Mods and Rockers Film Festival coverage
Rachel Murray/Getty Images
MODS AND ROCKERS FEST OPENS, EXPLAINS “WHAT’S HAPPENING!”
Martin Lewis, as producer of the Mods and Rockers Film Festival, is that perfect British admixture of well-spoken decorum and borderline lunacy. As he reopened the cranium of his brainchild at the Egyptian tonight, a full crowd of Beatlemaniacs of all ages were geared up to see What’s Happening!: The Beatles in the USA. Albert and David Maysles did not even know who in blazing Hell The Beatles were when they were invited to shoot a short promotional film of their Feb. 1964 arrival in New York, then on to DC and Miami.
The feature doc that ensued had never been shown on the West Coast until tonight and the infectiousness of the Fab Four’s wit delighted the crowd. Their down-to-earth Liverpudlian antics in NYC’s Plaza Hotel and their train ride to the nation’s capital ranged from George Harrison somehow lying atop a small luggage rack on the train to Paul McCartney holding forth on the absurdity of American TV.
A personal favorite: an aged man holding out a piece of paper to be autographed, saying, “George!”
“Ringo,” explained Ringo, who signed it anyway.
Not only was Beatlemania a phenomenon for the US and UK, in general, it also clearly amazed and delighted Beatles manager Brian Epstein, who in the back of a car is boyishly pleased to talk about calling in to radio stations on the spur of the moment to do interviews, something utterly out of the question in 1964 London. Lewis reminded the audience that McCartney told him, “If there was ever a fifth Beatle, it was Brian.” If one heard correctly, Lewis said there was a petition at www.brianepstein.com, with about 30,000 signatures, attempting to posthumously induct him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Get clicking!
Interestingly, John Lennon caroused less than the other boys in the band in the Maysles’s doc, but he got a roar out of the crowd when verbally sparring with NYC disc jockey Murray the K, who was goofily misidentifying a Beatles tune as “Love You Do.”
“It’s ‘Love Me Do,’ wanker,” he caustically shot back, but with a smile that warmed our hearts.
The Rolling Stones film Gimme Shelter was preceded by Lewis’s guest, producer Ron Schneider, who shared some tidbits. The gravel-voiced but genial Schneider admitted it took three months to convince Mick Jagger to leave in the infamous murder of an attendee by a Hells Angel at the Altamont Speedway concert. And Schneider admitted they had security beyond the Hells Angels at the concert: it turned out that the Mob-related henchmen were really members of the FBI. Sounds like they had everyone but the KGB doing security there. It’s enough to convince one that there is a great, behind-the-scenes book to be written about the Altamont concert. [Since this writing, Altamont has been written by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Joel Selvin.]
And you gotta’ love Schneider’s honesty. He demanded a gross deal for the rights to the movie from Warners. They finally agreed, after hemming and hawing, with the stipulation that prints and advertising were deductible, which was then quite a decent deal. Schneider refused and sold the movie to Cinema Five. But he had the last laugh. Most features then had a two-year life and he was offered a buy-out. He passed, without knowing that cable and satellite would eventually make it all worth while…and make Gimme Shelter worth a lot to him personally. The kick-off to Mods and Rockers 2007 has convinced this exhausted but happy blogger that there is no such thing as an unlucky Friday the 13th.
MODS AND ROCKERS FILM FESTIVAL:
SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF 60S LONDON
It was live rock by day, filmic rock by night yesterday at the Egyptian theatre, beginning with tribute bands and rocker returns, culminating with a program of films making me want to climb into a time machine, find a ruffled shirt and full-length, brocade coat and head for 1966 London.
The crowd for the Rock Like an Egyptian series of free music was doused in summer sun and it brought out some free-spirited sartorial splendor. There was a Jimi Hendrix lookalike who flashed an insistent peace sign for the tribute band Monterey ’67, while a Janis Joplin lookalike, complete with pink and black feathers in her hair, velvet bellbottoms and round, rose-colored shades, belted and growled out “Piece of My Heart.”
I only wish I had my camera for the thin, tough-looking, aging hippie woman with the tie-dyed shirt-skirt, one that sported a black line at crotch level and the words “You Must Be This High to Ride the Ride.” And when Monterey ’67 leaped into some numbers a la the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, an elderly black man in his Sunday finery began showing the crowd his smooth moves.
The Ravers covered the Beatles and Stones, with lead guitarist Howie Anderson getting a nice sitar sound out of his ax on “Paint It Black.” Martin Lewis’s special guests were Stephen Bishop, who did not only his hits but a very sweet version of the Liverpool lads’ “You Just Have to Call.” And Spencer Davis not only whipped and stirred the crowd with hits like “Gimme Some Lovin’,” he was joined by Van Morrison saxman John Altman and Phil Chen, whose bass work has supported the likes of Jeff Beck and Pete Townshend .
It was a celebration of 60s London on the Egyptian screen and producer-director Peter Whitehead, who did so many promotional films of musical greats, had his work amply on display. A wave of giddiness ran through the crowd as we saw the Stones all cross-dressed as uptight English matrons in the music vid “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadows.” And Whitehead’s ultra-rare Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London not only features a soundtrack from the early, Syd Barrett-led Pink Floyd but wonderfully surreal snippets of interviews with 60s icons: Mick Jagger on political violence. Julie Christie on the shifting reality of “hipness” and Michael Caine, uproariously, on English sexual repression.
But your intrepid blogger was most impressed by Whitehead’s Pink Floyd in London 1966/1967. To be treated to the Floyd’s late, great, demented mate Barrett, in studio, creating a controlled freakout of guitar sounds was ecstatic, cathartic and yes, melancholic. Intercut were the band’s performances at the UFO nightclub, clips from Tonight Let’s All Make Love in London and a happening known as the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream at the cavernous Alexandra Palace with Pink Floyd playing "Interstellar Overdrive."
Listening to the two extended pieces Pink Floyd played in Sound Techniques Studio, both of which brought applause inside the Egyptian upon their conclusion, I thought about how remarkable their own brand of psychedelia was: not noodling but synchronized explorations of peaks and valleys, propulsive, then delicately weird. It is the music of the spheres, with showers of sonic comets to boot. When it ended, I did not walk down Hollywood Boulevard to my car. I levitated.
MODS AND ROCKERS FILM FESTIVAL:
MONTEREY POP PARTY GOES POW!
Meeting the challenge of the highly-publicized 40th anniversary of the Monterey International Pop Festival, Mods and Rockers Film Fest grand poobah Martin Lewis must have some serious rock music mojo in his kit bag. For he brought in not only Monterey Pop film director D.A. Pennebaker but a cavalcade of rock glitterati and cognoscenti for a celebration that shall be long remembered.
Prior to the screening, there was an art exhibit of the work of the Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick in the courtyard of the Egyptian Theatre. And the expectant, packed crowd inside roared its approval at, of all things, a promotional tape of Festival sponsor Virgin America, which named its first airliner “Jefferson Airplane.” On tape, there was Ms. Slick, expressing admiration for the plane being named after her band and relief that it was not called “Grateful Dead.”
The Animals’ Eric Burdon had been lured from England under the pretense of attending the 40th anni screening. But Lewis presented him with a lifetime achievement award and showed on film, when they were young, Burdon with his Animals in the ’65 film Go-Go Mania, singing “House of the Rising Sun.”
“That was nine o’clock in the morning in Soho with a hell of a hangover,” Burdon explained, proving those who did experience the 60s really can remember it.
Martin acknowledged many Monterey Pop participants in the crowd, including The Association’s guitarist and vocalist Russ Giguere, Buffalo Springfield drummer Dewey Martin, Canned Heat bassist Larry Taylor and lead guitarist of the Moby Grape Jerry Miller. They would all later appear on a seven-minute outtake reel Pennabaker brought, honoring those bands whose terrific performances, among 30 hours of footage, could not fit into the 78-minute film.
Lewis then brought up, for a pre-screening chat, Burdon, Slick, Monterey Pop co-organizer Lou Adler and Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and Papas. Commenting on the remarkable diversity of music in the film, from Jimi Hendrix to Ravi Shankar, Otis Redding to The Who, Adler summed it up: “We set out to represent every genre that was playing on the radio at that time.”
Lewis read messages from those who could not be present, including The Who’s Pete Townshend, who touchingly recalled departed rock heroes: “Mama Cass, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Derek Taylor, John Phillips - all gone now. All such lovely people. We were all shiny, happy, easy people.”
Rolling Stones manager-producer Andrew Loog Oldham sent a missive from Bogota, Columbia, where one wonders if he is producing a benefit concert for the Medellin cartel or what. He wrote, encouragingly, “You were part of the original motor, the dream machine that keeps running.”
And the third message came from Beatle Paul McCartney, who fondly recalled being asked for advice for acts at Monterey and mentioning a lad who had wowed him in London…by the name of Jimi Hendrix.
The anticipation of seeing the film veritably seethed inside the Egyptian, but Lewis had one more act of rocker prestidigitation to perform. One act who could not perform at Monterey, due to a hassle with the police, would finally have his moment. Donovan walked out from the shadows of the stage right exit door, green acoustic guitar at the ready and performed “Sunshine Superman” to a standing O.
The digitally restored film unspooled and the crowd broke into cheers numerous times. The man sitting directly to my right sounding like a whooping crane on serious psychedelics, particularly during the performances of Redding—to be featured Saturday at Mods and Rockers--and gutsy, soulful, lovely Janis Joplin
The giddy crowd was treated to in-house introductions to Owen Elliott-Kugel, daughter of Cass Elliott, and Janie Hendrix, half-sister of Jimi.
And then, finally, D.A. Pennebaker, looking spry for his 82 years, concluded the night, telling Lewis and the crowd how the first theatrical presentation of Monterey Pop was at a porno theatre in San Francisco. The owner had seen Pennebaker’s film and with penetrating insight worthy of Cahiers du Cinema, announced, “It looks like a porno film…but it’s not.”
No, what it is is musical lightning captured in a bottle with five handmade cameras and a director who knew how to let his crew do their thing, and had the impeccable taste to create a bold doc that cures the psychic ills of our time. There can be no better diagnosis of the music captured on celluloid at Monterey, forty years ago, then Pennebaker’s own reaction when he saw those groups-- many of whom he did not know--perform. “This isn’t entertainment,” he said. “This can save your life.”
MODS AND ROCKERS FILM FESTIVAL:
OTIS, STAXX ARTISTS STIR THE SOUL
“This is the love crowd, right?” demanded Otis Redding, smiling, challenging the audience at the Monterey International Pop Festival. They shouted their accord—and how could they not--for one of the most powerful singing performances ever captured on film was D.A. Pennebaker’s Shake: Otis in Monterey. The monumental celebration of the 40th anniversary of Monterey Pop, festival and concomitant feature documentary, on July 19 at the Egyptian Theatre, exhibited Redding dominating the crowd with his growling, howling, begging, pleading emotional intensity, as he performed the beautiful “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now).”
And for 19 astounding minutes, Pennebaker and his crew capture Redding letting it all go, onstage, opening with the eponymous “Shake,” then amusingly introducing “Respect” with a veiled but good-natured nod to Aretha Franklin: “This girl took this song from me.” He made it his own, however, during the nighttime show, with his name and psychedelic lights emblazoned upon a back wall upstage. After again seeing the awe-inspiring rendition of “I’ve Been Loving You…” we are treated to his cover of “Satisfaction” and his classic, “Try a Little Tenderness,” which begins so gently and inevitably turns into a whirlwind of frenzied feeling, juicing up the Monterey minions and prompting the soulful scion to call out over the din, “I got to go. I don’t want to go.” Considering his cruel date with destiny, in a small plane, about six months later, this filmic document takes on an even greater significance.
Otis Redding’s name comes up a few times in Pennebaker’s and wife Chris Hegedus’s Only the Strong Survive. The soul artists from Memphis label Staxx Records who speak of him unmistakably get a momentary glint of sadness in their eyes when invoking Redding’s name. The filmmakers, with producer and narrator Roger Friedman, captured slices of the lives and performances of artists who came through that adapted movie theatre-cum studio-label that disappeared, alas, in 1975. Dating back to 1999 and 2000, you’ve got Rufus Thomas and KDIA DJ Jaye Michael cutting up on the air:
Rufus: “I’m a self-made man.”
Jaye: “I just want to know, who interrupted you?”
There’s Thomas singing his hit “Walkin’ the Dog,” and joined with his daughter, powerhouse singer Carla, during a tribute performance. How about irrepressible Wilson Pickett, doing “Land of 1000 Dances” or crowing he is the best-dressed performer ever, holding up a $6000 canary yellow Versace suit? It is an embarrassment of riches, with songs and interviews including Mary Wilson of the Supremes, Jerry “Ice Man” Butler, the Chi-Lites, Ann Peebles, Isaac Hayes and Sam Moore, of Sam and Dave fame, who not only struts his stuff on “Soul Man” but rivets the audience, driving through New York City and citing where he dealt heroin and cocaine to survive during the fallow period of his career.
And Mods and Rockers Chief Constable Martin Lewis brought Moore, along with Pennebaker, Hegedus and Friedman, up for a Q&A. Hegedus explained the greatest challenge of Only the Strong Survive was a comical nightmare, shooting Mary Wilson and the Chi-Lites in one take, on a revolving stage. Moore spoke of the exhaustion he experienced shooting the film Tapeheads and how he agreed to be in Only, “as long as they stayed out of my way.”
The three-day tribute to Pennebaker et. al. is a grand testament to so many kinds of music, especially soul and R&B. It may be a hiphop nation that drives record sales today, but they were built on a bill of rights writ by Otis and Staxx.
(Originally published in Huffington Post)
