst the increasingly paranoid mood in the room.  

The film definitely comments on a lot of topics germane to the artistic set.  Frank is commenting on the quest for fame and about those hitching a ride on the coattails of more talented folk. The film has something to say about artistic ego and about social media messing with our expectations. But I’m not entirely sure what the film is saying about any of it. 

It’s all too bad, because for 30 minutes I loved this film.  There’s good stuff going on throughout, but I just wish the film had sustained its energy for the duration.  

Black By Design: A 2-Tone Memoir by Pauline Black

In the early 80s, I loved British Ska. I couldn’t get enough of the likes of the Specials and The Selecter.  I can’t say I listen to those bands much any more and I haven’t been tempted by any of the reunion tours cycling around.  Regardless, they all have a place deep in my heart.  Out book shopping recently, I came across Black By Design, an autobiography of Pauline Black from The Selecter. I picked it up on a whim, figuring it would be a good summer read.

The first third of the book is very strong. Black’s upbringing is a truly interesting window into England of the 50s and 60s, particularly since Black views it from the perspective of a black woman.  Black was adopted by white working class parents in the 50s.  This was not a common occurrence in England at the time, and though her family was, by all accounts, loving, her black heritage was a mystery.  She was the only black girl in town and she felt the sting of racism.  However, she could share her feelings with nobody.  Not family or friends.  She was aware that her blackness set her apart from her contemporaries, but her nascent black pride could only be nurtured alone.  She was fascinated by the race issues in America and looked to the black power movement in America as a guidepost for her own behavior.  Though her parents were kind, they did not love when Pauline would assert her blackness. Once she left for college, she never looked back.

The middle part of the book talks about her time in The Selecter and the 2-Tone scene that was exploding in Coventry where she was based.  While I enjoyed this section of the book, I really wanted more.  Granted it’s a memoir, and Black talks honestly from her perspective, but I felt I wanted deeper insight into why the movement was happening, who all the players were, and what fueled the coming together and the division of the various audience groups (the punks, the mods, and the skins).   Black addresses it all, but not with the depth I hoped for.  I’d be up for a juicy oral history from all the players of that scene.

It’s also interesting to note that The Selecter’s time in the limelight was incredibly brief.  The Selecter track that appeared as a b-side on the first 2-Tone release was a hit.  But that track was really a solo endeavor by guitarist Neol Davies using the name The Selecter.  Once he had a hit, he needed a band.  The band was still being formed even though they were already in demand and on the rise, riding the coattails of The Specials.  Almost from the outset, the band is at odds with each other, fighting about producers and musical direction. The band implodes in about two years time.  The rise and fall is equal parts exciting and dour.

Black is at her best and most passionate when she talks about the difficulties of being a black artist and a woman artist.  The 2-Tone ethos was the perfect vehicle for her message.  After the break up of The Selecter she struggled finding her way.  Musical projects were mostly ignored.  She found her way to the stage and television.  She was moderately successful in those arenas. She found her way.  Not as exciting as The Selecter in their heyday, but she made inroads as a working artist.  The book, however, gets a bit dreary for my likes.  It becomes the memoir of someone struggling, but eking out a living.  The highs aren’t that high. The lows aren’t that low.  I have nothing but respect for all that Black has done, and her political view of the world is spot-on, but the writing isn’t strong enough to elevate this into a must read.  

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Ah, The Goldfinch, a 700+ page tome that many are hailing as the book of the decade and beyond. Of course there are also those that think Donna Tartt is overrated and overhyped.  Who doesn’t love a good literary dust up?  I was a big fan of Tartt’s The Secret History and just finished The Goldfinch, so I suppose I must weigh in.  This will be a pretty thin review because I don’t want to give away any spoilers.  When I read The Goldfinch, I knew absolutely nothing about it, not one plot point.  One of the big joys of The Goldfinch is how the plot twists and turns, travels through time, and trots across the globe. I was glad not to know what to expect around any corner, so I promise not to spoil.

Tartt is an excellent writer with a vivid imagination and The Goldfinch’s plot is testament to that.  The book tracks Theo Decker from teen years to adulthood.  We first meet Decker as a thirteen year old. He’s a liberal, cultured New York kind of kid.  Hints of a Salinger and Fitzgerald protagonists are in his DNA.  He’s a sensitive boy.  This is no surprise based on the prep-school milieu Tartt’s work seems to inhabit.  Theo’s mother instills in him a love of art, and much of the plot revolves around their connection to Carel Fabritius’s Dutch masterpiece The Goldfinch.  Tartt gets a big thumbs up from me for focusing her story around a piece of art.  The book makes us question the importance of art in culture, in society, and addresses how we interpret and value art.  That’s good stuff as far as I’m concerned.

But this isn’t some navel-gazing art salon universe.  Theo’s path gets violently altered at the outset of The Goldfinch, and his journey from boyhood to adulthood is painful. My one issue with the book is that for the bulk of the novel, after his life-altering episode, Theo becomes a bit of jerk.  He’s a fairly unlikeable character for much of the novel’s 700+ pages.  I have no problem with unlikeable and conflicted protagonists, but I just felt that the character he becomes for the bulk of the novel is not in keeping with the character we meet at the outset.  Similarly over the novel's final 30 pages, Theo looks back and reflects on his experiences in a thoughtful and philosophical manner.  He's regained the grace of his younger self, but it seems like such a sudden about face given the hellish path he's walked down.

Ultimately, The Goldfinch is an excellent read, so it’s a minor point to be sure, but I felt that given the grand scope of the novel and the Pulitzer Prize and all, that there was some fraying around the edges of this one.

Carsick: John Waters Hitchikes Across America

Nobody symbolizes the American Dream better than John Waters.  I’m sure I’ve said that before, but every time he makes a new movie, publishes a new book, or heads out on a new tour, I think it bears repeating.  Waters has managed to turn his perverse obsessions into semi-fame and semi-fortune.  At the time it would have been unimaginable that the guy who made Desperate Living or Female Trouble would ever sniff mainstream success. Waters has managed this feat without ever compromising or “selling out”.  In fact he seems to be getting more randy with age.  From his last film, A Dirty Shame, to his previous book Role Models, to his latest book Carsick, the tawdry tales keep getting more graphic.

The conceit of Carsick is pretty great.  Waters decides to hitchhike from Baltimore to San Francisco and document the proceedings in a book.  Carsick is divided into 3 parts; a novella where the idealized version of his trip plays out, a novella where his nightmare trip unfolds, and the final version based on what really happened.

The two novellas are pure Waters.  The novellas’ chapters recount each fictitious ride he receives along the way, and they play out like classic scenes from his movies.  In his “good ride” novella, Waters partakes in a bank robbery, becomes a sideshow freak at a hipster carnival filled with malfunctioning rides, reconnects with Edith Massey, and has a sexual encounter while in the passenger seat of a car in a demolition derby.  At 66 years of age, Waters still revels in shedding light on the weirdest subcultures and fetishes.  At one point he gets a ride from an “alternative librarian” distributing obscure genres of literature such as “womb raiders”.  “Are you familiar with that genre?” the librarian asks.  Waters replies, “You mean women who tell their husbands they’re pregnant when they’re not and then follow real pregnant ones, kill them, cut out their babies and take them home claiming they’ve just given birth.”  Carsick is a real joyride, let me tell you.

The brilliance of Carsick is that if you listed the characters he meets in the “good ride” version of his trip alongside the miscreants he meets in the “bad ride” version of the trip, you’d be hard pressed to figure out which people belonged to which novella.  Everybody seems like a renegade from a Pink Flamingos universe.  In the nightmare novella, his past literally comes back to haunt him. In one case, a killer he has made fun of in Shock Value is back from the dead, picking him up for a ride, and out to seek her revenge. It’s fun to watch Waters’ discomfort as he tangles with some of these fantastic creations.  

Waters’ actual hitchhiking experience is a far cry from either of his novellas.  The drama and tension revolve around mundane hitchhiking concerns.  Will he get a ride?  Will it stop raining? Will he have to sleep in the bushes?  Will he ever get out of Kansas? Waters seems humbled by the experience and comes across as grateful for every ride he receives.  Sometimes he’s recognized and sometimes he’s not, but he is actually coming into contact with big parts of America that he has never dared step foot in.  He shops at a Walmart, dines at Ruby Tuesday’s, and meets people he would otherwise never come into contact with.  It may not be as dramatic as the offerings in his novella, but dare I say, it’s sweet. 

The Monuments Men

I approached The Monuments Men with a bit of trepidation.  I’m not the hugest fan of George Clooney, the director.  I love the politics of his films.  I love the intentions of his films, yet I don’t love the films.  To me they’ve come across as a bit preachy without the cinematic chops.

That said, I looked forward to a war movie about art and the importance of art in society an culture.  What’s not to like about that premise?  Ultimately, The Monuments Men experience was an odd one.  Am I glad I saw the movie?  I guess I am.  The story, about an international troop of artists and art scholars trying to save European classics from the hands of the Nazis was not a story I was familiar with.  I learned a lot.  But the movie?  Oy, what a mess. 

It was a movie that could not figure out what it wanted to be.  The tone and tenor of the piece was all over the map.  A plucky, feel-good 50s war movie? A witty, rapacious comedy a la MASH?  An emotional, Spielbergian drama?   It was a real mish-mash of styles that sadly never found its footing.

The editing was equally sloppy. There was lots of narrative confusion. In the big picture, characters are spread out over Europe on certain missions, yet they continually rendezvous and meet up.  As a viewer there’s no sense of timeline.  Did those missions take days, weeks?  Why do they reconvene only to spread back out again?  Was there a purpose to the rendezvous other than to have all the stars back together again?   And many individual scenes also seemed devoid of finesse, leaving potentially dramatic scenes flat and uninspired. I don’t want to hand out any spoilers, but one particular scene that was poorly handled was a scene in which a main character dies.  I’ll only say that there was basic narrative confusion as to the set up of the death, the circumstances of the death, and ultimately no drama to the death. 

The film was devoid of tension, which is just not acceptable for a war movie.  There should have been tension.  The Nazi occupation of France, the Nazi retreat and their scorched earth policy, the brewing showdown between the Americans and the Russian, death on the battlefield.   All those plot points are broached in the movie, but none seemed particularly urgent.  

A frustrating film to be sure.  At the end of the day, I felt like I often do when I see well-intentioned docs that aren’t well put together.  I’m glad I saw it, but I just wish there was more art in the filmmaking. 

Lucking Out by James Wolcott

I'm a sucker for reading about NYC in the 70s.  It's an endlessly fascinating era.  The dirt, the crime, the art, and the culture have an amazing allure.   That fascination drew me to James Wolcott's memoir, Lucking Out.  Wolcott cut his teeth in the art and culture world of New York City in the 70s.  He got a break from Norman Mailer, wrote for the Village Voice, was part of Pauline Kael’s inner circle, and was on the ground floor of the CBGB universe.  Wolcott also turns his attention to the sleazoid universe of Times Square before falling in love with the ballet. 

The book is most exciting as Wolcott recounts his time with Kael, going to press screenings of countless seminal films from the 70s.  His view into Kael’s universe is worth the price of admission for the book alone.  But from that point forward, Lucking Out covers material already covered in greater depth in other NY 70s memoirs/scene overviews.  If you’ve already read Please Kill Me, Just Kids, Love Goes To Buildings On Fire, Tales of Time Square, The Other Hollywood, then you are already pretty familiar with the material covered here.  Maybe I'm hitting my saturation point with hearing about this era.

At a personal level, I've definitely reached my saturation point on the glorification of Patti Smith.  Don't get me wrong, I love Patti Smith.  I love her book.  I love her music.  I love what she stands for.  But I don’t need to hear anyone else deify her in print.  I'm over it.

As far as Lucking Out goes, not a bad read, but not a mind-blower.  

RIP 4 Star Video. The Rise and Fall of San Francisco Video Stores

Must say that I’m really bummed about the closing of 4 Star Video in Bernal Heights.  It’s been my video store since moving to the Excelsior 10 years ago.  I’ve held off on entering the Netflix world, in part to support my buddy Ken Fad Shelf, who purchased the store 5 years back, but also because I like video stores.  I like browsing the aisles, bumping into films I hadn’t come to rent.  I like hanging out with the people who hang out in video stores or are crazy enough to own them.  That’s part of being a film junkie.  

In a way, it’s odd that the demise of 4 Star is the store closure that hits the hardest.  Maybe that’s because it’s the one that I frequent now, and whose closure will force me to go to Netflix or a similar rental solution.  Maybe it’s because it’s the store my son has grown up in.  Last month my 11 year old browsed the shelves and pulled three films that we could watch that night—Powaqqatsi, The Phillip Glass documentary, or Broadway Danny Rose.  The choice was mine.  He loves hanging out in video stores, record stores, and bookstores.  I’m glad he’s had the chance to have those experiences, because in all likelihood, there’s a short window left to be moved by those activities.

It’s funny I’m even bemoaning the downfall of the video store.  I was pretty skeptical during the infancy of these stores.  It wasn’t like you could go find the films of Richard Kern or John Waters in video stores.  But then I moved to San Francisco in 1987 and the video stores here were eye opening.

I’m proud to have been one of the first members at Naked Eye, Wild Wild Video, Leather Tongue, Dirty Tongue, and Lost Weekend.  My membership card numbered less than #100 in all those spots.  Naked Eye was my first love.  A mind-bending selection with all the American Underground titles you could want.  All the Russ Meyer movies, Beth and Scott B shorts, and a huge stock of Target Videos.  Me and my friends watched them all.  Of course back then in the group-housing scenario, you all shared a card. Even people you didn’t live with shared your card.  For a good couple of months, every time I went in, Steve, who ran the joint was always harassing me to return Ken Russell’s The Devils, a title my ex-roommate had checked out and never returned.  I never even saw the movie…and still haven’t to this day! 

Wild Wild Video was another great one.  It started over by The Kabuki in Lower Pac Heights, a very bizarre place for a store featuring every psychotronic movie you could shake a stick at.   I don’t even think they carried anything but psychotronic videos.  Talk about a specialty store doomed to close!  Owners Mary and Prax, were great to chat with.  They eventually relocated to SOMA and eventually moved on to other pursuits.

The Valencia corridor came alive in the 90s.  Leather Tongue was first in the door.  Lisa who ran the joint was awesome in a crazy 90s way. You felt like a deviant just walking into that store.  In fact, she ran out of space for her porn titles, necessitating her to open a second store called Dirty Tongue…just for her dirty movies!

Lost Weekend opened a short time later and may end up as the last store standing.  Dave, Kristy and Adam are still carrying the torch.  I was over one of their apartments shortly before they opened.  They had started amassing their collection, and titles lined their apartment walls.  Lost Weekend was/is a true labor of love and passion, and, as a result, has the best selection of all.  The store is curated by film buffs who love it all and know how to put it together and display it.  I can still go in there and chew the fat with whoever is at the counter and always come away with titles I wasn’t expecting to grab.  

In all likelihood it too has an expiration date, but maybe being on Valencia will help stave off the inevitable.  I’ll go there to rent some titles, but certainly not as frequently as 4 Star.  It’s just too far away.  It used to be 1 block from my house, now it’s not so conveniently located, and, alas, I think Netflix is in my future.

I’m sure I’ll love Netflix.  I’ll love the immediacy and the instant access.  I'll love not having to make an additional trip to return a video and being charged a late fee. But I know Netflix is not going to stream or even have every oddball title I want, and I guarantee it won’t have the same flavor of wandering down Valencia Street, popping into a store filled with friends and debating the merits of The Cinema of Transgression vs. Mumblecore.

Note: Please don’t give me grief for not mentioning Le Video.  I know it’s great.  It’s just I’ve never lived on that side of town.

Experimentation & Inspiration: The World of Wonder

It's funny how creative projects come about. Sometimes you know exactly what you want to do. You have a set plan. You have a killer idea, which begets a script, which begets storyboards and so on and so forth, down the line. Other times, ideas materialize in an unexpected way—various ideas are floating around your brain, waiting to come into alignment, waiting for a spark that allows you to see the connections between seemingly unrelated ideas.

I just finished up a video for Alison Faith Levy’s beautiful new kid’s record World of Wonder. I’m pretty excited about it and it’s definitely an example of a film that materialized unexpectedly.

Thoughts of science, music and experimental film were buzzing around my brain, and in one moment they all fused together and the project was born.

I’ve been doing some corporate video work, as of late, and the company I’ve been working for developed a super electron microscope. Pretty awesome. As a result, I found myself with access to a library of images taken with the super electron microscope. Ants, spiders, pollen, metals, all blown up to 5,000 times their size. Beautiful stuff.

I’ve also spent the last several months prepping for an experimental film class. I’ve been wading knee-deep into the ephemeral and abstract world of those types of celluloid wonders. Because I had Brakhage and Baillie on the mind, as soon as I saw the super electron microscope footage, I immediately thought those images could be woven together in an interesting way. I looked at those images not as science, but as art.

When things got slow at work, I just grabbed those images and started playing around with them in After Effects. No set plan. No set design. Not even thinking I was going to make any film. I just wanted to see what could happen. What the possibilities could be. It was experimentation in it’s truest form.

When I sat down to play around with those images, I wasn’t setting out to make a music video at all. Now, to be fair, I should mention that Alison is my wife and I had been thinking about a video for Alison’s new record. But this song wasn’t on my radar, nor was this style of collage. But clearly, the notion of a music video was floating around my noggin.

As I began to dive into the After Effects project, I decided I wanted some music so I could have a rhythm to work with. I went to the iTunes library on my work computer, which has almost nothing on it. It did have World of Wonder on it.

I saw the World of Wonder track listed and, in a flash, realized that the song spoke about exploring the natural world with fresh eyes. Conceptually that resonated with what an electron microscope does—it looks straight into the heart of the natural world. And boom, just like that, in that instant, I knew what I was doing. I was making a music video for that particular song.

I hadn’t set out to do that, I just set out to experiment and mess around with some images, no end game in mind. And sometimes that’s how things work. You never know where inspiration is going to come from or what will pull your various ideas and thoughts into sharp focus.

As a teacher, I was thinking about experimental film. As someone interested in science, I was excited to get to check out an electron microscope. As a filmmaker, I was actually planning on making a music video for Alison in the very near future.

All those ideas were out there, floating around like dust motes, and in a specific moment in time, they all came together in my field of vision, and voila, a film got made.

Strangely, only one image, the frame that surrounds the video, remains from the electron microscope, but that's where the inspiration started.

RIP Phillip Guilbeau

It’s interesting as you get towards middle age and friends start to die. Recently I’ve had three friends pass away. All were involved in the art scene in a variety of ways. They all were instrumental in shaping people’s lives, but they were also artists whose careers never achieved household name recognition. It makes me sad thinking about the number of artists toiling away for years whose work never reached a large enough audience.

I just wanted to shed some light on one of those. I first met Phillip Guilbeau shortly after moving to SF in 1987. I have no idea where I first saw one of his films. At Club Kommotion? The Firehouse? The Artists’ Television Access? I don’t remember where it was, but I certainly remember what it was. The Psychosis of Tony Lambert was a bizarre, no-budget, super 8 blast of anger and aggression. The legendary Gary Floyd (of the Dicks and Sister Double Happiness) played both quack psychiatrist and patient Tony Lambert, driven to psychosis by society’s lack of understanding of his homosexuality. There was bad language, cross dressing, and wild gesticulations and facial contortions courtesy of Floyd. The film was nearly unwatchable at a technical level, but so full of life, energy and attitude that I was hooked and couldn’t wait to watch the film over and over. And it turned out Phillip had a trilogy of Lambert films under his belt. When I finally met Phillip, I found him to be one of the sweetest, quietest, kindest people I’d ever met. And his gentle Texas lilt was always so calming.

I immediately identified Phillip as a kindred spirit. A nice, quiet kid making insane films full of punk rock energy. We did lots of shows together. I put out one of the Lambert films on my first video compilation and screened his films countless times throughout the 80s and 90s.

As life does, we drifted apart. The number of times I talked to Phillip in the last ten years is miniscule. At some point, Phillip moved to Michigan to go to grad school at U of M (my alma mater). He reached out to me several weeks back, asking me to give him a call. We never spoke. I left a message. Phillip called back and left a message on my phone. The message was riddled with dropouts and bad reception and I heard almost nothing. I called back and left a message. And that’s it. Cancer. He passed away at his home in Texas with his family this week.

Not sure when the last time it was that he made a film. Not sure how many people will remember him as a filmmaker. His name likely won’t be included in film history books, but I know his work had impact. It certainly had an impact on me.

Rest In Peace - Phillip Guilbeau.

Who Needs The Internet? The Revenge of Print!!!!

“Who needs the internet?” I ask. I recently have been included in 4 different print projects, which, I must admit, sends a delightful retro chill down my spine. I’ve had articles published in two fantastic zines—8 Track Mind and The Molten Rectangle, and have had my work dissected (or vivisected) in two new fantastic tomes, Destroy All Movies and Radical Light. Here’s the skinny.

8 Track Mind, hopefully won’t need an introduction to most, but since it’s been 10 years or so since it’s last issue, all bets are off. 8 Track Mind was/is a fantastic zine, put together by media archeologist and all around good guy Russ Forster. 8 Track Mind has been the foremost publication willing to dig deep into the 8 Track subculture. For purveyors of discarded and forgotten technology, the zine featured some of the finest reportage geared toward 8 Track collectors and cultural connoisseurs of media and concepts abandoned to the dust heap of history. As part of the Revenge of Print Challenge issued forth from Baltimore’s Atomic Books and Chicago’s Quimby’s Books, Russ is back with a print-only issue that abandons the 8 Track theme and focuses on the pros vs. cons of the blogs vs. zine universe that we live in today. Articles from Joe Carducci, Kim Cooper, V. Vale, Lance Laurie and other luminaries, including myself, grace the pages. Hop down to Tower Records or your local zine shoppe and pick one up. If that doesn't work, send Russ $4 via paypal to russelforster@hotmail.com.

The Molten Rectangle is a film lover’s mag that is the brainchild of Gene Booth. The latest issue (number 3) features heaps of good think pieces about film and film history. Pieces on The African Queen, Burn, Pleasantville, and Million Dollar Baby fill the mag. But the standout is the oral history of Chicago’s now abandoned Parkway Theater. As an awesome bonus, The Molten Rectangle comes with a bonus DVD. How’s that for old school! The 3 film DVD contains a film by yours truly (Dumbass From Dundas), Jet Evelth’s Our Last Session (a Maria Bamford-ish trip to the shrink piece) and Booth’s own absurdist collage Skillz, wherein a trio of urban dwellers head to a video arcade only to have their dialogue stripped away and reconstituted for comic purposes. You can pick up a copy here.

Destroy All Movies: The Complete Guide To Punks On Film (edited by Zack Carlson & Bryan Connolly).
Have you been hankering for a movie encyclopedia about punk rock movies? Well, if so, here you have it. Destroy All Movies is the real deal. It’s monstrous, it’s beautifully laid out, and it’s expertly written. The book covers it all, from the obvious like the Decline movies and Suburbia to the No Wave Films to The Cinema of Transgression to the no budget, sub-underground shenanigans of folks like Dave Markey, Jon Moritsugu, and myself. I had no idea I was even in the book until I saw a copy at the MOMA. Like the narcissist that I am, I thumbed through the index, found my name and quickly flipped to page 179 for the review of I’m Not Fascinating. Brutal and funny. Fascinating gets dubbed as “The least likely punk feature ever shot,” and labeled as a “self-loathing vanity project”. Backhanded compliments and outright disdain for the film ensue, but I must say this is one of the best/funniest reviews of the movie ever, so I’m down. But in all seriousness the book is fantastic. It is equal parts reverential and snarky. Amidst the onslaught of reviews, the book intersperses interviews and with players like Markey, Alan Arkush (Rock and Roll High School) and Slava Tsukerman (Liquid Sky). As for the reviews, every movie that ever featured a punk in passing comes under the microscope. No shit, Hannah and Her Sisters is in this thing. Now that’s punk!

Radical Light: Alternative Film & Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000 (edited by Steve Anker, Kathy Geritz, Steve Seid).
Could there be two film books more different in tone than Destroy All Movies and Radical Light? I don’t think so, but I do know that I and am proud to be in both. I always contended that my films were a mixture of highbrow and lowbrow art. Being included in both of these books makes me feel, that perhaps, I’m not full of hot air on that account. I just picked up Radical Light at the library and am not that deep in yet, but I am blown away. Radical Light looks at the history of Bay Area experimental cinema from its roots in the 40s through the early part of this century. It’s a loving homage to the city, to its artists, and to the institutions that fostered the creativity within the Bay Area art scene. Interviews, essays and ephemera fill the pages. Reminisces and insights delivered by curators, art historians and the filmmakers themselves give the book academic and cultural heft. The book also connects the dots between the various art and cultural movements at play in the Bay. San Francisco has always exhibited a distinctive brand of counterculture, subversion, and pranksterism. The Bay Area has always been a place where experimentalism has often trumped careerism. Radical Light does much to unearth how and why that spirit of adventure has come to be and developed such strong roots. Can’t wait to really dig in.

Source Code and Blank City

Super fun double bill at the movies yesterday.

It’s summer. And as at teacher, that means some spare time and lazy summer afternoons. What better reason to start seeing a lot of movies. I started it with a foray downtown for Source Code, which is surprisingly still showing in one theater in town and followed it up with No Wave doc Blank City.

Source Code

I was a big fan of the Kubrick-esque solitude of Moon and was interested in Duncan Jones’ follow up. Got to say I dug it in a big way. Several years back I talked about a new generation of intelligent sci-fi films emerging out of Hollywood, and Source Code fits that bill. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a soldier on a mission, traveling to an alternate time-line to change future events. I will say there are some questionable moments from a logic perspective, but Jones does a great job constructing a foreboding universe. For all the apocalyptic trappings of his mission, the film is really about Gyllenhaal’s isolation and his personal journey of trying to find trustworthy characters in a landscape he has little control over. As with Moon, Jones wears his influences on his sleeve. Hitchcockian suspense, Kubrickian solitude, Johnny Got His Gun creepiness, with a little Run Lola Run thrown into the mix. But, as with Moon he makes it feel fresh and exciting and brings enough of his own ideas into the mix to make it all hum.

Blank City

Absolutely loved Blank City, Celine Danhier’s documentary on NYC No Wave filmmaking and the Cinema of Transgression. Set against the backdrop of a dangerous, decaying, and bankrupt NYC, No Wave filmmakers like Amos Poe, Eric Mitchell, Scott and Beth B, Charlie Ahearn, Jim Jarmusch, Steve Buscemi, and others set about making films that owe equal debt to punk rock nihilism, French New Wave filmmaking, Warhol/Morrissey Factory fair like Trash and Heat, as well as the lo-rent mania of John Waters. Mostly shot on super 8, the films are no budget, no frills, featuring no real actors, let loose on the streets of NYC and lower east side apartments. The films often have a loose hold on narrative at best. In reality many of these films are barely watchable in their entirety, but still have an impact as we see a group of artists trying to make sense of their universe on the margins. Blank City does a great job interviewing many of the folks at the center of the storm and does a fantastic job of culling great clips that capture the sense of urgency, desperation, and fearlessness that fuel these films. I’m reminded of a collection of super 8 films from Berlin released on a dvd called Berlin Super 80. The films themselves are not so interesting, but as a collection the films paint such a stark and distinctive picture of the time, the place, and the people. You’re left with a better impression of that era than any narrative film looking back at that era could provide. Blank City and the films of the No Wave operate in a similar sphere.

Also, by watching how this film scene grows and changes, the film does a great job looking at the development of NYC from it’s bankrupt state of menace in the mid-70s to the bustling, monied universe of the late Regan era. This is a nice bit of filmmaking, to tell the story of NYC through the story and the experience of these filmmakers.

The film also does a nice job looking at the crossover between the NYC art scenes at the time. Fine Art, CBGBs, Max’s, No Wave music, and the birth of hip hop all come into play as the players from these scenes cross over. I never realized that Wild Style, in fact, came out of the No Wave film scene. And finally, the No Wave films ultimately pave the way for the more abrasive Cinema of Transgression, populated by the likes of Nick Zedd, Richard Kern, and Lydia Lunch, a scene that I’m certainly more familiar with.

The film is going to want to make you seek out some of these films. It’s a mixed bag to be certain, and the shorter films tend to be more palatable. I certainly am a big fan of the Scott & Beth B shorts. Regardless, any fan of outsider movements, NYC, America in the 70s or punk ought to love this film.

Trailer for Blank City here.

The Exquisite DJ Project #1: Don't Choose The Wrong Song

Hey Friends, welcome to The Exquisite DJ Project. This is the first installment in assembling a collaborative mix with a bunch of my favorite rock and roll aficionados. The mix is assembled exquisite corpse style—each DJ hears only the track that came before him.

This time through the crew features myself as well as:

Jim Granato, aka DJ Jim G. You can catch him DJ at The Cassanova and The Hemlock. Track him down and listen to his mixes on 8tracks at Jim_G.

Chris Xefos, aka DJ CRX. You can catch him DJ at the Lone Star. Next gig will be in May. It will be part of a VS. series. First installment, 80s vs. 90s. CRX has been archiving sets on 8tracks. Check those out here.

Russ Forster, aka The Rock’N’Roll Nurse, has a weekly internet radio show on FCC Free Radio called BACKSPINS (6-8PM PST).

Dan Buskirk. This guy has been making awesome mixes for years and years and djs on Princeton’s WPRB.

The mix is called Don’t Choose The Wrong Song. An appropriate enough title pulled from one of Russ’ selections. If you have a need to know who added what, the order was myself, Jim, Chris, Russ, and Dan.

Enjoy.

The End of Kodachrome, Pt. II: Getting Lunar

Another spectacular day in Bryce. We awoke to snow flurries, and as a bonus, we actually woke up in time for the complimentary breakfast. Yesterday we arrived late and got the dregs. Today, after loading up on eggs, French toast and oatmeal, we hit the road for a walk on The Navajo loop trail, which takes you to the Canyon floor for a walk through the hoodoos. Once again, there was majesty around every bend. The snow turned to rain, the walkways to red mud. Every step resulted in mounds of red mud sticking to your shoes. A light drizzle throughout, but no complaints. Too much beauty in all directions. Actually saw a handful of people on the trail. All wet, but all happy.

After leaving Bryce, we had planned on taking a quick trip to Kodachrome Basin State Park. Kodachrome is the guiding light of this trip, and wouldn’t you know it, just 30 minutes south of Bryce is a state park which honors the beloved film stock in its name. But the rains were coming down hard and we needed to haul butt to Monument Valley. Sad to say, we bailed on Kodachrome Basin.

Arrived at Monument Valley sometime after 8 pm. Our hotel was in the park. No street address, just GPS coordinates. Our room overlooked The Mittens and Merrick Butte. Unbelievable. An excited Mr. Granato was heard to exclaim, “Nature Boner!” We rolled into the hotel a mere two hours before the start of the lunar eclipse, which we could take in from our balcony. At the start of the evening, the buttes of Monument Valley glowed in the muted blue moonlight. By the end of the eclipse, total blackout. Quite a way to experience the heart of the West.

Jim G. is a time-lapse fanatic.We had two super 8s and one hd documenting the proceedings. I’ve attached the hd video, which I shot of the eclipse. The eclipse footage, as well as the footage of the valley floor that features The Mittens and Merrick Butte, were all taken from the balcony. That’s how unsane our view was.

Jim set the alarm for sunrise, which we could also view from our balcony, or in my case, from my bed. Granato manned the sunrise cameras in long johns and socks, taking the occasional nap for good measure. Talk about the life of leisure for a wildlife/nature photographer. Sheesh.

Next up was the 17 mile drive through the buttes. We made it as far as John Ford Point. Fitting for a bunch of film geeks. We probably only covered half the drive. What I’ve found interesting about this trip is that once you decide to spend a tremendous amount of time documenting the most beautiful vantages and uncovering hidden vistas, the distance you travel drops considerably. On every hike or drive we’ve taken, we’ve spent an inordinate amount of time on the trail, yet we’ve traded the amount of ground covered for a deeper look at the landscape. Sometimes that’s a trade worth taking.

Below is the attached view of the eclipse.Enjoy.

Lunar Eclipse, Monument Valley, Dec 20/21, 2010 from danny plotnick on Vimeo.