“Reel Rock ‘n’ Roll" at Oddball Films March 4, 2011

Event: “Reel Rock ‘n’ Roll: Rockin’ Rarities on Film” Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rare 1960s and 1970s rock, British Invasion, psych and a prog performance on film. Anchored by two episodes of John Byner’s wild, anarchic, 1970 “Something Else” TV program (featuring full performances by CCR, 3 Dog Night, Mephistopheles, Frijid Pink, Roberta Flack and more), clips and promos will include: “The Beatl*s Come To Town”, a stunning wide-screen rarity from 1963; ”New York City", a campy travel promo film featuring garage rockers The Churls; “Black Sabbath Parade”, SF throws a tranny parade for Ozzy and the boys; “The Monkees”, out-takes from the TV show; “The Dave Clark 5”, another great promo from Britain; “Condensed Cream of Beatl*s”, a wild, high speed montage of the Fab’s career; plus Elvin Jones and The James Gang from the 1971 psychedelic western “Zachariah” and amateur footage of The Jefferson Airplane!
Date: Friday, March 4, 2011 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or [email protected]
Web: http://www.oddballfilm.com/oddballftp/Reel_Rock_PR.pdf

"Reel Rock ‘n’ Roll”
Rockin’ Rarities on Film
Screens at Oddball Films

On Friday, March 4, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rare rock ‘n’ roll performance film, clips, promos and shorts from the 1960s and 1970s, all on 16mm film from the Oddball Films Archive. Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: [email protected] or 415-558-8117.

Highlights Include:

Something Else (Color, 1970)
Actor/comedian John Byner hosted 25 episodes of this television music program in1970, capturing some incredibly rare and unique performances by the known and obscure. It’s astonishing to think that you could turn on the telly and catch total freakouts by Frijid Pink and the amazing prog-psych “Cricket Song” by Mephistopheles (featuring some wild optical printing film effects), as well as Creedence and Roberta Flack- amidst an anarchic comedy and wild hippy dance numbers. With The Action Faction Dancers and featuring: Creedence Clearwater Revival, Three Dog Night, Mephistopheles, Frijid Pink, Phil Ochs, Norman Greenbaum, Roberta Flack and more.

The Beatl*s Come To Town (Color, 1963, Techniscope)
Warner- Pathé produced newsreel short of the Beatl*s with fans, hamming it up and performing “She Loves You” and “Twist and Shout” on stage. Beautiful Technicolor and shot in widescreen Techniscope- will be shown utilizing our new Cinemascope lens.

Monkees Out-takes (Color, 1967)
Silent out-takes from the Monkees TV show- backstage shenanigans and flubbed takes.

The Dave Clark 5 (Color, 1964)
Following the success of their special Beatles short, Warner- Pathé jumped on the Tottenham-based Dave Clark 5 as their main rival (hard to believe today). More sumptuous color and fan pandemonium as the 5 perform “Bits and Pieces” and “Glad All Over”. Great stuff, but Tottenham and the DC5 didn’t stand a chance against Liverpool and the Fab Four.

New York City! (Color, 1968)
Straight boy meets straight girl in this “Fly the Friendly Skies of United” promo. Our “swingin’ squares” discover the sights and sounds of the Big Apple as they tour the touristy Times Square hot spots. Later they hit a belly dance lounge and end up at the famed club Salvation featuring the 60s garage rock band “The Churls” (with psychedelic backdrops). The evening ends with our two lovebirds heading home on motorbike-to mom!

Jefferson Airplane/Golden Gate Park (B+W, 1967)
Unique, unknown silent amateur footage of the Jefferson Airplane performing and some appropriately trippy Golden Gate Park experimentation!

Zachariah (Color, 1971, excerpt)
The legendary jazz drummer Elvin Jones steals the show in this crazy psychedelic western (starring Don “Miami Vice” Johnson and Dick Van “8 is Enough” Patten!). In the role of outlaw Job Cain, in this clip he plays with The James Gang (featuring future Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh) on a song called “Laguna Salada”, then destroys the place with a wild drum solo.

Braverman’s Condensed Cream of Beatl*s (color, 1973)
Oscar-winning short traces the history of the Beatl*s utilizing a fast moving collage of stills, clips, art and album covers edited to the beat of their brilliant music. This non-narrative film showcases the flip, exuberant 60s to the end of the sober, socially conscious decade as we watch airport mob scenes, madcap press conferences, records, concerts, books, posters and movies, all tumble past in a dizzy spasm of bliss.

Black Sabbath Parade (Color, 1970)
One-of-a-kind footage of a pre-gay pride parade welcoming Black Sabbath to San Francisco. Full freak flags were flying for this Embarcadero parade- trannies, hippy busses, weird floats- all in honor of future reality TV show star Ozzy Osborne and the Sabbath.

It's every British band's dream to play the States. When we got there finally, we f***ed as many groupies as we could. In San Francisco, they even had a Black Sabbath parade! Coming from Birmingham, England, where the f***in' sun never shines, it was magic to us. – Ozzy Osbourne
Curator Biography:
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave. A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

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, educationals, 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.

Official Website: http://mim.io/90d6e