Thursday September 25th at 7:30PM

Balagan and Guest Curator Jane Gillooly Present:

PSYCHEDELIC CINEMA Light Show Films (1967-1969) with Live Music
Featuring Films of Ken Brown (Appearing in Person)
with Musicians: Chris Butler, Bob Moses, Willie Alexander, Ken Winokur, P. Andrew Willis & DJ Pace

Location: Coolidge Corner Theatre (Moviehouse I)
290 Harvard St.
Brookline, MA 02446

$12 general admission $10 students and members


The infamous and eye-popping vintage 1960's Boston Tea Party Light Show Films (shot & directed by Ken Brown) return with a dazzling live psychedelic musical arrangement performed by New York and Boston luminaries.

It is high time for a proper Boston screening celebration of the absolutely unique image world of filmmaker, photographer, cartoonist and designer Ken Brown. For over thirty years Brown has been making stunning experimental films, animations and music videos.  For three years in the late 60's in Boston, Ken Brown was the resident filmmaker for the ultra-psychedelic Cinemateque and Rock Club -  the Boston Tea Party. Between 1967 and 1969 he produced hundreds of Super-8mm works loaded with staggering superimpositions and startling visual dimensions for this infamous Boston Light Show.

Event Description:

PSYCHEDELIC CINEMA Light Show Films (54 min, Super-8 on Video, 1967-69)

This selection of films is a true pop culture artifact.  These stunning super 8 films were shot and edited in camera by artist Ken Brown between 1967-69 and projected regularly at the Boston Tea Party and other venues around New England as a visual accompaniment to performers such as the Velvet Underground, Led Zepplin and Jimmi Hendrix to name a few.  In their original context, they were joined by slides, strobes, and liquid projections, all of which formed a visual tapestry of light as a backdrop for countless concerts.  True to their time, these films possess a rambunctious energy with hallucinatory multi-layered imagery, comic vignettes, animations, and abundant graphic referencing. Recently resurrected and ready for projection, the films will be shown with live musical accompaniment from Chris Butler, formerly of the Waitresses, Ken Winokur of the Alloy Orchestra, Bob Moses of Kustomized, musician/composer P. Andrew Willis and Willie Alexander who coincidently played in the band the Lost who performed on the opening night of the Boston Tea Party in1967. A true revelation for Boston music fans and Super-8 film enthusiasts, indeed. - (dapted from Anthology Film Archive)

Boston Tea Party Night Club History:

The original home of the Boston Tea Party was at 53 Berkley Street. In late ‘66 the building became home to the Filmmakers Cinematheque, which showed “underground” movies by Andy Warhol, among others. To support the film programs, it was decided to hold a series of weekend “dance concerts” like those then happening at the Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms in San Francisco.

It was on January 20, 1967 that The Boston Tea Party first opened its doors in a building constructed in 1872 as a Unitarian meeting house. The show on the opening weekend featured The Lost. In that group, his first band, was Willie “Loco” Alexander, who later became a mainstay of Boston's punk scene. Then came the Tea Party debut of The Hallucinations, whose front man Peter Wolf went on to hit records and the cover of Rolling Stone with The J. Geils Band. Soon the film showings ended, and the Tea Party began presenting acts from out of town. The Velvet Underground first came up from New York City in May ‘67, and because they didn't perform in New York again for the next three years, the Tea Party in effect became their home club.

The Tea Party also became a favored destination for many top rock and blues artists, and a must-play venue for bands on their first U.S. tour. The original Jeff Beck Group, featuring then-unknown Rod Stewart and future-Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, played in June ‘68. Led Zeppelin debuted in January ‘69. B.B. King made his first appearance before a white Boston audience at the Tea Party in April ‘68 after years of performing at black clubs in town. In July ‘69 the club relocated to a larger space at 15 Lansdowne Street (now the home of Avalon) and closed for good in October ‘70. Throughout its existence the Tea Party showcased and inspired local musicans, and was a major catalyst for the rock scene in Boston. - (Music Museum of New England)


To see a clip: http://www.kenbrownpixpop.com/psychedeliccinema.html

 

Biographies:

KEN BROWN: Filmmaker
http://www.kenbrownpixpop.com
Filmmaker, photographer, cartoonist and designer Ken Brown. Brown is perhaps best known for his peculiar and distinctive postcards, rubber stamps and other ephemera, but for over thirty years he has been making stunning experimental films, animations and music videos.  In the late 60's in Boston, Ken Brown was the resident filmmaker for the ultra-psychedelic Boston Tea Party light show, producing Super-8mm works loaded with staggering superimpositions and startling visual dimensions. His subsequent short films have continued to mine his deep fascination with American pop culture, the quotidian world of home movies and the idiosyncratic world of outsiders and visionary artists. Besides the copious experimental films, animations and video documentaries he has made over the years, Brown has produced and directed dozens of short commissions for MTV, VH-1, SESAME STREET, AMC and other clients. - (Anthology Film Archive)

Musicians

Chris Butler - drums
Chris Butler led the experimental new wave 1980s band The Waitresses (PolyGram). Butler grew up in the U.S. state of Ohio and majored in sociology at Kent State University. He was among a crowd of students fired on by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970. [1] (wikipedia)  Butler's biggest project to date is The Waitresses and he penned all of the band's songs, including "I Know What Boys Like", "No Guilt", "Christmas Wrapping", "I Could Rule the World, If I Could Only Get the Parts", and the theme song for the TV sitcom Square Pegs. He holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest pop song recording in history, a 69-minute song entitled "The Devil Glitch".  Butler currently lives in New York City. He runs Future Fossil Music/Future Fossil Records. In recent years, Chris has been playing with The Cranks, Half Cleveland, and Purple Knif. Blog = http://jammedonon.blogspot.com/. Website = http://www.futurefossilmusic.com/.

Bob Moses - bass
Bob Moses is a writer, editor, producer, and musician. A familiar face in Boston music since the early 80s, Bob played guitar with Busted Statues ("Red Clouds", "Heart Upside Down") and bass with Kustomized, which recorded for Matador Records in the 90s. He continues to play in New York, adding mandolin to his repertoire. He was a frequent contributor of music features in The Boston Phoenix, and is the author and editor of several books on music and film. He also created the editorial concept and was the editor of MTV's first newsstand magazine. Bob's new music-related project, an online publication and label called Smoke Music Archives will be launched in early September.  He is currently producing, with Don Fleming, R. Stevie Moore's first studio/band recordings.

Willie Alexander - keyboards
Keyboardist Alexander got his start playing in church. Well, not exactly in the actual services. His father was a Baptist minister and Willie would sneak into the church and bang away at the piano. His early influences were Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. From the Lost, a 60's garage-band that made a couple of records for Capitol, to the psychedelic late-60's Bagatelle, to a brief stint in the post-Lou Reed Velvet Underground, the Boom Boom Band in the punk 70's, which recorded for MCA, to an introspective take on the 80's recording for the French label New Rose, and renewed band energy in the 90's with the Persistence of Memory Orchestra, Willie has maintained a consistently high level of emotional and artistic integrity.

Ken Winokur – percussion
Ken Winokur is director and percussionist for Alloy Orchestra a three man musical ensemble, writing and performing live accompaniment to classic silent films. Alloy has written new scores for 23 feature length silent films.  Alloy has toured internationally for almost two decades to such venues as: Lincoln Center, the Academy of Motion Pictures, the Telluride Film Festival, and the Louvre.  The group collaborates with prestigious archives and collectors (Paramount Pictures, Film Preservation Associates, and the British Film Archives) to present exceptional silent films in the best way possible.  Winokur, along with partner Jane Gillooly, have also formed Box 5, to restore and release silent films. Winokur's other musical projects include: The Concussion Ensemble, The Bentmen, Roger Miller's No Man's Band, and Bam Bam.  He has performed on albums and cds with: Morphine, Hal Wilner, and Bim Ska La Bim.  

P. Andrew Willis – guitar
P. Andrew Willis is a Boston based composer, producer, and musician. Since relocating from Louisville, Kentucky, he has continued collaborating with his hometown projects Crappy Nightmareville and The Web (Azuza Inkh) with whom he has recorded, performed and occasionally toured since 1993.  Andrew studied music at the University of Louisville and Berklee College of Music.  He has scored or contributed music to many  film and TV projects including, Errol Morris' First Person and The  Fog of War, Laurel Chiten's Twisted, Secrecy and The International Spy Museum.

DJ Pace (aka Pacey Foster) – samples
A multi-instrumentalist with deep hip-hop roots, DJ Pace (aka Pacey Foster) was the turntablist in the Franc Graham Band and the experimental live electronic act Elk which included members of famed Boston keyboard rockers Count Zero/Think Tree. In addition to his work as a turntablist in live bands, DJ Pace has performed as a club and party DJ for over 10 years and brings an academic expertise to his party rocking blends and musical productions. When he is not working on his growing record archive at the Library of Vinyl Experience (http://libraryofvinyl.blogspot.com), Pace conducts more formal academic research on local cultural industries as an assistant professor of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His forthcoming article, "Hip-hop in the Hub: How Boston Rap Remained Underground" will be the first published history of Boston's early hip-hop scene.

Jane Gillooly - Guest Curator
Jane Gillooly is a dear friend and adoring fan of Ken Brown and vintage film. She is reviving her past interest as a events producer to present this astounding collection of film that has not been screened in Boston in 40 years. Gillooly is a non-fiction and narrative film/video maker. Today the Hawk Takes One Chick (2008) premiered at the ICA in February. Other projects include Rockefeller-nominated film script The Not Dead Yet Club (2006); Dragonflies, The Baby Cries (2000) which premiered at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, official selections San Francisco International Film Festival, and Contemporary Film Festival of Mexico City, PBS and SUNDANCE Channels. Co-producer of Theme: Murder (1998), Full Frame Documentary Festival, and INPUT. Leona's Sister Gerri (1995) Museum of Modern Art 'New Directors, New Films,' Sydney Film Festival, Robert Flaherty Seminar, the SUNDANCE Channel and PBS the Best of P.O.V. released 2007. She currently teaches film at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.