August 18, 2003
Hip Survival Bulletin #33
OCT / NOV 2003
EXHIBITIONS : Li Cassidy Peet virtual / Unquiet voices realtime
SCREENINGS : Tav Falco / John Michael McCarthy / Cameron Jamie & The Melvins / Mark Ferelli DEVIL DADDY
MUSIC & FILM : Gone To Texas / Twang / Anne Pigalle / Makoto Kawabata
Saturday 25th October & Sunday 26th October
kinoKULTURE presents
TWO DAYS OF MEMPHINE DOINGS
25th October : Tav Falco : An exclusive presentation of films by, of, about and featuring the legendary Tav Falco, in the presence of the artist.
26th October : John Michael McCarthy : An evening of film from John Michael McCarthy, curated by Paul Duane
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SATURDAY OCT 25th 2003
Doors 7.30pm.
In the first of our two days of events celebrating the cultural phenomena that is MEMPHIS,
kinoKULTURE and FRENZI Records & Films present
TAV FALCO FILM FLICKS
memphis – paris
TOP GENRE NECROPHILIAC
LIVE EXCAVATIONS ROGUE MALE
An exclusive presentation of films by, of, about and featuring the legendary Tav Falco, in the presence of the artist!!
with work by directors
RAINER KIRBERG - ROBERT GORDON - RICHARD PLEUGER - TAV FALCO
Screening :
« Key to The Highway » « Phineas Newborn, Jr. » « Graceland »
« Shade Tree Mechanic » « Honky Tonk » « King Riders »
« Indigenous Whites » « Johnny Woods » « Memphis Beat »
« Sleepy John Estes » « Ten Books of Basie » « Born Too Late »
« Love's Last Warning »
Special thanks to Max Decharne
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SCREENING
KEY To The HIGHWAY
1978
Memphis, Tennessee environs
30-min.
1/2 » Open Reel Video ori ginal, B&W
Bluesman at home, on the outskirts of town. Interviewed by Gianni Marcucci and captured on camera by Tav Falco. Lum Guffin plays wistful renditions of "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl", "Catfish Blues", "Rollin' and Tumblin'", "Baby Please Don't Go » as his fingerpicking guitar odes recall earlier times of hoboing far from the homestead.
PHINEAS NEWBORN, Jr.
August 17, 1975
Memphis, Tennessee
3-min. excerpt
1/2 » Open Reel Video original, B&W
Imagine yourself a prodigy, a jazz virtuoso of the 1950s. You have played with everybody from Duke Ellington to Charlie Mingus. Then POW… you are lost for twenty years. Your achievements and talents put into chemical and canvas straitjackets. Living with your mother. Treated like a miscreant. Then you begin to rise to the top again. This is one of the man’s first public performances before a public eager and waiting so long for his return.
GRACELAND
August 17 & 18, 1977
Memphis, Tennessee
30-min.
1/2 » Open Reel Video original, B&W
Study of crowd of mourners at the gates of the family mansion and on the spot interviews on the death of Elvis Presley.
SHADE TREE MECHANIC
1987
Memphis, Tennessee
4-min.
16mm Film original, Color
A day in the life of the Unapproachable Panther Burns : their women, their house, their dogs, their cars, their motorcycles, their garage, their music, their bodyguards, their rituals. Directed by Richard Pleuger.
HONKY TONK
September 28,1974
Coldwater, Mississippi
26-min.
1/2 » Open Reel Video original, B&W
Saturday Night" in a north central Mississippi 'Tonk' called the Brotherhood Sportsmen's Lodge. We hear the blues expounded in its most volatile form. Delta Blues player Rural (RL) Burnside and friends clearly delineate the function of the honky tonk in rural black life.
Grainy, Jean Rouch-verite-style video original documentation of a hill-countryblues club
KING RIDERS
1986
Memphis, Tennessee
36-min.
1/2 » Open Reel Video original, B&W
Annual convention of King Riders Motorcycle Club, the largest black motorcycle organization in the US. Tav Falco goes into their clubhouse & shot festivities. Emblems of different gangs, social dances (including line dancing), electric blues band led by a man they called, Pig… "get on down & put your weight on it." Patches & logos on backs of leather & blue jean jackets : Royal Knights, The Easy Riders, The Ace of Spades, Gayhawks of Mississippi, Stroker Naptown Riders of Nashville, A-Town EZ Rider of Anderson, Indiana (Tanqueray Kid), Bobby Aries of the Easy Riders of Baton Rouge, LA., God's Sons of Tennessee (crude caricature of Satan), Creek Brothers; Rising Sons of Memphis; Memphis Gentlemen (skull wearing top hat & bow tie), Black Demons of Holly Springs, Mississippi, Sunset Riders of Brownsville, Kula Sisters of Memphis, The Hustlers of Memphis, Soul Stars of New Orleans, & the Foxy Ladies. Doctor D rapping about a girl who likes to freak-- ah, "the freak of the week." Man -wearing sunglasses & black satin jacket- performing on stage with orange-haired puppet. The puppet gets funky!
INDIGENOUS WHITES
July 27, 1975
Memphis, Tennessee
30-min.
1/2 » Open Reel original, B&W
One of the most stunning forays into the existence of poor people. Candid conversations with the scions of the early settlers of White Station, Tennessee. Family history, that great watershed of the shadowed dreamer, plays a dominant role in this indictment of certain human aspects of our time.
JOHNNY WOODS
August 24, 1974
Rabbit Ridge, Mississippi
3-min. excerpt.
1/2 » Open Reel Video original, B&W
Home grown harmonica at its best. He played with the legendary Fred McDowell during his twenty years’ submersion in Mississippi. Woods is tossed in the rough and tumble livingroom of his white Panola countyi mentors. This tape has been criticized for being racially bizarre (for an enlightened age). Johnny plays in the style of the late 19th. century medicine minstrel vagabond.
MEMPHIS BEAT
February 2,1989
Memphis, Tennessee
3-min.
16mm Film original, Color
Filmed and directed by Robert Gordon ("It Came From Memphis") with cut-away footage shot by Tav Falco and Dan Rose. (Locations later used by Jim Jarmusch in his feature, "Mystery Train"). This is a filmic record of Panther Burns in action on the occasion of the anniversary of the group's 10th. year performance to the date. A temporary stage is erected in a cotton warehouse situated on the bluffs of the Mississippi River where the band plays to an audience of music lovers and unruly celebrants. Among the performers are the original formation of Panther Burns, including Tav Falco - himself, Alex Chilton, Ross Johnson, and Eric Hill. Joining them on stage are an array of Memphis artists who also had tenure within the line-up of the group: namely, Jim Duckworth, the Easley Brothers, George Reinecke, and certain members of their sister group, the Hellcats. Also featured is an appearance by pioneer rocker, Cordell Jackson (Moon Records), in addition to closing scenes at the voodoo counter of Schwabs on Beale Street.
SLEEPY JOHN ESTES
September 5, 1975
Brownsville, Tennessee
3-min. excerpt
1/2 » Open Reel Video original, B&W
The most lyrical and poetic of the Tennessee bluesmen. Shot in the front yard of the Estes’ house, we get a real insight into the Estes’ style with its ascerbic bite. The ominious shadow of the boss man falls across the scene at one point chilling like white ice.
TEN BOOKS of BASIE
June 6 & 7, 1975
Memphis, Tennessee
30-min.
1/2 » Open Reel Video original, B&W
Flower children of the '60s out in the attic moaning for those lost days of the intact nervous system. They wheel through the old times to come up with a pitiful hand-hold on the '70s. Lost in the thrill-kill present, prisoners of the ironclad past. Shocking.
This video-original footage is exemplary of the early open reel to reel prosumer equipment of the time it was shot: grainy, edgy, shaky, and less than stable. The footage is raw & gritty in the truest sense. A video happening, described by photographer Tav Falco as "an art action piece"
BORN TOO LATE
1993
Budapest, Hungary
4-min.
Original Film: 35mm B&W
Filmic treatment of an original dirge fugue composed & delivered on screen by Tav Falco, himself…a singer, claims « Variety » who was the first to treat Fellini to a Mississippi mud pak. Filmed in the baroque Cupola Room of Club Fésék in Budapest by cinématographer, Sas Tàmàs, and directed with precision by Rainer Kirberg, an award-winning screenplay writer now living in Berlin. The Austrian actress, Nina Tischler, debuts her career as 'Belzina'... and the avant garde fashion designer, Tamàs Kiràly, known as the Jean Paul Gaultier of the east, appears here as a switch-blade wielding hustler. The Viennese dancer, Doris Ebner, performs a feline, tango ritual in the arms of Làszlò Attila who has been sublimely described as a dancing 'Bela Lugosi on acid'.
Premier broadcast in light rotation on MTV-Europe.LOVE'S LAST WARNING
1996
Vienna, Austria
5-min.
Super-16mm Film original, ColorA moody lament of romantic longing and regret written and performed here by Tav Falco for the "Shadow Dancer" album. Under the direction of Rainer Kirberg, the piece was filmed at the notorious Hotel Orient in Vienna, a discreet bordello frequented by Orson Welles & Graham Green during the filming of the Carol Reed classic, "The 3rd. Man".
Featuring the Viennese stage and screen luminary, Ellen Umlauf, who began her career in dance, becoming a prima ballerina before entering acting. She has appeared in nulerous films and stage productions in Germany and in Vienna at the Burg Theatre.
Also featured is the pioneer underground filmmaker and author Kenneth Anger appearing as himself... shuffling a deck of tarot cards and presiding over the bizarre transformation of Tav Falco into the dagger whipping character of Fantomas . Kenneth Anger was a child actor in Hollywood in the 1930s and later the creator of such celebrated and daring underground films as the masturbatory "Fireworks" (which he crafted at age 17), and the seminal motorcycle cult movie, "Scorpio Rising", and "Invocation of My Demon Brother" (featuring Marianne Faithful and with music by Mick Jagger), and "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome" (with Anaïs Nin). He is perhaps as famous for his books of movie industry scandal, gossip, and intrigue ~namely, Hollywood Babylon and Hollywood Babylon II. The former was first published in France in 1960 and the United States a decade later, and has become a worldwide bestseller that is, in the words of Susan Sontag, "as legendary as its subject". Anger remains an active and meticulous filmmaker now living in Palm Springs, California.
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American singer, songwriter, guitarist, performing artist, dancer, photographer, filmmaker. Born Gustavo 'Tav' Falco into a family with roots in southern Italy. Grew up in the backwoods of rural Arkansas.
After working a diversity of jobs as a railroad 'brakeman', icehouse worker, gas station attendant & flat tire fixer, he moved from Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1973. He became a member of Big Dixie, an alternative performance group and with Televista, an alternative film/video group in Memphis. He also worked with the noted Memphis photographer William J. Eggleston. In the process of making films & videos with blues musicians from Mississippi & Tennessee, Falco began to absorb rudimentary blues guitar playing and singing.
On stage in Memphis Falco became associated with and under the influence of an array of Memphis musicians: Charlie Feathers, James Luther Dickinson, Sam the Sham, Roland Janes, Sleepy John Estes, Van Zula Hunt, Mabon 'Teenie' Hodges, Roland Robinson & others. In his first solo performance between the acts of Jim Dickinson's band, Mudboy & the Neutrons, at the Orpheum Theatre in Memphis, Falco sang the "Bourgeois Blues" and simultaneously destroyed an electric guitar with a chainsaw live on stage.
In 1979 Falco founded his band the PANTHER BURNS :
From this cacophonic beginning Falco began to emerge as an underground cult artist with the formation of his band 'PANTHER BURNS', named after a legendary plantation in the Mississippi delta. Alex Chilton (guitar) was a founding band member along with Jim Dickinson (guitar), Eric Hill (keyboard), & Ross Johnson (drums). The band has had a number of revolving members that now include Michael Lo (bass), Peter Dark (guitar), & Tall Cash (drums).
He also used to write songs under the name of Eugene Baffle.
During his early collaboration with Alex Chilton, Tav Falco obtained an unapproachable cult-like status, a position he since has been able to maintain with a repertoire and music that is a surprising mix of conversion of obscure rock'n'roll, tangos, sambas, mambos, ballads, and obscure pop standards. The PANTHER BURNS first record came out in 1980 on the band's own label FRENZI in the USA. Since then their records have been released by Rough Trade in London, New Rose in Paris, Marilyn and Munster in Spain, In The Red in Los Angeles, & Au GoGo in Melbourne, Australia.
Even if his own style was different, Tav Falco spent some time in 1980/1981 in New York, part of the No Wave movement, playing and making friends with such bands as DNA, Walter Stedding, James White, united around the concept of musical freedom and experimentation.
Because of its raw, unbridled, lurking sound the band has been called a ‘ballroom gothic juntabilly garage band’. Still, Falco has received critical success in publications such as 'New York Times', 'Village Voice', 'Chicago Sun-Times', 'New Orleans Times-Picayune', 'Andy Warhol's Interview', etc. Even though Falco cultivates the image of a suave singer, his new records show his rough style lurking underneath polished productions. Singer and guitarist Tav Falco has always been very interested in making movies (see videos section). He has also appeared as an actor in movie bio of Jerry Lee Lewis, "Great Balls of Fire", as a motorcycle gang leader in the road movie, "Highway 61", and as a criminal mastermind in the forthcoming, "Wayne County Rambling".
His last music film/video clip "Love's Last Warning" was made with the American underground film pioneer, Kenneth Anger.
His last studio recordings Panther Phobia were realesed in the late-2000, some 20 years after his first recordings.
2001 saw him played several concerts in Europe and USA, often 2 hours long, unanimously acclaimed to be great & brilliant, enthusiastic & full of energy.
2002 saw a wide autumn tour and also a winter tour (Austria, Germany, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Danemark, Belgium, France, Italy, Slovenia, Yugoslavia, Switzerland)
An album has been recorded, to be released soon !!
& 2003 begins with some dates in Spain (winter tour).
Tav Falco
P.B.F.L.
Panther Burns Forever Lasting
http://tavfalco.limbos.org
http://www.lolaproduct.com/web-tav-falco/soundtf.htm
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SCREENING
Sunday 26th October
JOHN MICHAEL McCARTHY
Doors 7.30pm
The second in our two evenings of films of, in, about, by and surrounding the cultural phenomena that is MEMPHIS,
kinoKULTURE presents to you :
IT CAME FROM MEMPHIS
An evening of film from John Michael McCarthy, curated by Paul Duane
Featuring specially recorded video introduction by director John Michael McCarthy!
with
Elv*s meets the B*atles
Superstarlet AD
AND the pilot for It Came from Memphis directed by Paul Duane and Robert Gordon.
Superstarlet A.D. is a feature length romp packed with the sex and violence of a soap-bath opera. It picks up early in the post-apocalyptic next millenia in the lost city of Femphis, where the world has returned to the order of nature. All men have de-evolved into deadly Neanderthals, whereas womankind has gained a chromosome - all women are physically beautiful, but wear only vintage undergarments (other clothes not having withstood the disaster). All gay men are dead and there are no gay cavemen so it will take millions of years for the clothing industry to evolve.
The women have no desire to construct geometric shapes, prefering to make the best of what has been left for them. Gifted with style and intuition, but cursed with a gossip & hatred for other hair colors, women have banded into beauty cults!
Armed with machine guns, dumb platinum blond PHAYRAYS, ruthless brunet SATANAS and ill-tempered redheaded TEMPESTS battle each other among the ruins of Femphis, over a dissipating supply of lipstick and ammo. All try to stay out of the reach of the deadly skulking cavemen.
Except for one Beauty Cult who had to be different: SUPERSTARLET A.D.:
A multi-haircolored force of three enlightened starlets who love all haircolor. Brunet leader Naomi loves her naive blond girlfriend Rachel but their beloved rehead Sarah was killed by another redhead member, Jezebel. Killing another woman being the worst crime, Jezebel is exiled forever from Superstarlet A.D. and the beauty cult finds itself without a redhead.
As direct descendants of 1950's burlesque stars, the Superstarlets wear their grand- mothers film reels mounted on their backs like halo's. The story concerns Naomi's quest in life: to find and watch her ancestral film. Naomi and Rachel search ancient movie theatres bearing only the title "Funny Pages" to guide them. Most theatres house only cavemen and intrigue.
Jezebel becomes the 13th leader to rule The Tempests, worshippers of rusted sewing machines. Living in a Berlin-esque night- club, The Tempests accept blond victims whom the Satanas have captured and traded for lipstick. The victims are sacrificed for their blood, which is used to enrich the redness of their hair color.
"First there was Nature, then animals, and then Woman! Woman gave birth to Man and he follows us to this very day. She survives because she is closer to Nature. She looks natural in animal skin; painted, clawed, and heeled. Since time began Man has evolved but WOMAN has always looked the same! So why be equal when you are born SUPERIOR? Blood Ritual gives us power! RED the first color to be named! Any woman can be a Tempest who dies her hair in the blood of a blond or a brunet.
Blood is what the Tempests worship now!
TO HELL WITH RUSTY MACHINES!"
The balance is disrupted when the hotheaded Tempests take a Satana hostage and convert her, via the brutal conditioning of Jezebel's personal domantrix/lover Cathy X. This infuriates Verona, leader of The Satanas who swears revenge, even if it means joining forces with the blondes.
Constantly searching for her Grandmothers film, Naomi discovers a new redhead. Her name is Valentine. She was a starlet who fell asleep in her hotrod and awoke in the apocalyptic present day. Valentine even lives in a vintage clothing store and invites Naomi and Rachel to stay with her. Soon she becomes the next member of Superstarlet A.D.
"My name is Valentine, or so my story goes. I was conceived in a drive-in and it took a Man. We are all conceived by Man I suppose. But it takes a woman to deliver the goods. But who can remember and what does it matter? Is it that much of me that is evil? That part of me made by Man. Well I intend to rub-it-out. I wanted a brute, not a neanderthal. So I kill a Man (if I'm lucky enough to find one). ... then I am aroused. And when I am aroused I am better.
So I have to wonder out loud... I want to kill a Man and love a Woman. Maybe one will lead to the other. After all, woman turns to woman when man turns to ape."
The lost film "Funny Pages" is found by UltraMame, leader of the PhayRays. Now the Phayrays are in control of Naomi's quest, bribing her to give up Rachel (because blondes are almost extinct.) This pushes Naomi to the brink of everything she holds dear as she struggles to control the murderous urges that before she thought only belonged to Man.
Fleeing from a thousand gothic mansions of her imagination, Naomi murders UltraMame which seems to solve everything, but only for a moment. This act of selfishness forever changes the lives of those who kiss and tell and kill for Superstarlet A.D.!
"What kind of society destroys its church? Later I wrote what a cool place the Lamar Theatre must of been. Through lawsuits, riots, and hard-ons, Lamar Theatre uber alles. The church cannot compete with the sin cinema, where children suffer ratbite screaming to a monster movie. Closed for good when the heard the end was coming. They had already seen the end of every movie."
E*VIS MEETS The BEAT*ES
(or Elvis is Alive, Paul is dead, and I ain't feeling so well)
An Unpopular movie about the most popular icons of our time
Questions asked and answered by EMTB:
SEE & HEAR what was REALLY on their minds the night of August 27, 1965 when Elvis met The Beatles! What Lennon meant to say was "The Beatles are more popular than Elvis." Why is a culture obsessed with keeping Elvis alive and Paul dead? Why was Elvis' best friend and guru a "hairdresser"? And why the obsession with salons, hair length, and Ringo's nose? Brian Epstein dies two years to the day he meets Elvis. What is the secret message in the Charlie Rich song they jammed to that night: "Mohair Sam" with it's "IS WHAT AM" matching the metaphysical thrust of Elvis' favorite religious book "The Impersonal Life". Why did Elvis shoot catfight videos with Priscilla and others dressed only in her white underwear? (supposedly destroyed by Vernon Presley upon Elvis' death!) Did George Harrison provide the LSD for Elvis' first (and only?) trip? Were young women cruised for at Shoney's parking lots? When Chapman shot Lennon did he speak with a Southern accent? Why does everything end with assasination and suicide? Can you imagine Revolver being recorded at Stax in 1966? It almost happened ....
HELVIS SKELVIS: Everything comes back to Memphis: Elvis hated The Beatles yet covered their songs. Memphis band The Gentrys are originally slated to play The Monkees, who are based on The Beatles. Manson auditions to be a Monkee in 1966. Elvis' paranoia begins during the Manson trials when he receives anonymous death-threats. Memphian Tommy Boyce wrote The Monkees theme, later commits suicide in Gnashville. Like Manson, Elvis ordered a 'hit' on someone and also blamed The Beatles for his bad karma. The Beach Boys cover the Manson-penned ditty "Cease to Exist (Learn to Love)". Paul McCartney hangs out with Mike Love in India writing songs for the White Album. Alex Chilton slept in Manson's bed while on tour with the Beach Boys in 1968.
22 minute movie.
IT CAME FROM MEMPHIS - trailer
Written/Produced/Directed by Robert Gordon and Paul Duane, based on Robert
Gordon's legendary book of the same name.
Running time 10' 42'
We're living in the last days - the last chance to listen to those who
learned from the original Delta blues players, and who in turn warped and
bent this music and turned it into what we now call rock and roll.
Memphis is the southern Shangri-La where the roots of this apocalyptic music
are there to be seen by those who know where to look.
Our guide through the wild and unpredictable history of Memphis is Jim
Dickinson - veteran producer, performer, songwriter, agitator and orator.
And our interpreter is Robert Gordon, writer of It Came From Memphis,
which unlike previous books about Memphis, doesn¹t focus on Elvis Presley,
Al Green, Sun or Stax studios. Instead, it looks into the shadows cast by
these institutions.
Gordon and Dickinson will tell us about how a generation of Southern white
redneck kids befriended a generation of elderly Mississippi blues artists,
and what happened when these two ostracized cultures met and found mutual
inspiration on the margins of Memphis - this collision site where blues met
country and somehow a new sound emerged.
"JMM's movies are visual assaults on pop culture, TV, comic books and rock and roll. His soundtrack to The Sore Losers is one of the best collections that I know of ..."
Alexander Lawrence, Cups Magazine #91 (Winter 98)
"JMM's filmmaking is like ingesting a pill to cure yourself of the crap that mainstream filmmaking (shoves) down your throat..."
Scottie Diablo, Memphis Creep #1
"Outside of the work of such cinematic wildmen as Jodorowsky, George Kuchar, and Jose' Mojica Marins, it's unlikely that you'll come across a film as baffling, yet entrancing as The Sore Losers. Even though you may not comprehend the film, McCarthy's vision is so layered and deep-rooted that you cannot help but watch it. Do the French know about J. Michael McCarthy?"
Paul Gaita, Video Eyeball, vol.3, #3 (Spring 99)
"If McCarthy weren't so marginalized, many filmmakers could be modeling their work on his layered lyricism instead of Quentin Tarentino's canned vacuousness."
Chicago Reader (August 7, 97)
The Sore Losers is lovingly slapdash and surprisingly well-photographed and edited. This has to be the ultimate take-off on every exploitation film trope that ever flashed it's way across the stained torn surface of a drive-in screen. A manic, pulp-lurid celebration of the dark, seamy underbelly of the American zeitgeist."
Dan Persons, Cinefantastique (February, 98)
"What makes J. Michael McCarthy so rare a director is that he makes these cheapies with as much passion and gusto as Alfred Hitchcock ever did!"
Jed Leland, Fiz (Spring 96)
"Without exaggeration, McCarthy visualizes D'Lana as an amazing archetype of sensual beauty and bruised innocence. Hollywood, you can keep your Sharon Stone; I'll take D'Lana Tunnell!"
Neil Wexler, Video World. (Spring 96)
"(In Damselvis) Guitars stand alone on dark street corners, like pawnshop versions of the black megaliths in Kubrickâs 2,001 A Space Odyssey."
Frank Grow, Hypno Magazine #9 (Summer 94)
"Incredibly Strange Films";
We've been watching "Shine On Sweet Starlet," "Superstarlet A.D.," "Teenage Tupelo," "Elvis Meets the Beatles," and "The Sore Losers," which arrived in the mail. Memphis, Tennessee's king of B-movies is John Michael McCarthy, whose 3 rules of filmmaking are: 1) Don't ask permission 2) Shoot until they make you stop 3) Deny everything.
In "Teenage Tupelo," McCarthy takes inspiration from Jesse Presley, Elvis's unborn twin. Elvis's story embodies the American rags-to-riches myth, but his forgotten twin lies buried in a pine box in Tupelo, Mississippi. Basically "Teenage Tupelo" asks the question, "What if the Twin had lived?" There's more: "The Sore Losers" ("They wanted meat, so they ate the flower children") is inspired by Herschell Gordon Lewis--enuff said! (see H.G. Lewis's "classic" interview in our Incredibly Strange Films book--go to: http://www.researchpubs.com/books/isfprod.shtml)
McCarthy's films are available from any good video store like Naked Eye or Le Video in San Francisco, or better yet, order direct from the filmmaker himself at http://www.bigbroad.com . These are surprisingly high-quality productions, even considering their zero budget, with compelling soundtracks by Impala, Guitar Wolf and other retro-leaning bands. These films "prove" that film making, the most expensive art form today, may probably be best pursued in lower-rent cities like Memphis, where there's more time to make art because there's fewer distractions, more space, more people with spare time and enthusiasm, plus--apparently, no permits are required.
Vale, ReSearch Newsletter #16
SUPERSTARLET A.D.
You'll see more painted lips in SUPERSTARLET A.D., Memphis indie wonder John Michael McCarthy's latest, than in your average Revlon commercial. The sirens, vixens, and amazons in JMM's deadpan apocalyptic comedy - a world of urban ruins where men have lost a chromosome and reverted to Neanderthal savages shot for sport by warring cults of blond-, red-, and black haired women - sneer, pout, purse, and stretch their dark mouths, which stand in shocking contrast to their pure white complexions. What rescues it from overburdened camp concept is Steven Oatley's gorgeous black and white cinematography, a soundtrack of Memphis musicians who noodle in lounge jazz and Spanish guitar stylings, and the unreasonable confidence with which JMM realizes his movie-fanatic's dystopia and then guides his mostly female performers through it without a misstep. (JF)
Screened 3/16/2001 at the Videotheque. 14th Annual Dallas Video Festival
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In dark times, know your demons.
October 31st
...they're here...
Halloween Extravaganza!
Gone To Texas
Goth To Texas!
GTT, the Western artist magazine, gets resurrected in time for Halloween.
Come join the ghost riders in the sky!
The Whiskey! The Women! The Priest!
The Fickle Finger of Fate! The Sinister Voodoo Crew!
The Scarily Sacral St Silas! The Pale Impaler!
The Bone Daddy! ZOMBIE LINE DANCING!!!
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NOVEMBER
Saturday 8th November
Twang!
Thursday November 13th
Anne Pigalle
Friday 14th November
Makoto Kawabata of Acid Mothers Temple
performing live to a very rare video projection screening of Siejun Suzuki's 1968 film "Zigeunerweisen"
Thursday November 27th
KRANKY KLAUS
plus
Cameron Jamie in conversation
with Alex Farquharson
MARK FERELLI "DEVIL DADDY"
- special artist's interpretation of "Blood On Satan's Claw" involving invocation, magic lantern show and sound installation DATE TO BE CONFIRMED. Watch this space, and don't miss it.
posted by James on August 18, 2003 05:57 PM