Oddball Films welcomes Author and Musicologist Richie Unterberger for our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly soiree featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights. To
mark the publication of the expanded ebook version of his book Urban
Spacemen & Wayfaring Strangers: Overlooked Innovators & Eccentric
Visionaries of '60s Rock, Unterberger will present clips of a dozen or so of the artists featured in the book.
Over
the course of several years in the mid-to-late 1960s, rock music changed more
quickly and unpredictably than it did in any other time in history. With so
many artists competing for attention, it was inevitable that many innovators
got lost in the shuffle or at least did not get the recognition they deserved,
especially those who were boldy and experimentally fusing rock, blues,
psychedelia, classical music, comedy, the theater, and more. Lost British Invaders, psychedelic pioneers,
rock funnymen, blue-eyed soulsters, overlooked folk-rockers, behind-the-scenes
producers -- all find a home as part of Urban Spacemen & Wayfaring
Strangers, for which Unterberger drew on first-hand interview material with
the artists and their associates. He'll talk about both the artists and the
footage he presents between the clips.
The
event will include footage of "the god of hell-fire," Arthur Brown; the Pretty Things, the best British Invasion band never to invade the United
States; UK comedy rockers the Bonzo Dog Band; psych-garage oddballs the
Electric Prunes; San Francisco's own Beau Brummels, the first American band to
successfully answer the British Invasion; Bobby Fuller, who successfully
channeled the best of Buddy Holly before meeting his own premature end; Thee
Midniters, the best Latino rock band of the '60s; and pioneering folk-rockers
Tim Buckley and Richard & Mimi Fariña. Signed copies of Unterberger's books
will be available for purchase at a discount.
Date: Thursday, October 23rd, 2014 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Admission: $10.00 Limited Seating RSVP to RSVP@oddballfilm.com or (415) 558-8117
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com
Highlights
include:
Arthur
Brown performing his hit "Fire" in a helmet of fire, in stage costume
that obviously influenced Alice Cooper;
The
Pretty Things playing R&B/rock even wilder than the Rolling Stones (where
Pretty Things lead guitarist Dick Taylor started before breaking off to found
his own group), with loonier-than-Keith Moon drummer Viv Prince;
The
Bonzo Dog Band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, the TV series in which
Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Terry Jones starred just before joining Monty
Python;
The
Electric Prunes jamming with Get Smart's Barbara Eden!;
Richard
& Mimi Fariña singing songs of anti-imperialism on Pete Seeger's public
television show;
Tim
Buckley doing an unplugged version of "Song of the Siren" on The
Monkees!;
Thee
Midniters performing "Love Special Delivery" in Angel Stadium, MC'd
by Casey Kasem;
Bobby
Fuller playing his sole big hit, "I Fought the Law";
Julie
Driscoll, Britain's best woman rock vocalist of the psychedelic era, singing
David Ackles's "Road to Cairo";
Rare
early clips of The Who and The Yardbirds, clients of two producers profiled in
the book, Shel Talmy and Giorgio Gomelsky;
And
more!
About Richie Unterberger:
San Francisco
resident Richie Unterberger is the author of numerous rock history books,
including Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll and a two-part
history of 1960s folk-rock,Turn! Turn! Turn! and Eight
Miles High. His book The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film won
a 2007 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award for Excellence in
Historical Recorded Sound Research. His latest books are White
Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day and Won't
Get Fooled Again: The Who from Lifehouse to Quadrophenia.
He gives
regular presentations on rock and soul history throughout the Bay Area
incorporating rare vintage film clips and audio recordings, at public libraries
and other venues. Since summer 2011, he has taught community education courses
on various aspects of rock history of rock from 1955 to 1980. He'll be teaching
a five-week course on 1960s San Francisco rock at the Fort Mason campus of City
College on Saturday afternoons from mid-October/mid-November. For more info, go
to his website, richieunterberger.com.
About
Oddball Films
Oddball
films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company
providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk,
documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters,
clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of
over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature
films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every
genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of
cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the
boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern
California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite
you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.