walterfive

Originally shot silent, Warhol overdubbed a soundtrack that includes The Velvet Underground & Nico from 1966-67. I gather that was believed a 'lost film' but I'm watching it right now, though it's shorter than the time listed. It appears to be a video recording off the screen of a closed-circuit TV broadcast. No plot to speak of. It reminds me of Kenneth Anger's ''Invocation of my Demon Brother'' in some ways. Inscrutable.

This film had a bit of everything, a classic Max Fleischer ''Superman'' cartoon, music videos of Pink Floyd's ''One Of These Days'' and Cat Stevens ''Moonshadow'' some examples of very psychedelic advertising from the early 70's, some *great* claymation, early Bill Plympton, it was a great collection that turned a lot of Heads on back in Midnight Movie days of the late 70's. Years before ''Heavy Metal'' or ''Spike & Mike's Animation Festival'', we had this to compare with Ralph Bakshi's ''Heavy Traffic'', or Picha's ''Tarzoon'', and not a lot else, really. Independent animation was in a terrible state in the 70's. This film shows some of its' highest points.

This documents Hawkwind's performance/tour of ''The Chronicle of the Black Sword.'' It was filmed, but the tape is plagued by the limitations of video of the day-- Rock show stages came across as very dark on video tape due to the contrast caused by all the spotlighting, this was the same trouble Pink Floyd faced when filming ''The Wall, Live'' a few years before. Furthermore, the audio comes straight from the video camera's feed, not from the stage audio mix or monitor mix (if there was one). I've got bootleg DVDs of other bands that look and sound better than this authorized release, but Hawkwind video of any kind is scarce.